Grade 9-10: Vocabulary Lesson for Thursday, Week 1

Word List 1

1. voracious: consuming, or eager to consume, great amounts
2. susceptible: easily influenced or affected
3. pivotal: vital, of central importance, crucial
4. humane: characterized by kindness, mercy, or compassion
5. fastidious: careful, meticulous attention to detail
6. clarify: to make clear or easier to understand
7. irascible: quick to get angry, having outbursts of temper

Thursday Activities

1. Make Mind Maps - Link your vocabulary words to words that you already know. Click on the link for an example of a mind map. On a piece of paper, or on the computer in Word, draw a circle and write the vocabulary word inside the circle. Think of words that mean the same thing and put those in circles around the outside of the word drawing a line to connect the synonyms.
2. Mind Games - Create a mind map with words that mean the opposite or antonyms. Use the thesaurus built into your word program to find more words that are antonyms. Or you can go to this on-line thesaurus. Click on the button in front of Thesaurus at the top of the page, then type your word into the white area.
3. Word Search - Make your own word search. Type in your vocabulary words, then click, "make word search" at the bottom of the page.

Other Help

If you need more information on your words, click on the link to use a on-line dictionary.

Use the daily activities to help you remember words that you learn each week. It is much easier to remember what the words mean if you do something with them and use them frequently in talking with your parents, family and friends.

Sample sentences:

My Aunt, who reads one or two books a night, is a voracious reader.
I hate to see my cousin at our dinner table since his voracious appetite leaves little for me.

Stay home this summer if you are susceptible to Whooping Cough.
Dad left Mom home when he went car shopping because she was too susceptible to sales talk.

The country's pivotal location has invited invasion in the past.
Deciding to study alone was the pivotal moment in my high school career.

Saving the dog from the swollen creek was a very humane act.
My guidance counselor makes very humane decisions all the time.

My Uncle Josh is a fastidious dressed; nothing is ever out of place.
Nothing is ever out of place in my mother's house; she is such a fastidious housekeeper.

"Ms. Smith, will you please clarify your instructions about our summer reading program?^
Mom is so careful about giving me instructions that I never have to ask her to clarify her intentions.

The taxi driver was irascible, shouting and making gestures, when another driver got in his way.
When the neighborhood children walked on his grass, the old man was irascible, waving his cane and yelling.

 
 

For more vocabulary, reading and other language arts resources, please visit our interactive skillbuilders.