The word "circumnavigate" is always used with Magellan - it may as well be his middle name. It's used in the first two sentences on Magellan's page at La Wik.
If the student in question uses the word not because it was in his usual vocabulary but because it appeared in the article about Magellan, the teacher has a valid point. A five grade student who reads an article about Magellan might copy the word without understanding it.
A teacher who wants to check whether the students actually understand is going to want that the student expresses his ideas within their own vocabulary and not simply copy words of an article they read.
I personally had teachers not understand a point I made because of not understanding that strategy and tactics are two different words with different meaning but I hadn't an issue with teacher complaining that I'm not speaking in my own vocabulary when writing essays.
If the student in question uses the word not because it was in his usual vocabulary but because it appeared in the article about Magellan, the teacher has a valid point.
Not really. I'm sure "circumnavigate" wasn't in my usual vocabulary but its meaning is simple enough to determine from context. I don't think its reasonable to penalize someone for using a word they would pretty much have to pick up when learning about a topic.
New chapter!
This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing chapter 102.
There is a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author’s Notes. (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.)
Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically: