Summarize
The article "The Blue Eyed, Brown Eyed Experiment" is about a teacher.
The article "The Blue Eyed, Brown Eyed Experiment" describes an exercise a teacher did to show her students what discrimination felt like. She did this by dividing students by eye color and giving the groups different privileges.
The definition of context clues
What are the words in a sentence that can help us figure out the meaning of words we don't know.
What is the main idea?
Someday we will all have robots that will be our personal servants. They will look and behave much like real humans. We will be able to talk to these mechanical helpers and they will be able to respond in kind. Amazingly, the robots of the future will be able to learn from experience. They will be smart, strong, and untiring workers whose only goal will be to make our lives easier.
Someday we will all have robots that will be our personal servants.
Fix this sentence:
My friends house is big red and expensive.
My friends house is big, red, and expensive.
Summarize this:
The Bermuda Triangle is part of the Atlantic Ocean famous for strange stories of lost ships and aircrafts. Although it does not appear on official maps, the area is located between Miami, Florida; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and the island of Bermuda. If you drew a line between these locations, you would make an imaginary triangle about 500,000 square miles wide. Many people think there is something extraordinary about this area. They say it causes boats and planes to disappear without a trace. Although some people believe in the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle, there are stronger reasons not to believe.
The Bermuda Triangle: The Mystery Behind the Mystery, by Dr. Chadwick Kuiper, discusses an area of the Atlantic Ocean that some people believe causes ships and planes to disappear.
Scrupulous:
I wanted to just set the table and be done with it, but my mother scrupulously arranged each napkin, dish, and utensil until they were in perfect alignment.
Define, what clue in the sentence led you to that definition?
Carefully - sentence clue: perfect alignment
Is the main idea explicit or implicit?
Someday we will all have robots that will be our personal servants. They will look and behave much like real humans. We will be able to talk to these mechanical helpers and they will be able to respond in kind. Amazingly, the robots of the future will be able to learn from experience. They will be smart, strong, and untiring workers whose only goal will be to make our lives easier.
Explicit
Fix this sentence:
I havent heard from john in six months.
I haven't heard from John in six months.
"The Tell Tale Heart" is a story about the an old man with a weird eye.
"The Tell Tale Heart" is a story about a young man who is obsessed with the eye of the old man he lives with. He becomes so obsessed that he kills the old man but eventually his guilt leads him to give himself up to the police.
Vexed:
When Jose found out that his little brother Emilio carelessly broke Jose’s Xbox disc tray, Jose was vexed and sure let Emilio know it.
Clue - broken Xbox disc tray.
Main idea is what a passage or text is mostly about. The theme is a lesson or message that the author wants to teach us about life.
Fix this sentence:
“If I don’t wake up in time” he whispered “I will be in trouble.”
“If I don’t wake up in time,” he whispered, “I will be in trouble.”
Summarize this:
It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees --very gradually --I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.
The young man explains that he cannot stop thinking of killing the old man because of how he feels when the old mans fake eye looks at him.
Conjecture:
Stanley tried to determine the meaning of the vocabulary word, but there were so few clues in the sentence all he could do was hopelessly conjecture as to what the word might mean.
What does it mean? What clue in the sentence helps you know that?
Guess without enough information
Clues - "There were so few clues", "hopelessly"
Is the theme implicit or explicit?
I am new to the city. I do not know anyone. But an old woman lives next door. Her name is Val. She gives me a big box of vegetables.
She grows them in a garden by the sidewalk. There are carrots, tomatoes, beans, and peas. They are the best vegetables I ever ate. Val lives alone, too. But she seems happy in her garden. She loves plants. Sometimes, I can hear her talking to them. Maybe that is why they grow so big.
One day, I stop seeing Val in the garden. I see people take many boxes from her home. Weeds grow in her garden. The dirt is dry. The plants look sad. Val must have passed on.
So I pull the weeds. I water the garden. I even talk to the plants.
Then a family moves next door. They are new to the city. They do not know anyone. And I give them a big box of vegetables from Val’s garden.
Implicit
Fix this sentence:
She looked at him and said “I will be back in five minutes!
She looked at him and said, “I will be back in five minutes!"
Summarize it:
A rat is being honored with one of the highest awards in the animal world. He has potentially saved numerous lives for clearing landmines from fields in Cambodia.
Magawa is an African giant pouched rat. He was awarded a gold medal for his work over the past seven years. His work has led to the detection of 39 landmines and 28 unexploded items and clearing more than 20 soccer fields in the process. The PDSA, a British veterinary charity, gave him the award.
The rat is the most successful in the history of APOPO, a charity organization that has trained him and other rodents to detect landmines. The organization has been doing this since the 1990s.
"This is the very first time in our 77-year history of honoring animals that we will have presented a medal to a rat," said John Smith. He is the chairman of PDSA.
The PDSA has awarded its gold medal to 29 other animals, all dogs, for "animal bravery and exceptional devotion to duty." The medal for Magawa was specially designed to fit onto his work harness, said Jan McLoughlin. She is PDSA's director general.
Magawa is the first rat to be awarded a gold medal for his work finding landmines and unexploded items in Cambodia.
Ascertain:
The clues in the sentence were so helpful, Stanley was able to ascertain the meaning of the word beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Definition - figure out with certainty
Clue - "beyond a shadow of a doubt"
What is a theme in this story?
I am new to the city. I do not know anyone. But an old woman lives next door. Her name is Val. She gives me a big box of vegetables.
She grows them in a garden by the sidewalk. There are carrots, tomatoes, beans, and peas. They are the best vegetables I ever ate. Val lives alone, too. But she seems happy in her garden. She loves plants. Sometimes, I can hear her talking to them. Maybe that is why they grow so big.
One day, I stop seeing Val in the garden. I see people take many boxes from her home. Weeds grow in her garden. The dirt is dry. The plants look sad. Val must have passed on.
So I pull the weeds. I water the garden. I even talk to the plants.
Then a family moves next door. They are new to the city. They do not know anyone. And I give them a big box of vegetables from Val’s garden.
Pay it forward. If someone does something nice to you follow their example and do something nice for someone else.
Fix this sentence:
Gold watches for example are going on sale today.
Gold watches, for example, are going on sale today.