Vocabulary instruction tied to The Call of the Wild is often treated as a separate, disconnected activity from the essay writing students eventually produce, a weekly word list quizzed and forgotten. Connecting vocabulary work directly to the figurative language students will need to analyze in their essays makes the instruction pay off twice.

The novel's period-specific vocabulary, terms related to sled dog work, the harsh Klondike environment, and London's somewhat formal early twentieth century prose style, can genuinely slow down comprehension if left unaddressed, particularly for younger or striving readers.

Rather than treating vocabulary purely as comprehension support, selecting words that also appear in figuratively rich passages lets the same vocabulary work double as preparation for later close reading and essay assignments.

Selecting vocabulary strategically

Choosing vocabulary words directly from passages that will later be used for close reading or essay evidence creates useful redundancy, students encounter the word first in a comprehension context, then again in an analytical context, reinforcing both meaning and usage.

• Select vocabulary from passages that also serve as strong close reading or essay evidence
• Pair each vocabulary word with the specific sentence from the novel where it appears
• Include at least one figurative language example alongside literal vocabulary definitions each week
• Require students to use new vocabulary correctly in an original sentence, not just define it
• Connect vocabulary quizzes to upcoming essay prompts so students see the practical application

Teaching figurative language in context

Rather than teaching figurative language as an abstract category, personification, metaphor, imagery, defined in isolation, pulling live examples directly from the current chapter keeps the instruction concrete and immediately applicable to the reading students are doing.

A short weekly routine, identify one example of figurative language from the assigned reading and explain its effect in two sentences, builds the analytical habit gradually over the course of the unit rather than expecting students to develop it all at once for a single essay.

Connecting vocabulary quizzes to essay performance

Teachers who track vocabulary quiz performance alongside essay scores sometimes find a clear correlation, students who struggle with basic vocabulary comprehension often produce essays that are heavier on plot summary, since they are working harder just to track what is happening in a given passage.

Identifying this pattern early in a unit allows for targeted vocabulary support for specific students, which can meaningfully improve their later essay performance without requiring separate, disconnected intervention.

Assessment options beyond the standard quiz

Beyond a standard definition-matching quiz, short application tasks, using three vocabulary words correctly in a brief paragraph describing a scene from the novel, give a more accurate picture of whether students genuinely understand the words rather than having memorized definitions temporarily.

These application-based assessments also do double duty as informal writing practice, giving students low-stakes repetition with sentence construction before the higher-stakes essay assignment arrives later in the unit.