Vocabulary Improvement Strategies for Academic Success

- ACDV B70F -

Vocabulary Improvement Strategies for Academic Success

Bakersfield College

Fall 2016

Table of Contents

Day 1: Context Clues 1

Warm Up 2

Vocabulary Evaluation 2

In Class Activities 3

English is a Crazy Language – Richard Lederer 3

Introduction to Context Clues 4

“The Man Who Fell Out of Bed” 5

Guess the Meaning 7

Context Clues for Meaning 8

Homework #1 9

Practice with Context Clues 9

Day 2: Homonyms, Homophones, Homographs 11

Warm Up 12

Homonyms, Homophones, and Homographs 12

In Class Activities 13

List of Common Homonyms 13

Homonym Practice 14

Homonym Practice 15

What are Homophones? 16

Homographs and Context Clues 17

Homework #2 19

Homophone Hunt 19

Day 3: Prefixes, Roots, and Suffixes 21

Warm Up 22

Parts of Words 22

In-Class Activities 23

List of Common Latin Roots 23

List of Common Greek Roots 24

Root Graphic Organizer 25

Locating Base Words 26

Nouns, Verbs, and Adjectives 27

Prefixes and Suffixes 28

Making Sense of Prefixes 29

Homework #3 31

Finding Meanings from Combinations 31

Day 4: Antonyms and Synonyms 35

Warm Up 36

Types of Word Comparisons 36

In-Class Activities 37

Shades of Meaning: Strong vs. Weak 37

Linear Arrays 38

Add Interest with Synonyms 39

Fix the Story with Antonyms 40

Using Antonyms for Context Clues 41

Analogies 42

Homework #4 43

List of Commonly Confused and Misused Words 43

Video Lessons 44

Warm Up 46

Dictionary Pronunciation Symbols 46

Dictionary Example 48

In-Class Activities 50

Common Abbreviations in Dictionaries 50

Dictionary Guide Words 51

Dictionary Comparison 52

Vocabulary Development 53

100 Words Every Student Should Know 54

Word Study Tools 55

Homework #5 57

4-Fold Vocabulary 57

Final Project 59

9

Day 1: Context Clues

Warm Up

Vocabulary Evaluation

Do this vocabulary evaluation before the next class meeting. Write up your discoveries at the bottom.

1.  / I do several things to increase my vocabulary. / YES or NO
2.  / I make flash cards of words I do not know. I write the definitions on the back. / YES or NO
3.  / When I use flash cards, I read only from the front and try to remember what is on the back. / YES or NO
4.  / I do well on test questions that ask me to write definitions for key words. / YES or NO
5.  / I review vocabulary words and definitions when I have extra time. / YES or NO
6.  / I have problems finding definitions of words in paragraphs. / YES or NO
7.  / I always look to see if my textbooks have glossaries. / YES or NO
8.  / I circle words I don’t know, then look up their definitions. / YES or NO
9.  / I have trouble expressing myself in words. / YES or NO
10.  / The only words that are important to know are the words that are printed in bold, italic, or underlined. / YES or NO
11.  / I rarely use a dictionary to look up the meanings of new words. / YES or NO
12.  / I make it a point to study new vocabulary words. / YES or NO

SELF-AWARENESS: Discuss your feelings about your levels of reading vocabulary, writing vocabulary, and speaking vocabulary. What are your weak points and strong points?

In Class Activities

English is a Crazy Language – Richard Lederer

Lederer, R. (1989). Crazy English: The Ultimate Joy Ride Through Our Language. New York: Pocket Books.

Let's face it--English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England nor French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that you comb through annals of history but not a single annal? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? If teachers taught, why didn't preacher praught?

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? If you wrote a letter, perhaps you bote your tongue?

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive on parkways? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another?

Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are absent? Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown? Met a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable? And where are all those people who ARE spring chickens or who would ACTUALLY hurt a fly?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm clock goes off by going on. English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn't a race at all). That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it.

Introduction to Context Clues

Use the information from the presentation to complete this page.

Context Clues: ______

______

Types of Context Clues / Notes/Example
1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 

Example of using the general sense of a sentence to find the meaning of a word…

1. He was born to a family that possessed great wealth, but he died in indigence.
2. My friend Julie is a great procrastinator. She habitually postpones doing things, from household chores to homework.
3. Since my grandfather retired, he has developed such avocations as gardening and long-distance bike riding.
4. The Lizard was so lethargic that I wasn’t sure if it was alive or dead. It didn’t even blink.
5. The public knows very little about the covert activities of CIA spies.
6. Many politicians do not give succinct answers to questions, but long, vague ones.
7. Because my father had advised me to scrutinize the lease, I took time to carefully examine all the fine print.
8. In biology class today, the teacher discussed such anomalies as two heads and webbed toes on a human being.
9. Nature has endowed hummingbirds with the ability to fly backward.
10. Doctors should alleviate the pain of terminal ill patients so that their final days are as comfortable as possible.

“The Man Who Fell Out of Bed”

By: Oliver Sacks

Sacks, Oliver. "The Man Who Fell out of Bed." The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales. New York: Summit, 1985. 55-58. Print.

