Tag Archives: context clues

Here is a context clues worksheet on the adjective scarce. I’m sure I wrote this for use in the economics-themed high school in which I previously served. It goes without saying that this word is in sufficiently common use in English that high school students should know it prior to their graduation.

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 noun scavenger. I can’t remember why I wrote this, but it may have been because I had students who were hearing and seeing the words used in a biology class of some sort and couldn’t quite get their minds around it. I dimly recall debating whether or not to write for the noun or the verb–scavenge. If that’s the word better suited to the needs of your classroom, this Microsoft Word document is easy enough to convert to the verb.

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.

Because it kept showing up in a social studies course one year I co-taught that subject, I wrote this context clues worksheet on the verb supersede. It means, variously, “to cause to be set aside,” “to force out of use as inferior,”   2 “to take the place or position of,” and “to displace in favor of another.” The clues embedded in the context of the sentences on this worksheet seek mostly to elicit from students the latter two meanings.

Nota bene, please, that this is a transitive verb only, so don’t forget your grammatically required direct object. Something must supersede something else, syntactically speaking.

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 verb stun. It’s used only transitively, so don’t forget you direct object: the subject of the sentence must stun someone or something.

The verb means, variously, “to make senseless, groggy, or dizzy by or as if by a blow,” “daze,”  “to shock with noise,” and “to overcome especially with paralyzing astonishment or disbelief.” In other words, this is a nice solid verb with a wide but coherent range of meanings that students, by the time they graduate high school, I submit, should know and be able to use proficiently.

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 verb stipulate and another on the noun stipulation. This has always seemed to me a word students should know before they leave high school. If nothing else, it gives teachers the opportunity to say to students, “If anyone is looking down the road at law school, here are a couple of words useful to know.

For the record, stipulate is used both intransitively and transitively. Intransitively, it means “to make an agreement or covenant to do or forbear something,” “contract,” and “to demand an express term in an agreement — used with for.” Transitively, it means “to specify as a condition or requirement (as of an agreement or offer)” and “to give a guarantee of.” The noun stipulation means “an act of stipulating” and “something stipulated; especially a condition, requirement, or item specified in a legal instrument.”

If you find typos in these documents, 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.

It’s the Word of the Day at Merriam-Webster today, so here is context clues worksheet on the adjective desultory. It means, for the purposes of making meaning on this document, and in the vernacular as well, “marked by lack of definite plan, regularity, or purpose.”

However, it can also mean “not connected with the main subject” and “disappointing in progress, performance, or quality.” This is not a high-frequency word in English, and in any case, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen or heard it used to mean “not connected to the main subject.” On the other hand, “disappointing in progress, performance, or quality” is a close enough corollary to “marked by lack of definite plan, regularity, or purpose that one might say the first definition is the outcome of the second in this sentence.

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.

Though it’s usefulness in the high school classroom may be dubious, here, nonetheless, is a context clues worksheet on the adjective stentorian. It means, simply, “extremely loud.” Unless this word is useful in, say, a forensics team lesson or anything else related to formal debate, I don’t know where or why to teach it. It’s not exactly a high-frequency word in English. I assume I wrote this because at some point it was the Word of the Day at Merriam-Webster.

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.

It’s the Word of the Day at Merriam-Webster, so here is a context clues on the verb lollygag. It means, variously but in same vein, “fool around,” “dawdle,” and (from the Word of the Day page itself) “to fool around and waste time” and “to spend time doing things that are not useful.” The verb is only used intransitively, so it will never take a direct object: you don’t lollygag something, you just lollygag.

I understand this slangy word isn’t at the top of the list of the lexicon we need students to accumulate in high school. Nonetheless, with its onomatopoetic character, even charm, it has its virtues. In any case, as a sometimes workaholic (the respectable addiction), I want to make the case for lollygagging as an occasional and necessary part of life.

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.