Tag Archives: context clues

Let me begin this post, on this rainy Monday morning, with wishes of Eid Mubarak to my Muslim friends, neighbors, and students. Then let me offer you this context clues on the noun boom. I wrote this while serving in an economics- and finance-themed high school in the Financial District of Manhattan, so it goes without saying, mostly, that the clues in the five sentences in this worksheet point students toward inferring a definition of “a rapid expansion or increase,” “a rapid widespread expansion of economic activity,” and “an upsurge in activity, interest, or popularity.”

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 audacious. It means, variously, “intrepidly daring,” “adventurous,” “recklessly bold,” “rash,” “contemptuous of law, religion, or decorum,” “insolent,” and “marked by originality and verve.” Because this word tends to cluster its meaning around the commonality of “rash,” or “bold,” which all the words and phrases above mean to some extent, this worksheet is keyed to all of the definitions above.

And if it somehow falls short, I would be very interested in your thoughts as to why–so I can improve it.

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 worksheeet on the verb banish. It is used only transitively so don’t forget your direct object: you must banish something–an unfaithful lover, cigarettes and the like. It means, variously, “to require by authority to leave a country,” “to drive out or remove from a home or place of usual resort or continuance,” and “to clear away, dispel.” This is a word that pops up across the humanities curriculum, and particularly in social studies. In my experience students don’t know it.

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 assiduous. It means, as you probably know, “marked by careful unremitting attention or persistent application,” e.g. “an assiduous book collector,” “tended her garden with assiduous attention.” I stipulate that this isn’t exactly a high-frequency word in English. It is, however, a useful one.

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 pair of context clues worksheet for articulate used as an adjective and a verb. These documents require, I think, a bit of exposition: these are complicated words, and the worksheet itself is keyed to specific meanings of these words and the parts of speech for which they function. Let’s start with the adjective: the sentences in the first document seek to move student toward inferring the adjectival definition of articulate as “expressing oneself readily, clearly, or effectively.”

The verb is another matter. First of all, it is used both intransitively and transitively. Intransitively, it means “to utter articulate sounds,” “to utter clear and understandable sounds,” and, less relevantly to the matter at hand, “to become united or connected by or as if by a joint” (e.g. the articulated buses one sees in big-city public transportation systems worldwide). Transitively, articulate means “to give clear and effective utterance to,” “put into words,”  “to utter distinctly,” and “to give definition to (as a shape or object).” But it too carries the meaning” to unite by or as if by means of a joint” as above.

In any case, the second page of this document seeks to elicit the more common definitions of the verb, which is, transitively “to give clear and effective utterance to,” and “put into words.”  And that’s more than enough said about the use of articulate (don’t forget the stress shifts to the final syllable for the verb) as a verb and as an adjective.

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.

Here is a context clues worksheet on the verb administer. It is used both intransitively and transitively. The sentences in this document, however, are keyed to this verb’s first transitive definition, “to manage or supervise the execution, use, or conduct of.” Ergo, you will note that all the sentences on this worksheet use administer with a direct object–i.e. transitively.

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 age. These sentences provide clues to the meaning of this noun as “a period of time dominated by a central figure or prominent feature.” This use of age is similar to the nouns era (“a period identified by some prominent figure or characteristic feature”) and epoch (“an extended period of time usually characterized by a distinctive development or by a memorable series of events”).

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 is a very useful word–indeed, when it’s needed, few others will suffice–here is a context clues worksheet on the adjective meticulous. It means “marked by extreme or excessive care in the consideration or treatment of details.” I submit that this is a word students should know and be able to use before they graduate high school.

But what do you think?

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.