Week 1.2 learning and using new words

1. Learning and Using New
Words
WEEK 1.2

2. “Some purple gnats are starting to tango on
microwave”.

3. What’s the point of learning and
using new words?

4. Next to each photograph, predict how learning new words
relates to reading and writing in academic life, everyday life,
and working life.

5. Next to each photograph, predict how learning new words relates
to reading and writing in academic life, everyday life, and working
life.
Learning and using new words in academic courses
raises comprehension and improves writing.
In order to conduct personal business such as buying
a car, it is important to learn and understand the
legal terms of contract.
A businessperson uses words effectively to perform
well and advance responsibility and pay.

6. What’s the point of learning and using
new words?
Learning and using new words increases our ability
to understand and share ideas in academic classes,
communicate as we make purchases in everyday
life, and achieve success on the job.

7. Employ Context Clues to Comprehend and
Make a Point
S A G E
Synonyms Antonyms General Context Examples

8. Synonyms
 A synonym is a word that has a meaning similar to that of
another word.
 Many times, a writer will place a synonym near a new or difficult
word or term as a context clue to the world’s meaning. Usually, a
synonym is set off with a signal word and a pair of commas, a
pair of dashes, or a pair of parentheses before or after it.
 Synonym signal words: OR, THAT, IS

9. Practice
 The following text explores the connection between our dreams and the reality of our
everyday life.
 Before reading, skim the passage and underline the terms in bold and italic.
 During reading, circle the signal words for each synonym and underline the synonym for
the word in bold or italics.
 After reading, complete the “Write to Learn: Synonyms as Context Clues” chart with
key terms, their synonyms from the passage, and an example that you have observed
or experienced.
 Finally, write a response to the after reading question that follows the passage.

10. You may have wondered whether dreams, especially those that frighten us or that recur, have hidden meanings. Sigmund Freud
believed that dreams function to satisfy unconscious sexual and aggressive desires. Because such wishes are unacceptable to the dreamer,
they have to be disguised and therefore appear in dreams in symbolic or representative forms. Freud differentiated between manifest
content of a dream --- the straightforward material of the dream as recalled by the dreamer --- and the latent content – or the
underlying, hidden meaning of the dream – which he considered more significant.
Beginning the 1950s, psychologists began to move away from the Freudian interpretation of dreams. For example, Hall (1953)
proposed a cognitive theory of dreaming – that is dreaming is simply thinking while asleep. Hobson and McCarley (1977) advanced the
activation—synthesis hypothesis of dreaming. This hypothesis or explanation suggests that dreams are simply the brain’s attempt to make
sense of input from the environment during their waking hours, they try to find meaning in the synthesis (combination) of sensations and
memories that are activated, or triggered internally by this random firing of brain cells. Hobson (1989) believes that dreams also have
psychological significance, because the meaning a person imposes on the random mental activity reflects that person’s experiences, remote
memories, associations, drives, and fears.
Some dream experts suggest that dreams may have more meaning than Hobson and McCarley originally theorized. A survey
questioning subjects about their dream content, for example, concluded that much of the content of dreams is meaningful, consistent over
time, and fits in with past or present emotional concerns rather than being bizarre, meaningless and random (Damhoff, 1996, 2005).
Hobson and colleagues have reworked the activation-synthesis hypothesis to reflect concerns about dream meaning, calling it the
activation-information mode model, or AIM (Hobson, et al., 2000). In this newer version, information that is accessed during waking hours
can have an influence on the synthesis of dreams. In other words, when the brain is “making up” a dream to explain its own activation , it
uses meaningful bits and pieces of the person’s experiences from the previous day or last few days rather than just random items from
memory.
INTERPRETING
DREAMS

12. Write to Learn: Synonyms as Context Clues
Key Term Synonym Example
1. Symbolic
2. Manifest content
3. Latent content
4. Hypothesis
5. synthesis

13. Write to Learn: Synonyms as Context Clues
Key Term Synonym Example
1. Symbolic representative A wedding ring represents love and
commitment.
2. Manifest content Straightforward material I recently dreamed I was a little child
climbing a ladder from my garage
that disappeared into the sky.
3. Latent content Underlying, hidden meaning A ladder disappearing into the sky
could be life after death, success, or
overcoming a problem.
4. Hypothesis Explanation theory I have studied other scientific theories
or hypotheses about evolution and
relativity.
5. synthesis combination My dream combined details from my
childhood and objects that I currently
own.

