We started off class today by having a competition to see who could finish the Scarlet Letter crossword puzzle first. After the competition, we opened up the Scarlet Letter vocabulary document that Ms. Flournoy emailed to us. The class was instructed to pick ten words they did not know from the list and guess the meanings of the words. After we guessed the meaning of the words, we looked up the real definitions for the words and compared our definition to the real definition. We got into partners and wrote down definitions of the words our partners looked up. We finished class by fixing seven sentences that had grammatical errors in them. The homework for the weekend is to read chapters 16,17, and 18 in The Scarlet Letter.
I thought it was interesting how you are sometimes able to guess the meaning of a word just by looking at it. During class we guessed the meanings of ten words ,and I was surprised that I was able to correctly guess the meanings of some of the words. Knowing Greek and Latin roots would help you immensely in figuring out the meanings of many words. The ability to figure out words by looking at them reminded me of the movie Akeelah and the Bee. In Akeelah and the Bee, Akeelah is memorizing roots of words in preparation for a big spelling bee competition. By memorizing the roots of words she is able to spell and figure out the meanings of numerous words. Akeelah is able to guess the meanings of words just by looking at them similarly to what we did in class. This skill would be a very useful on standardized tests, such as the PSAT and the SAT.
The new vocabulary word that applies to today’s class is bout.
Sample sentence: In class, there was a bout to see who could finish the Scarlet Letter crossword puzzle first.
The vocabulary exercises we did that day were very helpful. They activities help the words stay in our head for a longer period of time. This is more useful than cramming because there was not a big rush to the learn the words, although there was a rush during the puzzle game. However that rush was fun and made the games more exciting
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with Kate that knowing roots of words is really helpful and it is really interesting if your able to guess a word. I've tried this many times and often have been right. I also really liked your word of the day, it will be really helpful to know
ReplyDeleteI found this exercise really helpful. Not only was it a reminder that everything is not what it seems and the old aphorism of "don't judge a book by its cover," but also pushed us to drag out things in words we didn't know, compare it to other words, and then synthesize to find the meaning. Sometimes, english seem to be so focused on what we are doing in that moment, and we don't usually transfer what we discuss into real world applicaitons, and this did that. I thought it was a nice change of pace and also an easy way to learn new some words.
ReplyDeleteI thought that crossword puzzle was kind of hard, but it was definitely fun. I was also surprised with how I guessed the meanings of the words, however, this exercise wasn't the most helpful for me. Some words I guessed wrong on, but my wrong guess is the definition that got stuck in my mind because it "sounded right". I know that sounds weird, but it's how my brain works!
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