Journey to the Centre of the Earth
Author: Jules Verne
Assignments – Part III
Chapters 33-45
(Note: If you do not have a dictionary that you like, we recommend Merriam-Webster’s School Dictionary. One source for purchase of this dictionary is found here,https://www.lessontutor.com/ltcreate9home/
Chapters 33-35
Synopsis:
Monsters mix up the travelers’ days and water becomes the topic of discussion – from geysers to storms.
Vocabulary:
1. The Word: voracious
In Context: “Were they the teeth of some monster of a prehistoric species which lived deep down under the surface, a monster more voracious than the shark, more formidable than the whale?” (p.184)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
2. The Word: evocation
In Context: “I shuddered at the evocation of those monsters. No human eye has ever seen them alive.” (p.184)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
3. The Word: carapace
In Context: “The plesiosaurus, a serpent with a cylindrical body and a short tail, had four flappers spread out like oars. Its body was entirely covered with a carapace, and its neck, which was flexible as a swan’s, rose thirty feet about the water.” (p.187)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
4. The Word: leeward
In Context: “Hans is still at the tiller…the voyage has resumed its uniform tenor…At any rate, there was definitely a very noisy phenomenon a good few miles to leeward, for now the roaring noise was clearly audible.” (p.189)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
5. The Word: nil
In Context: “I consulted the current; it was nil. I threw an empty bottle into the sea; it lay still.” (p.190)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
6. The Word: hillock (noun) or hillocky (adjective)
In Context: “Its huge, dark, hillocky body lay in the sea like an island.” (p.191)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
7. The Word: cetacean
In Context: “What could this cetacean be…It was motionless and apparently asleep; the sea seemed to be incapable of moving it…” (p.191)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
8. The Word: halyard
In Context: “There we were, speeding like lunatics towards that powerful monster…Terror seized me. I refused to go any farther and swore that I would cut the halyards if necessary.” (p.191)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
9. The Word: geyser
In Context: “’Yes, of course, it must be a geyser,’ said my uncle, ‘a geyser like those in Iceland.’” (p.192)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
10. The Word: contradiction
In Context: “’…it must be a geyser like those in Iceland…’ (But) this water was coming from a blazing furnace, and this was in complete contradiction with Professor Lidenbrock’s theories.” (p.192)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
11. The Word: reservoir
In Context: “I noticed that its jet varied in height, sometimes diminishing in force, then shooting up again, a fact I attributed to variations in the pressure of the vapors accumulated in its reservoir.” (p.193)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
12. The Word: opaque
In Context: “The atmosphere grew heavy with vapors charged with the electricity generated by the evaporation of the salt water; the clouds sank perceptibly and took on a uniformly olive hue; the electric light could scarcely pierce this opaque curtain lowered over the stage on which the drama of the elements was about to be performed.” (p.194)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
13. The Word: cataclysm
In Context: “I felt over-awed, as most people do on earth at the approach of a cataclysm.” (p.194)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
14. The Word: sinister
In Context: “The cumulus clouds piled up in the south had a sinister look – that pitiless appearance I had often noticed at the beginning of a storm.” (p.194)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
15. The Word: incandescent
In Context: “Brilliant flashes of lightning mingled with the rolls of thunder, criss-crossing in the midst of the loud crashes; the vaporous mass became incandescent, and the hailstones striking the metal of our tools or guns flashed with light…” (p.196)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
16. The Word: incoherence
In Context: “I have only been able to find a few brief observations, which I had jotted down almost unconsciously. But their brevity and even their incoherence reveal the emotion which gripped me and give a better idea of the atmosphere than my memory could.” (pp.196-197)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
17. The Word: emission
In Context: “There is a constant emission of light from the undersurface of the clouds…” (p.197)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
18. The Word: pirouette
In Context: “The fireball, half white, half blue, and the size of a ten-inch shell, moved slowly…it pirouetted near my foot, which I tried to pull away, but in vain.” (p.198)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
19. The Word: gyration
In Context: “At last, with a violent effort, I managed to pull my foot away just as the ball was going to seize it in its gyrations and carry me away too.” (p.198)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
Writing Assignment:
None.
Chapters 36-39
Synopsis:
An interesting discovery inspires the professor to give a lecture.