14. What is the connection between our dreams
and our waking life?
Experts offer several theories about the connection between our dreams and our waking life. Freud
believed that our dreams are ways we work out unconscious sexual desires and aggression. He
believed our emotions greatly influence our dreams. Other experts believe that our physical brains
create our dreams. When we sleep, brain cells activate physical feelings and memories and create
dreams that make sense of that information. The activation-information mode model explains that our
recent experiences become meaningful details in our dreams. A recent dream of mine is an example.
The manifest content was that I was a child climbing a ladder that disappeared into the sky. The
dream synthesized details of my appearance as a child with a ladder I now own. I think anxiety
about my new job triggered the dream. The child may represent my new life with a new job. The
ladder may symbolize my hope and success. The latent content could be that I want to be successful in
my new job.

15. Antonyms
An antonym has the opposite meaning of another word. Antonyms help you
understand a word's meaning by showing what the original word is nt. Writers use
antonyms to make a more vivid or powerful and to guide the reader to understand
a deeper meaning. The following contrast words often act as signals that an
antonym is being used.
Antonym signal words:
but however in contrast instead
not on the other hand unlike yet

16.  Assume you are continuing your study of the
theme of perception and reality. Skim the
following passage from a philosophy textbook to
preview the terms in bold print.
 During reading, circle the words for antonyms
and underline the key terms and their synonyms.
 After reading, complete the vocabulary chart.
 Finally, write a response to the after reading
question that follows the passage.
An Introduction to Metaphysics
Metaphysics is an area of philosophy that tries to
answer this question: What is reality? Metaphysics seeks to
discover general standardized criteria for what is real and
how that differs from what may seem to be real but
actually is not.
The distinction between appearance and reality is
already familiar to us, of course, through common sense and
ordinary language. That is, we know what someone means
who says that the building appeared to be structurally
sound, but really was severely damaged by termites. What
philosophers try to do is explain this difference that is, to
say why something is said to be real, or what counts as
reality; in short, to state clearly the standards or criteria for
wat is real.
Metaphysics is by far the most ancient branch of
philosophy, beginning with pre Socratic Milesian philosopher-
scientists (sixth century B.C.E.), who proposed a system of
methods to study observable rather than unseen entities. They
speculated on the “ageless, deathless” substance underlying
the changing temporal world. Some thought this was water,
others air, and still others felt there had to be more than one
basic ingredient in order to account for the enormous variety
of things in the world. For many centuries this occupied the
central place in philosophy. Originally called First Philosophy,
metaphysics was thought to be the necessary starting point, or
foundation, for all the other areas of philosophy. Before one
could reasonably decide in moral philosophy, one must
consider the nature of values. For example, if values are
relative opposed to absolute, one must first decide whether
values are the kind of thing that can exist independently of
human perception. If so, then values could indeed be absolute,
but if not, then all values would be relative to an individual’s or
a society’s point of view. Similarly, before one could
reasonably speculate on the fate of the soul after death, one
would first have to determine if there is a soul. In this sense
metaphysics was seen as the most fundamental part of
philosophy, presupposed by all the rest.

