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Standard 3 : Vocabulary Acquisition and UseArchived
Cluster Standards

This cluster includes the following benchmarks.

Visit the specific benchmark webpage to find related instructional resources.

  • LAFS.1112.L.3.4 : Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grades 11–12 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.
    1. Use context (e.g., the overall meaning of a sentence, paragraph, or text; a word’s position or function in a sentence) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.
    2. Identify and correctly use patterns of word changes that indicate different meanings or parts of speech (e.g., conceive, conception, conceivable).
    3. Consult general and specialized reference materials (e.g., dictionaries, glossaries, thesauruses), both print and digital, to find the pronunciation of a word or determine or clarify its precise meaning, its part of speech, its etymology, or its standard usage.
    4. Verify the preliminary determination of the meaning of a word or phrase (e.g., by checking the inferred meaning in context or in a dictionary).
  • LAFS.1112.L.3.5 : Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.
    1. Interpret figures of speech (e.g., hyperbole, paradox) in context and analyze their role in the text.
    2. Analyze nuances in the meaning of words with similar denotations.
  • LAFS.1112.L.3.6 : Acquire and use accurately general academic and domain-specific words and phrases, sufficient for reading, writing, speaking, and listening at the college and career readiness level; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge when considering a word or phrase important to comprehension or expression.
Cluster Information
Number:
LAFS.1112.L.3
Title:
Vocabulary Acquisition and Use
Type:
Cluster
Subject:
English Language Arts - Archived
Grade:
1112
Strand
Language Standards
Cluster Access Points

This cluster includes the following Access Points.

Cluster Resources

Vetted resources educators can use to teach the concepts and skills in this topic.

Original Student Tutorials
  • Symbolism & Allegory in "The Devil and Tom Walker" (Part Two): Learn all about symbolism and allegory in this interactive tutorial. We'll use the classic short story "The Devil and Tom Walker" by Washington Irving to explore the use of symbolism and allegory as types of figurative language. We'll break down the events of the story and analyze how the use of symbolism contributes to the powerful allegory in this haunting tale. This tutorial is Part Two of a two-part series.

    Make sure to complete Part One first. Click HERE to launch Part One.

  • Symbolism & Allegory in "The Devil and Tom Walker" (Part One): Learn all about symbolism and allegory in this interactive tutorial. We'll use the classic short story "The Devil and Tom Walker" by Washington Irving to explore the use of symbolism and allegory as types of figurative language. We'll break down the events of the story and analyze how the use of symbolism contributes to the powerful allegory in this haunting tale. 

    In Part One, we'll cover some important background information and read the opening excerpts of the text. Make sure to complete both parts! Click HERE to launch Part Two.

  • Word Prodigy: Using Context Clues: Learn to use context clues to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words in this interactive tutorial. You'll learn how to identify and apply three important types of context clues: synonyms, antonyms, and inferences. This tutorial features passages about some of the world's most incredible child prodigies.

  • Vocabulary Unleashed: Learn 15 new academic vocabulary words in this interactive tutorial! You'll practice the words' synonyms, antonyms, parts of speech, and context clues in order to add them to your vocabulary.

  • Doppelganger Danger: Confusing Pronouns: Examine some commonly confused pronouns that often trick people into believing that they have the same meaning when their meanings can be very different. This interactive tutorial will help you properly use the following pronouns: who, whom, which, that, their, there, they're.

  • Doppelganger Danger: Words Commonly Confused: Avoid "doppelganger danger" as you examine six pairs of commonly confused words in this interactive tutorial. Learn how to correctly use these commonly confused words to improve your language and writing skills.

  • Doppelganger Danger: Commonly Confused Words: Avoid "doppelganger danger" as you examine six pairs of commonly confused words. Learning how to correctly use these commonly confused words will help improve your writing and mastery of English.

  • Complex Usage: Which Word Will Win?: Examine five pairs of commonly confused words in this interactive tutorial. This tutorial focuses on language and resolving issues of complex usage. You will examine pairs of words that are often confused in order to learn the correct use of each word. By the end of this tutorial, you should be able to accurately use these ten commonly confused words. 

  • Doppelganger Danger: Tricky Word Doubles: Avoid "doppelganger danger" as you examine fourteen homophones, which are words that sound the same but have different meanings and spellings. Learning how to use these homophones correctly in this interactive tutorial will help you avoid some of the most common usage mistakes.