Vocabulary:
1. The Word: fatigue
In Context: “I found myself lying side by side with my uncle…unable to speak, overcome as I was by fatigue and excitement…” (p.200)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
2. The Word: deluge
In Context: “Meanwhile the rain went on falling in a positive deluge, though with that violence which usually indicates that a storm is nearly over.” (p.200)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
3. The Word: intact
In Context: “Our stock of powder, after nearly exploding…was intact.” (p.202)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
4. The Word: replenish
In Context: “’Now,’ he said, ‘we must replenish our stock of water with the rain the storm has left in all the granite basins…’” (p.203)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
5. The Word: oscillation
In Context: “Arriving at the rock, my uncle took the compass and examined the needle, which after a few oscillations, took up a fixed position.” (p.204)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
6. The Word: irrefutable
In Context: “I was able to expound these irrefutable arguments for ten minutes without interruption, but simply because the Professor was not taking any notice of me…” (p.206)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
7. The Word: abnegation
In Context: “If only Hans had taken my side! But the Icelander seemed to have renounced all will of his own and taken a vow of abnegation.” (p.207)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
8. The Word: contention
In Context: “Our feet…crushed fossils and bones of prehistoric animals whose rare and interesting remains are a subject of contention between the museums…” (p.209)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
9. The Word: ossuary
In Context: “A thousand Cuviers working all their lives could not have constructed all the skeletons which lay in that magnificent ossuary.” (p.209)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
10. The Word: patina
In Context: “Near it were found some stone axes and carved flints, all colored and clothed by the passage of time with a uniform patina.” (p.210)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
11. The Word: exhume
In Context: “Fresh remains exhumed from tertiary Pliocene terrain had enabled even bolder geologists to attribute a still greater age to the human race.” (p.211)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
12. The Word: anthropology (noun) or anthropological (adjective)
In Context: “’It is not just a skeleton, but an entire body, preserved for a purely anthropological purpose.’” (p.213)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
13. The Word: dissertation
In Context: “Nobody was smiling, but the Professor was so used to seeing faces light up…during his learned dissertations that he said this out of force of habit.” (p.214)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
14. The Word: refute
In Context: “For my uncle was quite right, and more learned men than his nephew would have been hard put to it to refute his statements.” (p.214)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
15. The Word: impel
In Context: “For another half hour we walked over these layers of bones, impelled by our burning curiosity.” (p.216)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
16. The Word: mastodon
In Context: “…it was a whole herd of gigantic animals, of mastodons…huge elephants whose trunks were twisting about under the trees like a legion of serpents.” (p.217)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
17. The Word: unkempt
In Context: “His head, which was as big as a buffalo’s, was half hidden in the tangled growth of his unkempt hair – a … mane, like that of the primitive elephant.” (p.218)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
18. The Word: panorama
In Context: “I thought I recognized…the grotto….then…the arrangement of the cliffs, the appearance of a stream, or the surprising outline of a rock plunged me back into doubt. I told my uncle about my bewilderment. Like myself…he could not find his bearings in this uniform panorama.” (p.220)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
19. The Word: poniard
In Context: “’This dagger is a sixteenth-century weapon, a real poniard such as gentlemen carried in their belts…’” (p.221)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
Writing Assignment:
Jules Verne’s title for chapter 39 is unique in that it could have a double meaning. Does “Man Alive” mean that a man thought dead shows up alive, or is it an interjection that could be used just as easily in the outburst, “Man alive! Look at the size of that monster”?
Other chapter titles from Journey to the Center of the Earth could have duplicity of meaning as well; for example, “I Find the Key,” “Slow Progress,” or “Saved.”
Your assignment is to write ten chapter titles (for any book, written or imaginary) that could have double meanings. Have fun!
Chapters 40-42
Synopsis:
Hans, Axel, and Professor Lidenbrock blast on.
