Visual Etymology: Serenity

I was working in Leigh's book (theme: serenity) in the midst of colds, sore throats, two PD days, CWW, and life's "stuff." Thanks for the nudge, Leigh.

When I first started to think about serenity, I thought about the what it means to me, times I felt serene -- and started mapping out a plan. A window theme came up -- seeing Mom in the window waiting for me to come home when I was younger;  always seeing the candles in the window (electric, folks, no fire danger) at Christmastime. Ah, serenity.

But I'm always thinking of my classroom (blessing and curse), and the windows were a dead end visually for me. Roadblock.

I started by bridging back to my last sketchbook entry (using oil pastels for the first time with Barbara, which needed way more practice, just like I teach my students). I loved the concentric nature of the drawings in my sketchbook. Why not torture myself with doing something I'm not good at yet? Wait -- is this theme serenity?

But then I really started just thinking about the word. Where does it come from? What are words related to serenity? Scott Riley and our teams in MS RLA are hoping to nail down some cool word study plans around etymology this year, so I wondered if I looked up the Latin, could I create an image to associate with what the roots really mean?

Serenity and serenade are cognates. Who knew? And when we look at that connection, we find that when a man serenades a woman, it's usually associated with night and peacefulness. Happy Anniversary, Michael! What great timing. Still waiting for that song, though.

It's turned into a cool idea for the classroom and would help us all visualize the Latin rather than memorizing boring lists or charts. 

Here's how it turned out, with elements of the word, its cognates, and the meaning of the roots, but it's built all around what the kids would make into an unforgettable image. Why would it work? Because they'd make their own meaning of the...well, meaning.

Serendipity? No relation, unfortunately.