17. Metaphysics, then attempts to determine the difference between appearance
and reality. However, one may ask, “Is it not obvious what is real and what is not?”
Reality is what one can touch, see, feel, smell, taste, and hear. This definition of reality
establishes what can be discovered by the five senses as the basis for what is real.
This theory of knowledge is called empiricism. Empirical knowledge is the kind of
knowledge that comes from the senses. But since there are other plausible criteria for
reality that may conflict with the empiricist criterion, it is clearly not obvious that
reality is limited to what we can see and touch. In opposition to empiricism is a view
of reality known as rationalism. Rationalism relies on intellect or reason, not the
senses, as the source of knowledge. What is most real is what we know through the
intellect. In this sense one might conclude that the chemical elements that make up the
physical world are more real then the objects that they comprise. The wood is
converted into paper and the paper finally burned, but the particles of carbon, which
existed all along, linter on in the air. One could then go a step further and reason that
since the chemical elements are made out of still simpler elements (atoms and
molecules), these entities are more real than the chemical elements of which they are
a part.

18.  Assume you are continuing your study of the
theme of perception and reality. Skim the
following passage from a philosophy textbook to
preview the terms in bold print.
 During reading, circle the words for antonyms
and underline the key terms and their synonyms.
 After reading, complete the vocabulary chart.
 Finally, write a response to the after reading
question that follows the passage.

20. Write to Learn: Antonyms as Context Clues
Key Term Antonym Example
1. reality
2. Observable
3. Absolute
4. Empiricism
5. reason

21. Write to Learn: Antonyms as Context Clues
Key Term Antonym Example
1. reality appearance Key term: Things as they exist.
Antonym: Things as they seem to be.
2. Observable unseen Key term: seen
Antonym: unnoticed, invisible, hidden
3. Absolute Relative Key term: independent
Antonym: dependent
4. Empiricism Rationalism Key term: knowledge based on the senses
Antonym: knowledge based on reason
5. reason senses Key term: intellect
Antonym: feelings

22. How may metaphysics help us explain our dreams?

23. General Context
 Often you will find that the writer has chosen not to provide either a synonym clue
or an antonym clue. In that case, the writer expects the reader to rely on the
general context of that passage to understand the meaning of the unfamiliar
word. This involves either reading the entire sentence or looking ahead in the text
for information that will help clarify the meaning of the new word.
 Information about the word can be included in the passage in several ways.
Sometimes, a writer gives a definition. Other times, a writer uses vivid description
of a situation to convey the word’s meaning. A reader has to use logic to figure
out the meaning of the word.

24. Example
 Read the following poem that, according to some critics, depicts a
nightmare.
 Before you read the poem and predict the meaning of the word
vagabonds.
 During reading, underline the cues to the meaning of the title.
 After reading, complete the vocabulary graphic organizer and write a
response to the after reading question.

25. “Vagabonds” by Arthur Rimbaud
Pitiful brother – the dreadful nights I owed him! “I've got no real
involvement in the business. I toyed with his weakness, so –it was my
fault--- we wound up back in exile and enslavement.
He saw me a loser, a weird child; he added his own prods.
I answered my satanic doctor, jeering, and made it out the window. All
down a landscape crossed by unheard-of music, I spun my dreams of
a nighttime wealth o come.
After that more or less healthy pastime, I’d stretch out on a pallet. And
Almost every night, soon as I slept, my poor brother would rise – dry mouth and
Bulging eyes (the way he’d dreamt himself!)---and haul me into the room, howling his stupid
dream.
Truly convinced, I’d vowed to take him back to his primal state --- child of the sun--- and so we
wandered,
fed on wine from the caves and gypsy bread, me bound to find the place itself and the code.

26. “Vagabonds” by Arthur Rimbaud
Pitiful brother – the dreadful nights I owed him! “I've got no real
involvement in the business. I toyed with his weakness, so –it was my
fault--- we wound up back in exile and enslavement.
He saw me a loser, a weird child; he added his own prods.
I answered my satanic doctor, jeering, and made it out the window. All
down a landscape crossed by unheard-of music, I spun my dreams of
a nighttime wealth o come.
After that more or less healthy pastime, I’d stretch out on a pallet. And
Almost every night, soon as I slept, my poor brother would rise – dry mouth and
Bulging eyes (the way he’d dreamt himself!)---and haul me into the room, howling his stupid
dream.
Truly convinced, I’d vowed to take him back to his primal state --- child of the sun--- and so we
wandered,
fed on wine from the caves and gypsy bread, me bound to find the place itself and the code.

