Invent funny or clever ‘captions’ to share with some friends online. You will create humorous captions for images of terms or technical words from a learning topic in class.

For example:  From my novel study word list: rebellion, mutiny, uprising, coup, and massacre. Here is an example of a funny caption for the word ‘rebellion’:

 ‘The latest squirrel rebellion is putting the Tree Fellas out of business’

To start, make a list of words or terms from the text you have recently read in class (or have found about the topic you are learning). The words or terms should be ones:

you are not very familiar with OR

you did not understand well enough OR

you want to use to build your understanding of the meaning.

Note: Choose words that are a challenge to remember or understand rather than ones you are already good with. The text you get the words from could be from your class reader/novel, teacher photocopied notes, page/section in a textbook, or an interesting online article about a topic you have been researching or referring to.

Use the http://www.learnersdictionary.com/ or another word site to check the meaning of the word and an example of how it is used correctly in a sentence.

Do a search for funny pictures (cartoon characters, funniest home video shots, extreme moves, animation) that you can write a caption underneath – the trick is each caption for your chosen graphic/video/animation must communicate the meaning of one of your words. Reminder: make sure you search for licensed images (free for reuse/non-commercial use) and make include a reference to acknowledge the author).

Email or share your funny captions with a couple of friends online and ask them to try and better the humour by writing their own caption underneath yours. Remember to ask them to send the captions back to you when they have made their contribution.

Show a parent or older sibling and ask them to be a judge of the most clever or funny caption. Talk about how the captions help to make the meaning clearer or more memorable.