Naturalists often record their discoveries about nature in field notes. A field note about fire ants might catalog where they are found, what they look like, how common they are and how they interact with other animals.

What if we did the same for words? In the image at the top of this article, you can see a field note created by a student for the word “mandate.” Like a naturalist taking notes on fire ants, the student includes a visualization of the word, its key characteristics and examples of how it appears “in the wild.” (In this case, “the wild” is The New York Times.)

For our April Vocabulary Challenge, we invite middle and high school students to do the same: Create a one-page field note that illustrates and deeply explores the meaning of one of our Words of the Day from the 2021-22 school year. Some outstanding examples will be published in a separate article.

This activity was created by the writer and teacher Rebekah O’Dell, who explains how she applies it in her classroom at St. Michael’s Episcopal School in Richmond, Va., in this Reader Idea. You’ll find examples of field notes by her students throughout this article.

The Challenge

Create a one-page field note for one word from our Words of the Day from the 2021-22 school year so far. Your field note should explore a word from a variety of angles and should clearly convey the basic information about your word and what it means, as well as any new or fascinating discoveries you make. See the bottom of this article for examples of what these discoveries might be, via mentor examples from Ms. O’Dell’s students.

Submit your field note through the form in this article by 11:59 p.m. Pacific time on April 29, 2022.

The Rules

Your field note must contain the following:

• Your chosen word

• Its definition, in your own words

• Its part of speech

• An image that reveals or explains the meaning of the word. You may draw this by hand or find one online, as long as it does not contain any copyrighted material.

• A sentence from The Times that includes this word

Fill in any remaining space on your page with any of these add-ons:

• How many times the word has been used in The Times

• How its usage has changed over time

• Words that frequently appear near your word

• Your personal connection to the word

• Ideas for how you might use the word in your own writing

• Anything else that is relevant, interesting and helps readers understand your word more fully. Be creative!

A few more rules:

• You may create your field note by hand or on the computer. If you create it online, be sure not to use any copyrighted material.

• If you create it by hand, it must be legible. We are only able to feature field notes that are clear enough to read. Take a picture of your field note from above and export it in the highest resolution your phone allows, and then submit it as a digital image file through the form below.

• The best field notes will be detailed, clear, creative and illuminating. See the examples below.

The Vocabulary Words

You may choose to illustrate any Word of the Day from the 2021-22 school year so far. You can find them all in our Vocabulary column or in this PDF.

Eligibility

• Students can work alone, in pairs or in small groups. However, we allow only one submission per student.

• Minimum age requirements: Students ages 11 to 19 anywhere in the world attending middle or high school can participate.

• Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to use the form below. Teachers and parents can submit entries on behalf of younger students.

• You cannot edit your entry once it has been submitted.

Submit Your Field Note

Examples

Here are some examples of outstanding field notes from Ms. O’Dell’s students at St. Michael’s Episcopal School.

Mary Allison, a middle school student, created a field note for the word vivacious. In addition to including several of the word’s synonyms and antonyms, she translated her word into 10 languages.

Sadie created a field note by hand for the word loquacious. She used an image of a mouth to represent her word’s definition, and then, to further illustrate the meaning of the word, she put all her observations inside a large speech bubble.

Samuel made a field note on the word quandary that included an analysis of how the word was used in The Times during the week he was working. Samuel also noticed that there was a spike in the word’s use as the coronavirus pandemic began, and he found examples of the word in both politics and sports contexts.