  • Doppelganger Danger: Tricky Homophones: Avoid "doppelganger danger" as you examine eleven homophones, which are words that sound the same but have different meanings and spellings. Learning how to use these homophones correctly in this interactive tutorial will help you avoid some of the most common usage mistakes.

  • Doppelganger Danger: Words that Confuse: Avoid "doppelganger danger" as you examine twelve homophones, which are words that sound the same but have different meanings and spellings. Learning how to use these homophones correctly in this interactive tutorial will help you avoid some of the most common usage mistakes.

  • Playing with Words: Changing Word Forms: Learn how to transform words into other words, including nouns into verbs, verbs into adjectives, adjectives into adverbs, and much more with this interactive tutorial.

  • Vocabulary Mastery: Acquire 15 new vocabulary words, identify their parts of speech, synonyms, and antonyms, and use them in context with this interactive tutorial.

  • Vocabulary in Action: Acquire new vocabulary through this interactive tutorial. You'll learn the definitions for 15 new words, as well as their parts of speech, their synonyms and antonyms, and you'll practice using them in context.

  • Language Liaisons: A Relationship Between Words: Explore word relationships by identifying and interpreting various figures of speech in context. In this interactive tutorial, you'll analyze the use of several kinds of figures of speech, including hyperbole and paradox. You'll also analyze the nuances in the meaning of words with similar definitions. 

  • Vocabulary Power: Acquire 15 new vocabulary words, identify their parts of speech, synonyms, and antonyms, and use them in context with this interactive tutorial.

  • Wild Words: Analyzing the Extended Metaphor in "The Stolen Child": Learn to identify and analyze extended metaphors using W.B. Yeats' poem, "The Stolen Child." In this interactive tutorial, we'll examine how Yeats uses figurative language to express the extended metaphor throughout this poem. We'll focus on his use of these seven types of imagery: visual, auditory, gustatory, olfactory, tactile, kinesthetic, and organic. Finally, we'll analyze how the poem's extended metaphor conveys a deeper meaning within the text.

  • Into the Wild: Close Encounters with Unfamiliar Words: Learn several strategies for determining the meaning of unfamiliar words as you read about the late Dian Fossey's research on mountain gorillas. This interactive tutorial will also help you identify common prefixes and how they affect the meaning of words.

Educational Game
Lesson Plans
  • A Need for Sleep: A Close Reading of a Soliloquy from King Henry IV, Part II: In this lesson, students will consider the literary elements Shakespeare uses to communicate King Henry's inability to sleep. Students will analyze how diction, tone, syntax, and imagery help to convey King Henry's state of mind, and will write a short response to outline their analysis, using text to support their answers.

  • Advice to Youth - A Satire by Mark Twain: Students will read and analyze the satire in Mark Twain's, "Advice to Youth." Students will answer text-dependent questions and write a short analysis regarding how Twain uses satire to support his claim.

  • Shakespearean Soliloquy Fluency: A Close Reading and Analysis of "To be or not to be": In this lesson, students will perform multiple close readings of the well-known "To be or not to be" soliloquy from William Shakespeare's Tragedy of Hamlet. Students will then write two paragraphs to show their analysis of Shakespeare’s use of figurative language and its effect on the text.

  • The Modernist Struggle: Figurative Language and Repetition in T. S. Eliot’s Prufrock: Students examine the poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," and determine the mood of the poem from figurative language and repetitive elements contained in the poem.

  • "Lonesome for a Change": Close Reading an excerpt from Their Eyes Were Watching God: In this lesson, students will read and mark the text to analyze layers of meaning within figurative language and symbolism. The close reading and provided questions lead students to develop interpretations of Janie's character as she reflects on her past and realizes she likes "being lonesome for a change."

  • Propaganda Techniques in Literature and Online Political Ads: After reading or viewing a text, students are introduced to propaganda techniques and then identify examples in the text. Students discuss these examples, and then explore the use of propaganda in popular culture by looking at examples in the media. Students identify examples of propaganda techniques used in clips of online political advertisements and explain how the techniques are used to persuade voters. Next, students explore the similarities of the propaganda techniques used in the literary text and in the online political ads to explain the commentary the text is making about contemporary society. Finally, students write a persuasive essay in support of a given statement.

