I hope you have already picked out three words to do your "word detective" assignment on. If you haven't, be sure and do that today. Hopefully, though, you have and you have a homemade definition for each of them. Maybe you have had to tweak that definition if that first guess did not seem to fit when the word was used again. You might even have two guesses--"It might be this, or it might be this."
After you have read all your chapters or watched your DVD's, you can finish the assignment. That report will go something like this.
Important Word:
First "homemade definition":
Tweaked definition: (you might have several of these or none for the same word.)
Final Homemade definition: (This might actually be the same as your first guess.)
Dictionary definition that most closely matches your guess:
Give that report for each word. (Even if the dictionary definition does not match at all, give at least one that you think really fits how the word was used in your chapter, and chalk up your "wrong" guesses to learning experience. I suspect that most of the time, you will find that your guess was at least close, but if not, there was still value in this exercise.)
You still have today to ask each other questions for that third bonus point.
Your discusssions have actually been quite good. Keep up the good work!
On a side note, last night Rhonda and I went to pick up Larry and Ginger Sauvageot from the airport in St. Louis. They have been ministering in Australia for the last few months. They will be here for a day or two. Then they will be on the road again.
Showing posts with label Important Words. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Important Words. Show all posts
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Important Words
Sean, you mentioned the word, homiletics, in one of your, posts. Then you said it was used quite often in your book. After that, you told what you think it means, and I must say I think you have defined it well.
Mortimer J. Adler wrote a book on reading that was geared toward college students. One of the things he said was important when you are reading any kind of book is to discover the important words. I will build some on his ideas in this post
What are the important words in what you are studying? Well, they probably show up in the titles of the book, or titles of chapters, or titles of subheadings. Another clue is to find words that are especially emphasized by the author. Then, another category of important words can be different for each one of us. Those are the words that are unfamiliar to us.
When dealing with unfamiliar words, maybe like "homiletics," I would suggest you become a word detective. When you come across an unfamiliar word, stop long enough to write down the word. Then replace the word in your imagination with a blank line, like a "fill in the blank" question on a test. Then make your best guess as to what that word means as it is used in the sentence. Write that guess beside your important word, and keep reading. When you come to the word again, stop and see if your earlier guess still fits. If it does, keep reading. If it does not, either refine your earlier guess based on the context of the new sentence (The context is the words or sentences immediately surrounding the word in question) or put down a completely new guess that seems to fit both situations. When you come to the end of the chapter or section you are reading for the day, then get your dictionary. Look at the different dictionary meanings. Many times you will find a dictionary meaning that matches fairly closely with one of your guesses. I find this a lot more fun than stopping to look up each unfamiliar word as I come to it.
Another type of important word is a common word that is used in an unusual or specialized way.
What are some of the important words you have run across in the material you have been reading? Based on the context, what do you think they meant? Did they match up with any dictionary definitions?
When you do this, you can keep reading material that has such a specialized vocabulary that some of its words do not even appear in a regular dictionary.
Anyway, give us some of the important words you have come across for this course, and have fun being a word detective!
Mortimer J. Adler wrote a book on reading that was geared toward college students. One of the things he said was important when you are reading any kind of book is to discover the important words. I will build some on his ideas in this post
What are the important words in what you are studying? Well, they probably show up in the titles of the book, or titles of chapters, or titles of subheadings. Another clue is to find words that are especially emphasized by the author. Then, another category of important words can be different for each one of us. Those are the words that are unfamiliar to us.
When dealing with unfamiliar words, maybe like "homiletics," I would suggest you become a word detective. When you come across an unfamiliar word, stop long enough to write down the word. Then replace the word in your imagination with a blank line, like a "fill in the blank" question on a test. Then make your best guess as to what that word means as it is used in the sentence. Write that guess beside your important word, and keep reading. When you come to the word again, stop and see if your earlier guess still fits. If it does, keep reading. If it does not, either refine your earlier guess based on the context of the new sentence (The context is the words or sentences immediately surrounding the word in question) or put down a completely new guess that seems to fit both situations. When you come to the end of the chapter or section you are reading for the day, then get your dictionary. Look at the different dictionary meanings. Many times you will find a dictionary meaning that matches fairly closely with one of your guesses. I find this a lot more fun than stopping to look up each unfamiliar word as I come to it.
Another type of important word is a common word that is used in an unusual or specialized way.
What are some of the important words you have run across in the material you have been reading? Based on the context, what do you think they meant? Did they match up with any dictionary definitions?
When you do this, you can keep reading material that has such a specialized vocabulary that some of its words do not even appear in a regular dictionary.
Anyway, give us some of the important words you have come across for this course, and have fun being a word detective!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