28. • Made it out the
window
• stretch out on a pallet
wandered
• bound to find
• Pitiful
• No
involvement
• Loser
• weird
Exile and
enslavement
A gypsy

29. Answer the following question in the given space. Use the information
from the chart you completed. Based on the details given in this poem --- the
manifest content of nightmare --- how does Rimbaud define the word
vagabonds?
 The manifest content of vagabonds are images of them as
“pitiful”…loser…weird,” with “no involvement”, gypsies in “exile
government”. They wander…to find “a place, crawl out windows,
and stretch out on pallets. “Vagabonds are drifters outside of
society.

30. Examples
 Many times a writer will state the meaning of a new or difficult word and
then provide examples of it. To further clarify, a writer may also include
examples of what the word is not. The following signal words often
introduces an example.
 Signal words:
Consists of for example for instance including such as

31. Example
 Assume you are continuing your studies on the theme of perception and
reality.
 Read the following article.
 Before reading, skim the passage and underline the key terms each time they
are repeated.
 During reading, circle examples of the terms.
 After reading, complete the vocabulary graphic organizer.
 Then write a response to the after reading question.

32. Why Zombies, Robots and
Clowns Freak Us out
What do zombies and androids have in common? They’re almost human, but not quite. That
disconnect is creepy, in a way that scientists are searching to understand.
The uncanny valley is the idea that as a robot’s appearance becomes more and more humanlike, we
don’t always respond to it more positively. Rather, there’s a point on the scale between robot and human
where we are repulsed. If it’s mechanical but not entirely human, a robot seems disturbing.
Why would that be? It would make sense that as human likeness increases in a robot, so would our
comfort with it. But on a graph showing that relationship, there’s a “valley” where this familiarity dips
down into creepiness, and then comes back up again with more human characteristics.
You may have experienced feeling this while watching animated movies that incorporate humanlike
forms. It’s also the reason that you might get freaked out by clowns or by photos of people with extreme
plastic surgeries who don’t look quite real anymore. Our brains come to an impasse when we see
something that resembles a member of our species but just doesn’t make the cut.
Some animators sidestep the issue: in the movie “WALL-E” for example, the main character has
eyes but is not very humanlike otherwise; he is clearly a robot. His friend, EVE, looks like a white shape
with eyes. Both express emotions clearly but don’t try to mimic the human shape or form. And HAL 9000
from: 2001: A Space Odyssey” is just a red camera eye, but it too conveys feelings.
But when you get more humanlike, things get weird. Some reviewers were put off by characters in
the film “Polar Express”, for instance.
Then there are the Na’vi in “Avatar”, who have many physical human characteristics in addition to
morphed features and tails. But they are also blue, creating a sense of “otherness” that may have made
them less distasteful to viewers – in other words, they were sufficiently un-human.

34. Key term: Uncanny Valley ____________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________

35. zombies
Androids, humanlike
robots
clowns
Extreme plastic surgeries
Polar Express characters
WALL-E
EVE, WALL-E’s friend
HAL 9000, from 2001
A Space Odyssey
Na’vi, in Avatar
Key term: Uncanny Valley is the idea that as character of object’s appearance becomes more
and more humanlike, we reach a point where we are repulsed.

36. Use the information from the chart you
completed.
 How does the “uncanny valley” engage empirical knowledge in our attempt to
make the distinction between appearance and reality?
 Answer
Empirical knowledge is based on the information we gain from our five senses. The
uncanny valley comes into play through our sense of sight. When we see an image
of something like a zombie or an android that looks almost human, but isn’t, we
are uncomfortable with the visual distortion; it creeps us out.