Vocabulary:
1. The Word: rhapsody (noun) or rhapsodical (adjective)
In Context: “While these thoughts were whirling about in my head, Professor Lidenbrock was indulging in a somewhat rhapsodical panegyric on Arne Saknussemm.” (p.223)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
2. The Word: panegyric
In Context: “While these thoughts were whirling about in my head, Professor Lidenbrock was indulging in a somewhat rhapsodical panegyric on Arne Saknussemm.” (p.223)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
3. The Word: demur
In Context: “On the contrary, I actually suggested ‘burning our boats’ so as to cut off all possibility of retreat, but my uncle demurred.” (p.225)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
4. The Word: moor
In Context: “The raft, moored to the shore, was left by itself…” (p.225)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
5. The Word: obstruction
In Context: “The time had come to blast a way through the granite obstruction.” (p.228)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
6. The Word: imprudence
In Context: “…we had, by our imprudence, brought a whole sea along with us.” (p.230)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
7. The Word: dissipate
In Context: “The wick had burnt away, and we were plunged back into total darkness, which we had no hope of being able to dissipate.” (p.232)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
8. The Word: privation
In Context: “Consequently, after a long fast, a few mouthfuls of meat and biscuits banished the memory of our past privations.” (p.236)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
9. The Word: foundry
In Context: “Meanwhile the temperature was rising fast, and I felt bathed in a burning atmosphere like the heat given off by the furnace in the foundry when the molten metal is being poured into the molds.” (p.237)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
10. The Word: invincible
In Context: “Then an invincible terror took hold of me and would not be shaken off.” (p.238)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
11. The Word: catastrophe
In Context: “I felt that a catastrophe was approaching such as even the liveliest imagination could never have conceived.” (p.238)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
Writing Assignment:
none
Chapters 43-45
Synopsis:
The explorers find themselves riding a wave of heat – a wave which they ride to the end!
Vocabulary:
1. The Word: giddy
In Context: “The compass had gone mad! The needle was swinging jerkily from one pole to the other, indicating every point of the compass in turn, and spinning around as if it were giddy.” (p.239)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
2. The Word: agglomeration
In Context: “It was obvious that we were being carried upwards by an eruptive thrust; under the raft there was boiling water, and under that a whole mass of lava, an agglomeration of rocks, which, when expelled from the crater, would be scattered in all directions.” (p.241)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
3. The Word: lurid
In Context: “Soon lurid lights began to appear in the vertical gallery, which was growing wider; on both right and left I noticed deep corridors like huge tunnels from which thick clouds of vapor were pouring, while crackling tongues of flame were licking their walls.” (p.242)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
4. The Word: intermittent
In Context: “’This is a volcano with an intermittent eruption. It lets us draw breath every now and then at the same time as itself.’ This was perfectly true. At the given moment we were shot upwards again…then the thrust stopped.” (p.243)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
5. The Word: projectile
In Context: “All I know is that at each fresh impulse we were sent upwards with increased force as if we were on an actual projectile.” (p.243)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
6. The Word: orb
In Context: “We had come out of the crater half-naked, and the radiant orb, from which we had demanded nothing for two months, was lavishing a fierce light on us.” (p.245)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
7. The Word: lavish
In Context: “We had come out of the crater half-naked, and the radiant orb, from which we had demanded nothing for two months, was lavishing a fierce light on us.” (p.245)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
8. The Word: rectify
In Context: “When my eyes had grown accustomed to this brilliance with which they had become unfamiliar, I used them to rectify the errors of my imagination.” (pp.245-246)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
9. The Word: quagmire
In Context: “The sides of the volcano were extremely steep; we kept slipping into regular quagmires of ash, trying to avoid the streams of lava which wound down the mountain like fiery serpents.” (p.247)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
10. The Word: archipelago
In Context: “We were in the middle of the Mediterranean, in the heart of the Aeolian archipelago of mythological memory…and those blue mountains in the east were the mountains of Calabria!” (p.249)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
11. The Word: disdain (noun) or disdainfully (adverb)
In Context: “’Good Lord,’ I said disdainfully, ‘the best thing to do is not to explain it.’” (p.250)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
12. The Word: archives (noun)
In Context: “On the same day, he deposited Saknussemm’s document in the city archives and expressed his deep regret that circumstances, stronger than his will, had prevented him from following in the Dane’s footsteps to the very center of the earth.” (p.252)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
13. The Word: abdicate
In Context: “…my pretty Virlandaise, abdicating her position as ward, took her place in the Konigstrasse house in the dual capacity of niece and wife.” (p.254)
Guess the Meaning:________________________________________________________________
Dictionary Definition: ________________________________________________________________________
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Your Sentence: ________________________________________________________________________
Writing Assignment:
Book Report
(End Part 3)
About this teacher/author: Elaine Ernst Schneider is a teacher and freelance writer who has published articles, songs, and children’s work. She is the managing editor of Lesson Tutor. Elaine writes the City Songs column for www.newcolonist.com and is the author of 52 Children’s Moments, found at https://www.lessontutor.com/ltstore/ . She currently teaches and writes curriculum for several education companies.
*For more lesson plans or course outlines suitable for Grade 5 – 6 English Literature, click here.
