Value of Life~Activity 27: Understanding Key Vocabulary
Below, you will find three groupings of vocabulary words taken from “What Is a Life Worth?”
· The first group consists of words related to the legal and financial aspects of the article.
· The second list contains terms that convey information with particular emotional connotations.
· The final set of words is made up of terms that are used to describe the workings of the governmental plan to compensate 9/11 family victims.
Working by yourself or with a partner, look over each list, and provide a brief definition for the words you do not know well.
· Pay particular attention to the ways in which the words connect to one another (e.g., people litigate, or sue, because they want somebody to compensate them for a loss).
Financial and Legal Terms:
1. compensate (subtitle & ¶ 2): make up for a loss
2. disparity (¶ 2): unfairness, unevenness
3. valuation (¶ 2): determination of a monetary value
4. litigation (¶ 5): legal action; suing
5. commodify (¶ 7): turn something into an object of monetary value
6. discretion (¶ 9): judgment
7. liability (¶ 10): debt or disadvantage
8. beneficiary (¶ 22): recipient of a benefit, usually monetary
9. tort (¶ 23): a civil lawsuit to remedy a wrongful act
10. allocation (¶ 28): distribution, especially of money
More Vocab.
Emotion-laden Words
10. squeamish (¶ 2): easily offended
11. garish (¶ 2): offensively bright and showy
12. gall (¶ 10): impudence; insolence
13. traumatize (¶ 11): to inflict stress or pain upon someone
14. callous (¶ 11): uncaring, cold
15. inconsolable (¶ 13): incapable of being comforted
16. indignant (¶ 13): full of anger over an injustice
17. deteriorate (¶ 17): degenerate; gradually fall apart
18. balk (¶ 21): resist; refuse to proceed
Descriptive Terms
19. Rorschach test (¶ 11): an inkblot test that reveals a person’s
particular viewpoint
20. artillery (¶ 12): heavy ammunition used against an enemy
21. rhetorical (¶ 12): related to the effective use of language
22. concoct (¶ 12): to put together from various materials
23. analogy (¶ 12): a comparison intended to illustrate common
elements between seemingly different items
24. solidarity (¶ 17): unity based on a common interest
25. orchestrated (¶ 18): carefully arranged to achieve a particular effect
26. mechanism (¶ 21): technique for achieving a specific result
Activity 28-29
Activity 28-Reading for Understanding
As you read “What Is a Life Worth?” for the first time, look for the main issues and the various stances people take in response to those issues.
· Be sure to also look for connections to the idea of valuing life and to what was previously said about valuing life by Shakespeare and Ebert.
· How is “life” defined in this text? For example, does “life” refer to a human body, a soul, human experience, existence, or quality of life?
· Does this definition include a person’s personal life and professional or working life?
Activity 29-Annotating and Questioning the Text
Choose two highlighter or pencil colors and revisit the text of the article on 9/11. The two colors will be used to mark two different aspects of the article.
· With the first color, highlight the words, phrases, and sentences from the article that describe valuing life in legal and financial terms.
· With the second color, highlight the words, phrases, and sentences that describe valuing life in human and emotional terms.
Activity 30
Activity 30-Summarizing and Responding
Using the sections you highlighted in the previous step, write a summary of the article’s descriptions of how life is valued and people’s responses to that valuing of life.
· Your summary should include only the most important ideas and must be limited to six sentences. If your teacher allows, you may want to work on this summary with a partner.
· With a partner, read the summary you wrote in the previous step. One of you should read the summary from the perspective of Hamlet; the other should take on the persona of Ebert.
· Discuss with your partner how each would probably react to the way that “What Is a Life Worth?” describes the value of life. (The answers to the questions will vary depending upon what each summary has said about the article.)
· Would Hamlet agree with any of the ideas presented in the article? If so, which ones?
· Would Ebert agree with any of the ideas in the article? If so, which ones?
· Would Ebert and Hamlet agree at all in the way they might interpret this article’s ideas? If so, how?