Merriam-Webster’s website has a neat feature called Trend Watch that highlights words that are trending in news and popular culture. Trend Watch includes an explanation of why each word is trending, a definition for the word, and a picture that is representative of either the word or the cause of the trend.

Applications for Education
Trend Watch could be a good source of words to include in the vocabulary lists students are studying in a language arts course. Trend Watch words could provide a good tie-in with a current events lesson.

Because of the wide variety of words that pop-up in Trend Watch I probably wouldn’t send younger students to the site on their own. Instead I would bookmark the list and select appropriate words for my students.

H/T to Larry Ferlazzo.