Create a Slang Dictionary! {Middle School ELA Activity}

If you are a parent or teacher of middle school students, you know that they have a vocabulary all their own. Sometimes it’s hard to know what teens and pre-teens are saying! We definitely had our own lingo when I was a teen, but there seems to be so much more of it now since it all spreads so quickly through TikTok, YouTube, gaming, etc.

Here’s a fun middle school ELA activity that meets kids where they’re at haha. Challenge them to write their own dictionary of middle school terms, complete with definitions and even the parts of speech. There is a printable assignment sheet at the bottom of this post!

I’d recommend this language activity for ages 10 (5th grade) through 12 or 13.

Now, my 14 year old son said that this isn’t fun because it just ruins all the things they say. Like when parents started saying “6-7” and then kids didn’t want to say it anymore. And I thought, “WIN-WIN!” 😂

I’ll let it be up to you if you want to drive your students crazy by making them analyze their own vocabulary or not, but personally I think this activity has a lot of value to it. This activity will lead to a good group discussion! It would be interesting to see if students agree on the definitions or not.

It’s also a great opportunity to discuss the fact that the meanings of words change over time depending on how people actually use the words. For example, the word “cool” used to refer to temperature only, but when I was a teen, it had recently changed to describe things that were good or even amazing.

Another example is the word “disappointing.” It used to mean “to remove someone from office.” So someone could be appointed to an office, and then disappointed (removed from their position). That’s not at all how we use that word today!

So here’s the assignment. Challenge your students to write a dictionary with definitions and parts of speech for common teen words and phrases. It’s great to include phrases!

Step 1: Make a list of words.

Here are some we thought of, although this list will be out of date in maybe 2 weeks haha.

• bet
• bruh
• finna
• cooked
• aura
• chopped
• rizz
• lowkey
• cap
• mog
• ate
• locked in
• flow state
• brain rot
• crash out
• fire
• gas
• ghosted
• mid
• slaps
• banger
• bussin
• and I’m sure there are 100 more!!!

Step 2: Decide what part of speech your word or phrase is. For example, “lock in” has two possibilities. “You really need to lock in on this assignment” is a verb, while saying, “He was really locked in at work today,” uses the phrase as an adjective.

Step 3: Write a definition. If your word can be used as more than one part of speech, you’ll need a definition for each one.

Step 4: Use your word or phrase in a sentence that matches the definition and part of speech.

Here’s an example of a complete dictionary entry:

Lock in – verb. To become focused without distractions.

Owen really needs to lock in on his algebra homework this semester!

Locked in – adj. The state of being focused without distractions.

Owen was so locked in last night and got all his work done.

Ready to print your assignment page?

Click the link below. The file will open and you can download or print from there!

CLICK HERE: Middle School Slang Dictionary Assignment Page