—Vocabulary—
Studying unfamiliar words in a novel or play—especially from significant passages that establish tone or convey theme—is essential to understand the deeper meanings of a literary text. For every book that we teach at Literary Focus, students are expected to learn the definitions and contexts of twenty words. Before students begin the novel or play, they receive a vocabulary list that is divided into two sections with ten words for each week's reading assignment, which means that students will take a vocabulary quiz after they have completed two-thirds of the book. Below is the vocabulary list that we use for Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake:
During the first unit of the year, students work in groups after the first reading assignment to complete a study matrix for the first four words on the list. Before students use dictionaries to find the definition that best fits the context, they try to identify the part of speech and then guess the word's definition based on the way it is used in the text.
When students look at the way Lahiri uses "fastidious" in the first sentence of the matrix, we hope that they will be able to identify the word as an adjective because of its "-ous" ending and because it describes Ashoke's attitude towards his clothing. If students are not sure of the part of speech, however, we encourage them to substitute other possible words in that position—like "angry" or "excited," for instance—to try to help them identify the part of speech of any word in that location in the sentence.
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Once students have correctly identified the part of speech, they try to guess the definition of the word based on contextual clues. We know from the sentence that Ashoke's attitude towards his clothing causes "an argument" with his wife because one of his sweaters "shrunk in the washing machine." We also know that "the first thing he does" when coming home from work is "hang up his shirt and trousers." Most students will note that Ashoke seems very particular about his clothing, almost to the point of obsession. After students share and provide rationales for their guesses for each of the words, they work in small groups to look up the words in a dictionary and choose the definition that they think best fits the context.
Students might struggle, however, choosing the most appropriate definition for some words. For example, when students look up the word "fastidious," they will see the following three options in most dictionaries:​​
When looking at the first definition, students might agree that Ashoke demands that his wife show "delicacy or care" when cleaning his clothes, but the question is how "excessive" his demands are. Ashoke certainly has the "meticulous, sensitive, or demanding attitude" of the second definition, but students might consider that definition too vague. [Note: Students might not know what the word "meticulous" means, which is a great opportunity to look that word up as well.] Finally, students will consider the "high and often capricious standards" that Ashoke displays, and once again they may have to look up the word "capricious" and consider if Ashoke, who is no doubt "difficult to please," is really making demands that are not consistent and carefully considered. Ultimately, after we discuss each of the options, hopefully everyone is in agreement that the second option is the most appropriate for this particular context.
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Once we have discussed the contexts and definitions of the first four words, students take a practice quiz so they understand the format of how they will be assessed when they take the real vocabulary quiz after studying all twenty words:
Students generally find the practice quiz easy, but it becomes more difficult when there are twenty words rather than four. After the first reading assignment, students are responsible for looking up the remaining words on their own and studying their contexts by highlighting and underlining them in the text. After the fifth reading assignment, students will have a night to study the words before taking the quiz. Students should be made aware, however, that there will be ten words in the definition section of the quiz and ten words in the context section. Students will not know which words will be in which section, so they should study both the definition and context of every word.
To minimize the time required to grade vocabulary quizzes and final exams, we use a Scantron machine, if possible. Students fill out the blue side of the answer sheet for the vocabulary quiz and the green side for the final exam at the end of the unit.
If you work in a large school, you probably have access to an existing Scantron machine, but if your school does not have one, it is worth asking your department chair or principal to purchase one. They are expensive if you buy a new one from Apperson, but you can usually find used ones fairly cheaply on eBay or other online re-sellers.
Since most schools use a Learning Management System (LMS) like Canvas or Google Classroom, another option is to create online quizzes that are automatically graded when students complete them. In this format, it is often helpful to change the matching questions to multiple-choice to replicate those found on standardized tests.
For instance, in the vocabulary quiz above, an alternative way of writing the first question in the "Definition" section would be the following:
1. Which word best fits the following definition?
sharp or biting to the taste or smell; bitterly pungent
(a) fastidious
(b) inviolable
(c) despondent
(d) acrid
(e) strident
One benefit to this format is that you can choose words from the vocabulary list that have the same part of speech—in this case, adjectives—to make the selection a bit more authentic. For the first question in the "Context" section, the format might look like the following:
11. Which word best fits the following context?
The restrictions amuse [Maxine]; she sees them as a single afternoon’s challenge, a(n) ____________ never to be repeated.
(a) impunity
(b) anomaly
(c) desecration
(d) pallor
(e) nomenclature
Regardless of format, it is important to remind students that the purpose of studying new words is not just to expand their vocabularies, but to help them understand the literary work more fully. Every word in a novel or play contains potential significance, so students need to learn what every word means and how the author or playwright uses those words to establish tone and convey theme.