In my previous article, I wrote about the value of Wordsmith.org, a website that offers 22 years (and counting) worth of linguistic goodies in one simple package.

Wordsmith.org offers "A Word a Day," a daily email of theme-based words, their definition(s), pronunciation, usage and etymology. A recent theme — "Playing with Words" — inspired me to develop activities based on the words.

This month, I've developed a pangram activity.

You're likely aware of this sentence: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." It is a pangram, "a sentence that makes use of all the letters of the alphabet." A perfect pangram uses all the alphabet's letters only once.

This lesson is adaptable to various levels, can be done in one or over a couple class sessions, and taps linguistic, logical, inter- and intrapersonal, and visual-spatial intelligences while nurturing vocabulary expansion and student and teacher self-reflection.

Writing pangrams is challenging; writing pangrams that make sense can be maddening. But if you and your students are up for a brain-teasing, linguistically pleasing, clever endeavor, give it a try.

Instructions

1. Begin with the knowledge in the room: Ask students if they know what a pangram is or what they think it is. Put their answers on the board, ideally inside a brainstorm bubble with their answers stemming from it.
2. Ask if they know what part of speech it is and why they think that.
3. Show them a pangram example and ask them — either in pairs, small groups or as individuals — to see if they can discover what a pangram is. A good source of pangrams can be found on this blog.
4. Put their answers on the board; work on a common definition.
5. Provide the dictionary definition of the term and compare how it matches their definition.
6. Have students write their own pangram. To help them focus, you may want to brainstorm a list of words with uncommonly used letters and suggest they use a topic. Cornell University's math department offers a table that shows the frequency with which letters are used in the English language. According to the table, based on analysis of 40,000 words, the eight least used letters are, in order, p, b, v, k, x, q, j and z.
7. Once students have finished their pangram, have them illustrate their work.
8. Ask students to make a short presentation about their pangram. They should explain both their process for creating the pangram and their illustrations.
9. To increase the challenge, see if students can create a perfect pangram.
10. Compile the pangrams in a publication that students can take with them at the conclusion of the course. You can have students choose publication cover art from clip art or have students contribute to an illustration; perhaps one of your students is an artist and would enjoy creating the illustration.

Ideally, instructors will write, illustrate and share their pangram with the class. Here's a pangram I created: Gregarious James, a tall, hefty and quirky zealot, boldly announces he won't pay his various taxes.