MINDFULNESS is a noun composed of three morphemes, mind + ful + ness. It is an abstract noun, a nebulous quality, a characteristic, a psychological state, and in some sense, an entity. Abstract, invisible, untouchable. But its presence within a group or an individual, and its lack, can feel quite concrete.
According to Online Etymological Dictionary these concepts are not new. The word mindfulness has been in use for about five centuries and in the Buddhist sense for over a century. Mindless has been around six centuries or more. Note the Old English meaning ‘senseless, beside oneself, irrational, wanting power of thought.’ In terms of the plague, Europe would have known this state of mind.
The spread of covid 19 -- and the widely variable, rapidly changing information that surrounds it -- has spurred us to become more...or less...something. More vigilant. More reactive. More confused. Also more compassionate, more courageous, more mindful.Literacy Activities at Home or at School
1. Students -- or entire families -- could discuss the meaning of mindfulness and its counterpart, mindlessness. Evaluate current affairs and news reports as exemplifying mindfulness or mindlessness, somewhere between the two, or something else entirely. Discuss your reasons.
2. Draw up a list of synonyms and near-synonyms for each word. Try out the Visual Thesaurus website. To learn how, check out the post Beware the Obscure Adjective at Wordshop.
3. Become artful. Play with color, font size, and positioning. Create a word cloud from news articles on coronavirus, using text copied and pasted into Wordle or any cloud-maker. For more ideas on how to use word clouds, refer to a previous post on Word Clouds, Key Concepts and History. Some word cloud programs allow the words to fit into shapes.
Explore the morphology and etymology of mindfulness:
Explore the base mind and the suffixes -ful and -ness. Follow the links embedded in the text below and discuss the content and implications.
According to Online Etymology Dictionary, the word mind is a noun with its roots in Old English, Proto Germanic, and theoretically, it hails all the way back to one of the great ancestral mother tongue, ProtoIndoEuropean (PIE). The original meaning of of the concept was strongly associated with memory, remembering. Survival itself required a good memory.
mind: "that which feels, wills, and thinks; the intellect," late 12c., mynd, from Old English gemynd" memory, remembrance; state of being remembered; thought, purpose; conscious mind, intellect, intention"
Discuss morphologically related words like mindset, minding, unmindful, mastermind, etc.
Utilize the Word Searcher website, created by Neil Ramsden. Notice the spelling sometimes differs from American English, as the author is based in Europe. Type mind into the Word Searcher field. Find 27 words that include that base. Discuss the meanings of these words.
Explore words ending with the suffix -ful
Type ful$ into the Word Searcher bar -- the suffix (ful) followed by the dollar sign $ to indicate placement at the end of the word. I found 150 matches, including lawful, bagful, cupful, eyeful, baleful, needful, painful, gleeful, neglectful, disdainful, purposeful, teaspoonful. How are they alike and different? How could they be sorted into different groups?
Explore words ending with the suffix -ness
Utilize the Word Searcher website agin. Type ness$ into the search bar -- the suffix (ness) followed by the dollar sign $ to indicate placement at the end of the word. Notice again that the spelling sometimes differs from American English, as the author is based in Europe.
Try to decipher the meaning of previously unknown words by examining the morphological construction. For example, younger students might analyze and discuss shyness, goodness, grayness, wetness, silliness, swiftness, heaviness, etc. Note that most of the words generated through this search incorporate the suffix –ness, but a handful do not, as in lioness and patroness (lion + ess and patron + ness). So, to deal with that, play Will the Real Suffix Please Stand Up, as described in The Descriptive Suffix -ish.
Older students might discuss the meaning and usage of academic words found by Word Searcher, including conspicuousness, coyness, aptness, flirtatiousness, inquisitiveness, meaninglessness, neighborliness.
Explore words ending with both suffixes -ful and -ness:
Type fulness$ into the search bar. Notice that the search engine only found 45 matches. Of those, some words are rarely used and may be unknown to the student but could be deciphered via morphological analysis and verified via the dictionary.
