The advent of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series has resulted in a borderline cult-like following. Kudos to Ms. Meyers, truly.
Funnily, in the midst of the Twilight hysteria that began what now seems like eons ago, I started hearing about a specific aspect of it from all my students. Incredibly, while all my adult girlfriends were thoroughly engrossed in the pure drama of the saga (full disclosure: the Twilight series is not a guilty pleasure in which I have yet indulged), my teen students were assaulting me with “Elizabeth! These books are serious and have so much vocabulary in them!”
Well, more kudos belong to Brian Leaf, a Massachusetts-based prep tutor who has taken on Twilight with an excellent challenge for its disciples: since the book is full of great vocabulary, let’s learn it. “Defining Twilight” is a great way to not only learn the vocab in Twilight (rather than just notice that it’s there and forget it), but also to spark a pattern of learning the vocabulary in other challenging texts as students move through high school. As an SAT, SSAT, and ISEE tutor who works with students with limited vocabularies on a daily basis, I’m so pleased that another useful product is available to help students get started early on–in a way that’s applicable and even possibly exciting.
While “Defining Twilight” (and the ensuing follow-up titles) shouldn’t be a student’s only path to increasing her vocabulary, this book is a great start and I hope a product that will encourage students to begin developing vocabulary for the SAT and PSAT long before their junior years.
Check out Brian’s book here:
