The educational potential of the Dictionary of Rare Words from the Literary Works Covered by the School Curriculum developed in Saint Petersburg, Russia, is provided not only by the features of the wordlist and the nature of word semantization in a dictionary entry, but also by readily-available methodological support, including a system of assignments for dictionary entries and teacher guidelines. The system is based on a word-centric approach to the organization of educational work. It involves, firstly, commenting on specially selected passages of literary works of the school curriculum in accordance with the lexicographic description, and secondly, comprehensive analysis of lexical material contained in the dictionary, covering semantic, derivational, grammatical, and stylistic aspects. Among the priority areas of the proposed educational work are a comparative analysis of linguistic phenomena, the formation of skills for referring to authoritative sources of information about the language, primarily to dictionaries of various types, the development of a philological culture that involves awareness of the interaction between the usage and the norm, historical variability as a fundamental characteristic of the language, and specificity of aesthetically significant usage. A special attention is also given to the possibilities that the Dictionary offers in terms of carrying out student research and project activities or the organization of a public discussion of theoretically significant or practically relevant language issues. The tasks we offer provide the teacher with the opportunity to independently regulate the amount of student workload and can contribute to personalized learning. The article provides examples of tasks of various types and methodological comments to them addressed to the teacher.