    In this lesson, some specific references are made to Brave New World as examples. A text list suggests additional novels, short stories, plays, and movies that will also work for this activity.

  • Symmetry in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: This lesson plan explores symmetry in the structure and themes of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," delving into the antagonist's representation of the "duality of nature." In examining knightly virtues, students will measure Gawain's strength as the poem's hero. The lesson explains background information that every medieval thinker listening to a performance of the poem would know, in an effort to put the student into the mind-set of the medieval audience, providing a deeper appreciation and understanding of the work.

  • "The American Puritan Tradition: Part III": This lesson is part three of a three-part unit that will explore and analyze how different authors convey American Puritanism. In this lesson, students plan to write and then complete an essay to explore how two different authors and texts portray American Puritanism, Jonathan Edwards in “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and Arthur Miller in “The Crucible.”

  • The American Puritan Tradition: Part II: This lesson is part two of a three lesson unit that will explore and analyze how different authors convey American Puritanism. In lessons two of this unit, students will analyze key literary elements and Miller’s use of rhetoric to create mood in the play, "The Crucible."

  • The American Puritan Tradition: Part 1: This lesson is part one of three in a unit that will explore and analyze how American Puritanism has been represented in different texts. The goal of this lesson is for students to analyze the central idea and how the authors' style (figurative language, persuasive techniques) contributes to establishing and achieving the purpose in "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."

  • Poetry Analysis and Time Periods: Students will analyze how Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson each used figurative language to develop a specific tone in relation to mortality. They will also consider how each poet reflected the time periods within which they wrote.

  • Dealing with Grief: A Comparison of Tone and Theme:

    In this four-part lesson series, students will delve into the topic of grief through analysis of poetic devices, form, and point of view in poems by Emily Dickinson and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Students will connect theme to the poets’ viewpoints on the emotions, or the lack thereof, that one experiences during times of pain and loss. Students will read the poems multiple times to seek layers of meaning and write an in-depth analysis.

  • Poetry Analysis Lesson 1: Figurative Language Creates Tone: Students will read Emily Dickinson poems, complete text marking and annotations of the poems, and write a response that explains their analysis of how Emily Dickinson uses figurative language to create tone.

  • Poetry Analysis Lesson 2: Figurative Language and Theme: Students will identify and analyze how two authors use figurative language to support the themes of each of their poems. Students will complete text marking and annotations to show their analysis of each, and will write a response that explains their analysis of each.

Teaching Ideas
  • Analyzing Grammar Pet Peeves: This teaching idea is designed to help students analyze grammar pet peeves. Students begin by thinking about their own grammar pet peeves and then read a "Dear Abby" column in which she lists several grammar pet peeves of her own. Students become aware that attitudes about race, social class, moral and ethical character and 'proper' language use are intertwined and that rants such as this one reveal those attitudes. Finally, students discuss the pet peeves as a class while gaining an understanding that issues of race, class, combined with audience expectations, help to determine what is considered 'proper' language use.

  • Langston Hughes' Drafts of "Ballad of Booker T.": Exploring the Creative Process: This teaching idea involves analysis of original drafts and edits that Langston Hughes made to the poem "Ballad of Booker T." The Library of Congress site provides a primary source analysis tool, teacher guides, and supplemental resources about Booker T. Washington.
  • Decoding the Matrix: Exploring Dystopian Characteristics through Film: In this lesson, students are introduced to the definition and characteristics of a dystopian work by watching video clips from The Matrix and other dystopian films. They first explore the definition and characteristics of utopian and dystopian societies, and then compare and contrast the two using a Venn diagram online tool. Next, they identify the protagonist in clips from The Matrix and then discuss how the clips extend and confirm their understanding of a dystopia. Students then view additional film clips and identify which characteristics of a dystopian society the clip is intended to portray. Finally, they explore how they can apply their knowledge about dystopias to future readings.

Unit/Lesson Sequence
  • Analyzing a Famous Speech: After gaining skill through analyzing a historic and contemporary speech as a class, students will select a famous speech from a list compiled from several resources and write an essay that identifies and explains the rhetorical strategies that the author deliberately chose while crafting the text to make an effective argument. Their analysis will consider questions such as: What makes the speech an argument?, How did the author's rhetoric evoke a response from the audience?, and Why are the words still venerated today?