For example, consider three results: gratefulness, mournfulness, peacefulness. Of those three words, which one is easiest to decipher because the base is known and transparent? How does grate relate to the concept of appreciation, anyway? Is this a grate over a duct or what? Discuss gratitude. And grace. Key ingredients to achieving mindfulness. And to living in the present.
Peace,
Susan
2. Draw up a list of synonyms and near-synonyms for each word. Try out the Visual Thesaurus website. To learn how, check out the post Beware the Obscure Adjective at Wordshop.
3. Become artful. Play with color, font size, and positioning. Create a word cloud from news articles on coronavirus, using text copied and pasted into Wordle or any cloud-maker. For more ideas on how to use word clouds, refer to a previous post on Word Clouds, Key Concepts and History. Some word cloud programs allow the words to fit into shapes.
MORPHOLOGY ACTIVITIES
Discuss the image Mind Full, or Mindful?
What's the message? How does the morphological construction differ? How does the meaning differ?
What's the message? How does the morphological construction differ? How does the meaning differ?
Explore the morphology and etymology of mindfulness:
Explore the base mind and the suffixes -ful and -ness. Follow the links embedded in the text below and discuss the content and implications.
According to Online Etymology Dictionary, the word mind is a noun with its roots in Old English, Proto Germanic, and theoretically, it hails all the way back to one of the great ancestral mother tongue, ProtoIndoEuropean (PIE). The original meaning of of the concept was strongly associated with memory, remembering. Survival itself required a good memory.
mind: "that which feels, wills, and thinks; the intellect," late 12c., mynd, from Old English gemynd" memory, remembrance; state of being remembered; thought, purpose; conscious mind, intellect, intention"
Discuss morphologically related words like mindset, minding, unmindful, mastermind, etc.
Utilize the Word Searcher website, created by Neil Ramsden. Notice the spelling sometimes differs from American English, as the author is based in Europe. Type mind into the Word Searcher field. Find 27 words that include that base. Discuss the meanings of these words.
Explore words ending with the suffix -ful
Type ful$ into the Word Searcher bar -- the suffix (ful) followed by the dollar sign $ to indicate placement at the end of the word. I found 150 matches, including lawful, bagful, cupful, eyeful, baleful, needful, painful, gleeful, neglectful, disdainful, purposeful, teaspoonful. How are they alike and different? How could they be sorted into different groups?
Explore words ending with the suffix -ness
Utilize the Word Searcher website agin. Type ness$ into the search bar -- the suffix (ness) followed by the dollar sign $ to indicate placement at the end of the word. Notice again that the spelling sometimes differs from American English, as the author is based in Europe.
Try to decipher the meaning of previously unknown words by examining the morphological construction. For example, younger students might analyze and discuss shyness, goodness, grayness, wetness, silliness, swiftness, heaviness, etc. Note that most of the words generated through this search incorporate the suffix –ness, but a handful do not, as in lioness and patroness (lion + ess and patron + ness). So, to deal with that, play Will the Real Suffix Please Stand Up, as described in The Descriptive Suffix -ish.
Older students might discuss the meaning and usage of academic words found by Word Searcher, including conspicuousness, coyness, aptness, flirtatiousness, inquisitiveness, meaninglessness, neighborliness.
Explore words ending with both suffixes -ful and -ness:
Type fulness$ into the search bar. Notice that the search engine only found 45 matches. Of those, some words are rarely used and may be unknown to the student but could be deciphered via morphological analysis and verified via the dictionary.
For example, consider three results: gratefulness, mournfulness, peacefulness. Of those three words, which one is easiest to decipher because the base is known and transparent? How does grate relate to the concept of appreciation, anyway? Is this a grate over a duct or what? Discuss gratitude. And grace. Key ingredients to achieving mindfulness. And to living in the present.
Peace,
Susan