Grade 9-10: Vocabulary Lesson for Thursday, Week 9

Word List 9

1. crucial: extremely significant or important; vital to the resolution of a crisis; decisive
2. culminate: to reach the highest point or degree; climax; to come to completion; end
3. deface: to mar or spoil the appearance or surface of; disfigure; to impair the usefulness, value, or influence of
4. deplore: to feel or express strong disapproval of; condemn; to express sorrow or grief over; to regret; bemoan
5. desolate: devoid of inhabitants; deserted; barren; lifeless; rendered unfit for habitation or use; dreary; dismal; bereft of friends or ho
6. disgruntled: to make discontented
7. enigma: one that is puzzling, ambiguous, or inexplicable; a perplexing speech or text; a riddle

Thursday Activities

1. Test yourself with this link, Easy TestMaker. You will have to create an account to save your tests. Read the directions and create your own test. You can choose from many formats. We suggest you try "Fill in the blank" and make up a sentence using your vocabulary word. You can download it into Word if you wish. Print out the test you created and complete it. Insert it into your notebook.
2. Word Scrambler - Click on the link and create your own word scrambler with your vocabulary words. Type in the number of words you wish to scramble and press the "next" buton. You will see a sheet that has the answers for you. Press next again and print out the page. Complete it and put it in your notebook.
3. Go to the Spelling City website. Type in your list of vocabulary words. Click on the button that says Play A Game. Select Which Word. Play the game and write down the fill-in-the-blank sentences in your notebook.

Other Help

If you need more information on your words, click on the link to use a on-line dictionary.

Use the daily activities to help you remember words that you learn each week. It is much easier to remember what the words mean if you do something with them and use them frequently in talking with your parents, family and friends.

Sample sentences:

Attention to the smallest detail is crucial to success in rock climbing.
The air attack prior to the beginning of a ground invasion proved to be crucial to the invasion.

Our Spring sports season will culminate with the sports award banquet.
The State department carefully watched the developments in our former allied nation, fearful that the unrest there may culminate in revolution.

If you deface a coin by drilling a hole in it you haven't broken the law.
Deface a building by spraying graffiti on it and you might get arrested.

Saying that we deplore the actions of a government will do no good if no one speaks out.
I deplore your choice but I defend your right to make that choice.

Astronauts describe the moons surface as beautiful but desolate.
I couldn't have chosen a more desolate place for my car to break down.

My neighbor is a grumpy, disgruntled old man.
Many fans spent the off season disgruntled at their teams failure to make the playoffs.

For weeks the sudden acceleration of that kind of car remained an unsolved enigma.
Winston Churchill compared Russia to a riddle wrapped in an enigma.

 
 

For more vocabulary, reading and other language arts resources, please visit our interactive skillbuilders.