The eighth-grade class at Addelita Cancryn Junior High School expanded and explored its mutual vocabulary Wednesday morning when each student was presented with a spanking new copy of Webster’s Thesaurus for Students by Rotary II of St. Thomas, as part of the club’s "Gift of Words" project.
Addressing one team of eighth-graders in the library, Rotary President Simon Caines—along with Edwin Schouchana, past president Michael Toussaint, incoming president Eric Baines, Sinclaire Wilkinson and longtime teacher Ida White—handed out the blue soft-cover books to each student.
The youngsters looked delighted with their new acquisitions. "Do you know what a thesaurus is?" asked Caines. About 15 hands went up. "It’s to find synonyms," offered one student. "And to find words to use instead of the regular ones," said another. "Excellent," said Caines. "You know what you’ve got in front of you."
He instructed each student to write his or her name across the front page. "It’s your book to own and use now," he said.
White then took the reins, instructing the students in the use of their new word tool. "Let’s use some common words," she said. "I’ll bet you all get irritated with your parents sometimes. What’s another word for ‘irritated’? Look it up. Use it in a sentence."
Deja Thompson raised her hand. "I sometimes get provoked with my parents," she said. "That’s good," said White. "Now that sounds more specific than irritated."
Having captured the students’ attention, White addressed a common, what she called overused word. "Now, how about boring?" "Monotonous," "Irksome," and, the winner "humdrum," came back from the students.
The Rotarians gave the students a round of applause. "How about if you have more than one thesaurus?" asked Caines. "What would that be?"
Silence for a second and then, "thesauri," from several students. Another round of applause.
It turned out there were more than word connections flying around the library. Looking at her audience, White smiled. "See your teacher, Mr. Potter," she said. "I taught him at CAHS in 1972."
The students gasped at the thought of their teacher actually being a student. (You could even say they were "incredulous.")
Assistant principal Thelca Bedminster was delighted with the gifts. "This ties in with what we’ve been working on this year," she said. "We’ve been trying not to use ‘illegal’ words," she said. "These are small words when a larger, more descriptive word would be better," she said. "Why use happy, when you can say ‘elated’?"
Speaking after the presentation, Bedminster said that Cancryn Principal Yvonne Pilgrim had brought Eric Cork to the school early in the year. "He did workshops with all the students and the teachers."
Cork holds "Rap, Rhythm and Rhyme" workshops, engaging the students in innovative ways to learn the language, incorporating poetry and dance. "The students really got engaged, and so did the teachers," Pilgrim said. "I think because of this the students really appreciate the thesaurus they got today more than they might have."
Erva Denham, Rotary II’s literacy chair, who was not able to get to the book presentation, spoke later about the program, which she initiated. Also a longtime teacher, Denham said the "Gift of Words" project began three years ago at Lockhart Elementary School, where, along with the Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands, they distributed dictionaries.
"This is wonderful," she’d said to fellow Rotarians, "but can’t we add to this?" There are a lot of educators in Rotary II, Denham said, and the idea was warmly accepted.
This year’s thesaurus distribution is a first. "In the future, I’d like to be able to give perhaps Bartlett’s Quotations to the 10th-graders at a high school. We just need to keep the idea of the importance of words."
The club brought 288 books to Cancryn, Rotary II’s adopted school. "There should be some left over," Denham said. "That means they can stock some in the library," she said, "and hope they use them!"
