Many people, particularly teachers and students, associate vocabulary instruction with long lists of ambiguous words, copying the definitions from the dictionary by rote, completing accompanying analogies, or matching the words with their meanings and taking a quiz at the end of the week. This approach to vocabulary instruction is typical to many classrooms but, unfortunately, it does not account for the various learning styles or abilities of students. The author's mentor suggested that she tries a more practical approach, one that involves providing students with fewer, more applicable words. This idea seems simple, yet it breaks all the rules of standardized, traditional vocabulary instruction in which more words are better. What developed is a useful approach to teaching vocabulary that she is happy to recommend to other teachers. Assigning students 10 to 15 words each week made it difficult for the students to retain and apply the new words; therefore, she decided three words per week would be a manageable number, and she chose words for their usability in a persuasive essay, which is the curriculum focus in junior English in the state of Tennessee. This strategy can easily be adapted for any mode of writing. (Contains 1 figure.)