Example 1

Sample Activities for Use In Class

Context

Read, or have students read, the following passage from Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights:

1801. - I have just returned from a visit to my landlord - the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with. This is certainly a beautiful country! In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society. A perfect misanthropist's heaven: and Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us. A capital fellow! He little imagined how my heart warmed towards him when I beheld his black eyes withdraw so suspiciously under their brows, as I rode up, and when his fingers sheltered themselves, with a jealous resolution, still further in his waistcoat, as I announced my name.

Discuss how context and word formation help readers understand the meaning of the word “misanthropist’s,” as follows:

Misanthropist(‘s): Contextual clues like “removed from the stir of society” and “heaven” indicate that a lonely place, devoid of people (see “that solitary neighbor whom I shall be troubled with”), is the kind of place a misanthropist likes; therefore, a “misanthropist” is someone who likely doesn’t have much to do with people.

Parts of the word that also indicate its meaning include “mis-”, “anthrop,” and “-ist.” Have students check the dictionary for definitions of these parts of the word in order to reconstruct it. From their reconstruction, they should be able to develop the related parts of speech, such as “misanthropy” (noun) and “misanthropic” (adjective).

Repeat this exercise for words like “desolation,” “suspiciously,” or any others the students point out. For a longer lesson with more examples, use several paragraphs or even an entire chapter of Wuthering Heights or another grade-appropriate book, such as Jane Eyre, Catch-22, The Catcher in the Rye, and so on.

Word Parts and Dictionary Uses
Give students a list of words with multiple prefixes and/or suffixes, such as:

inconvenienced
disrespectful
predetermined
conjectured
antebellum
pre-capitalist

Have students (individually, in groups, or as a class) take each word apart, pulling out its prefixes, root, and suffixes. For instance, the word “unextraordinarily” contains the prefixes “un-” and “extra-”, the root “ordinary”, and the suffix “-ily.”

Next, have students identify the meaning of each portion, looking up the word part in the dictionary if needed. A few words for each definition should suffice. For instance, a student may jot down (or you may write on the blackboard) the following:

“un-” = not
“extra-” = more than
“ordinary” = common, boring
“-ily” = makes the word an adverb

If a word has more than one definition, write down each definition. Definitions that have similar denotations but different connotations should also be written down separately, as for “ordinary” above.

Third, reassemble the word using the definitions found in the dictionary or in students’ brains. For instance, the word “unextraordinarily” can be reassembled to mean “some action [represented by the verb that the adverb modifies] is not more than common or usual.”

Finally, have students go back to the dictionary and look up the original word. How close do their definitions come to the dictionaries’ definitions? If they’re very different, how are they different, and what might have caused the students to get the definition they did instead of one closer to what’s in the dictionary?

Quiz 1 Questions

Quiz 2 Questions