When I was a medical student many years ago, one of the nurses called me in considerable perplexity, and gave me this singular story on the phone: that they had a new patient—a young man— just admitted that morning. He had seemed very nice, very normal, all day—indeed, until a few minutes before, when he awoke from a snooze. He then seemed excited and strange—not himself in the least. He had somehow contrived to fall out of bed, and was now sitting on the floor, carrying on and vociferating, and refusing to go back to bed. Could I come, please, and sort out what was happening?

When I arrived I found the patient lying on the floor by his bed and staring at one leg. His expression contained anger, alarm, bewilderment and amusement—bewilderment most of all, with a hint of consternation. I asked him if he would go back to bed, or if he needed help, but he seemed upset by these suggestions and shook his head. I squatted down beside him, and took the history on the floor. He had come in, that morning, for some tests, he said. He had no complaints, but the neurologists, feeling that he had a ‘lazy’ left leg—that was the very word they had used— thought he should come in. He had felt fine all day, and fallen asleep towards evening. When he woke up he felt fine too, until he moved in the bed. Then he found, as he put it, ‘someone’s leg’ in the bed—a severed human leg, a horrible thing! He was stunned, at first, with amazement and disgust—he had never experienced, never imagined, such an incredible thing. He felt the leg gingerly. It seemed perfectly formed, but ‘peculiar’ and cold. At this point he had a brainwave. He now realized what had happened: it was all a joke! A rather monstrous and improper, but a very original, joke! It was New Year’s Eve, and everyone was celebrating. Half the staff were drunk; quips and crackers were flying; a carnival scene. Obviously one of the nurses with a macabre sense of humor had stolen into the Dissecting Room and nabbed a leg, and then slipped it under his bedclothes as a joke while he was still fast asleep. He was much relieved at the explanation; but feeling that a joke was a joke, and that this one was a bit much, he threw the damn thing out of the bed. But— and at this point his conversational manner deserted him, and he suddenly trembled and became ashen-pale—when he threw it out of bed, he somehow came after it—and now it was attached to him.

‘Look at it!’ he cried, with revulsion on his face. ‘Have you ever seen such a creepy, horrible thing? I thought a cadaver was just dead. But this is uncanny! And somehow—it’s ghastly—it seems stuck to me!’ He seized it with both hands, with extraordinary violence, and tried to tear it off his body, and, failing, punched it in an access of rage.

‘Easy!’ I said. ‘Be calm! Take it easy! I wouldn’t punch that leg like that.’

‘And why not?’ he asked, irritably, belligerently.

‘Because it’s your leg,’ I answered. ‘Don’t you know your own leg?’

He gazed at me with a look compounded of stupefaction, incredulity, terror and amusement, not unmixed with a jocular sort of suspicion, ‘Ah Doc!’ he said. ‘You’re fooling me! You’re in cahoots with that nurse—you shouldn’t kid patients like this!’

‘I’m not kidding,’ I said. ‘That’s your own leg.’

He saw from my face that I was perfectly serious—and a look of utter terror came over him. ‘You say it’s my leg, Doc? Wouldn’t you say that a man should know his own leg?’

‘Absolutely,’ I answered. ‘He should know his own leg. I can’t imagine him not knowing his own leg. Maybe you’re the one who’s been kidding all along?’

‘I swear to God, cross my heart, I haven’t ... A man should know his own body, what’s his and what’s not—but this leg, this thing’—another shudder of distaste—’doesn’t feel right, doesn’t feel real—and it doesn’t look part of me.’

‘What does it look like?’ I asked in bewilderment, being, by this time, as bewildered as he was.

‘What does it look like?’ He repeated my words slowly. ‘I’ll tell you what it looks like. It looks like nothing on earth. How can a thing like that belong to me? I don’t know where a thing like that belongs ... ‘ His voice trailed off. He looked terrified and shocked.

‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I don’t think you’re well. Please allow us to return you to bed. But I want to ask you one final question. If this—this thing—is not your left leg’ (he had called it a ‘counterfeit’ at one point in our talk, and expressed his amazement that someone had gone to such lengths to ‘manufacture’ a ‘facsimile’) ‘then where is your own left leg?’

Once more he became pale—so pale that I thought he was going to faint. ‘I don’t know, he said. ‘I have no idea. It’s disappeared. It’s gone. It’s nowhere to be found ... ‘

Postscript

Since this account was published (in A Leg to Stand On, 1984), I received a letter from the eminent neurologist Dr. Michael Kremer, who wrote:

I was asked to see a puzzling patient on the cardiology ward. He had atrial fibrillation and had thrown off a large embolus giving him a left hemiplegia, and I was asked to see him because he constantly fell out of bed at night for which the cardiologists could find no reason.

When I asked him what happened at night he said quite openly that when he woke in the night he always found that there was a dead, cold, hairy leg in bed with him which he could not understand but could not tolerate and he, therefore, with his good arm and leg pushed it out of bed and naturally, of course, the rest of him followed.

He was such an excellent example of this complete loss of awareness of his hemiplegic limb but, interestingly enough, I could not get him to tell me whether his own leg on that side was in bed with him because he was so caught up with the unpleasant foreign leg that was there.

Guess the Meaning

Direction: Read the short story “The Man Who Fell Out of Bed” by Oliver Sacks. Choose 5 words from the previous story for which you are unsure of the meaning. Write them in the first column in the table below. For each word, guess the meaning based on the context in which it is used. Then, use a dictionary to find the actual meaning. Lastly, sketch an image or symbol that can help you visualize the meaning of the word.