This essay illuminates adaptable and multimodal ways of teaching with etymology and idiomatic origin stories in the composition classroom. I model my pedagogical approach with a topic central to my rhetorical research--pigeons in histories of human communication--and the rich etymologically-linked concepts of homing in, pigeonholing, and…

It is proposed that etymological information, usually provided in native speaker's dictionaries but eliminated from learners' references, can serve several important functions such as disambiguate, relate words that are alphabetically far apart, illuminate by providing an image or reference, and motivate with interesting information. (Author/MSE)

Acknowledging that to study the development of a language is to study the history and culture of people and that English has been influenced by many geographic, political, economic, social, and linguistic forces, this booklet provides a ready reference for elementary and middle school/junior high school teachers confronted with students' questions…