Category Archives: English Language Arts

Here is a context clues worksheet on the verb parry. It’s used both intransitively and transitively. For each of those uses, however, there are two meanings, virtually identical across the intransitive and transitive uses of this word.

To wit: transitively, parry means “to ward off (as a blow)” and “to evade especially by an adroit answer”; intransitively, parry means “to ward off a weapon or blow” and “to evade or turn aside something.” The document above provides context clues to define parry in the sense of “to ward off (as a blow) and “to ward of a weapon or blow.”

Recently, I had to good fortune to attend a professional development session on debate-centered instruction. For that reason, you will see here, sooner or later, another context clues worksheet that calls upon students to recognize the second of each of the two definitions above.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Here is a context clues worksheet on the adjective obscure. This is another of those polysemous words whose array of meanings may surprise you.

In everyday discourse, we mostly use it to mean “not readily understood or clearly expressed.” But it can also mean “dark, dim, shrouded in or hidden by darkness, not clearly seen or easily distinguished, faint”; “relatively unknown,  remote, secluded, not prominent or famous”; and, interestingly, “constituting the unstressed vowel \ə\ or having unstressed \ə\ as its value.” Obscure can also be used as a verb, but that’s another worksheet and another post.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.