Wednesday, April 21, 2010

See You Next Year

I've been getting some questions about why we are not updating this blog right now. The Word Power class only meets during the first half of the year, so I don't have any students in this course right now, but we will be back and adding more information to our blog next year.

If you are interested, starting the week of May 1, 2010 I will have a class developing an American Literature Circles Blog at: piercelitcircles@blogspot.com. Please check out my new student work here.

Thanks for your support, Lori Pierce

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Root Words Bell and Dia

Bell
*Bell: war or warlike

Example words containing Bell:
- Belligerence: warlike or aggressively hostile nature, condition, or attitude
The belligerent man made quite a fool of himself when he attempted to clash with a man twice his size.
- Antebellum: before or existing before the war; esp. civil war
While we were in Georgia, we toured several large and stately antebellum houses.
- Bellicose: inclined or eager to fight; aggressively hostile; pugnacious
Unfortunately, the United States has been seen as a bellicose nation by some who believe we are antagonizing fights with many other countries.
- Rebel: a person who refuses allegiance to, resists, or rises in arms against the government or ruler of his or her country
Anarchy has been a popular idea amongst rebellious and naive young people in the recent years.

Interesting History:
The Roman Goddess of war is Bellonia. She is not a well known goddess; her husband Mars, God of war, is more commonly known. Bellum, her namesake, is the Latin word for war. Bellonia was believed to invoke war-like frenzy and enthusiasm, so when the countries or people who worshiped her were going to war they would offer up sacrifices such as their own blood, limbs, organs or their enemies. Temples ands shrines dedicated to her have been found in the north-eastern parts of Rome, where she was the most widely worshiped.

brie

Dia

*Dia: across; through

Example words containing Dia:
- Diaspora: the movement, migration or scattering of a people away from an established or ancestral homeland
The harsh transportation of African people from their homeland to the rest of the world as slaves was a major Diaspora that displaced millions of people.
- Diathermy: the production of heat in body tissues by electric currents, for therapeutic purposes
Every Thursday my aunt has to go to the therapist so for diathermy because she has terrible muscle spasms.
- Diagnosis: the process of determining by examination the nature and circumstances of a diseased condition
The doctor told the old man that his diagnosis was very positive and that the man would only have to be in the hospital for three days.
- Diameter: a straight line passing through the center of a circle or sphere and meeting the circumference or surface at each end
In geometry class, we are learning how to find the diameter of a circle using the radius and pi.
- Diagonal: connecting two nonadjacent angles or vertices of a polygon or polyhedron, as a straight line
We constructed the diagonal of the squares to make boxes with an X’s in them.

Examples of how to use Dia:

The diagnosis of the exact place where the human race began is quite a mystery. Some historians believe that Africa is where the human race began, but others believe that India or other places in Asia could be the motherland of humans. It is difficult to discern where people came from because humans are very mobile creatures who are constantly moving around. Wherever humans originated from there has been a massive Diaspora throughout the history of their race as people have traveled throughout the world and all along the diameter of the Earth. Today, humans are living on every possible land mass, in every diagonal corner of every country, with millions of different lifestyles and customs.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Prefixes

Over the coarse of the trimester, I have spent a lot of the time in a class called Advance word power. In this class we learned many thing such as roots. But the newest thing that we have learned is prefixes. Prefixes are an affix placed before a base of a word. Below is a list of prefixes and their meaning;

a/an- Without

ab/abs - away

ad/ac/af/ag/an/ap/ar/ar/as/at- Toward

ambi- both

ante- before

anthro- man

anti- against

arm- weapon

audio- sound

auto- moving

biblio- book

bio- self

cata- down

circum- around

co- together

con/com- come together

cred- belief

de- down, away

demi- half

dia- across

dis/dys- bad

ex- out

extra/exter- outside

frate- brother

geo- earth

graph- record

hetero- different

homo- the same

hyper- excessive

ideo- idea

idios- one’s own

in- in/ not

inter- between

legis- law

liber- free

micro- small

mis - wrong

mono- one

mortis- death

neo- new

non- not

omni- all

pat- father

ped- walking

poly - many

post- after

pre - before

re- again

semi- part

sol- alone

subter- underground

super- extra

syn- together

tele- distance

trans- across

un- not

uni- one

vert/vers- all around
Austin

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Fus

Many of English words come from many other languages and cultures. We use them every day and don't realize how each word comes from. The word Fus is another root word of English which comes from the Latin makes up many words means pour. Here are nine meanings and examples for Fus.
1. Effuse (Verb) – To pour out or forth.
o He effuses warmth and friendliness.
o Maria effuses her knowledge in science class.

2. Effusive (Adjective) – Unduly demonstrative, lacking reserve.
o My ant is a very effusive person and gushes and gushes about how good you look when she meet you.
o Normally phlegmatic hacks find themselves melting into rivulets of tears and effusive praise.
o They can vary from small exotic arrangements to large effusive ones.

3. Profuse (Adjective) – Abundant; in great amount; extravagant.
o No wonder that dancing and profuse perspiration was esteemed a necessary add-on to feeding!
o He spends profuse amounts of money on cloths.
o I apologized profusely after bumping into other shopping and knocking her over.

4. Profusion (Noun) – Abundance or large amount.
o There was a profusion of flowers at the Botanical Garden.
o It is rated one of the top game reserves in the world with a unique profusion of wildlife.
o A profusion of rich pink flowers cover the plant in summer.

5. Diffuse (Verb) – To spread out thinly or widely.
o Sun light is diffused when it shined through glass.
o More recently his research has concerned with water quality in relation to diffuse pollution and its mitigation through the completion of best management practice.
o We feel addressing the problems with a structured and planned strategy for the future will diffuse the pension time bomb.

6. Confuse (Verb) – to make something unable to think clearly or understand.
o The rumors and angry charges tended to confuse the issue.
o The result just leaves the viewer confused as to what the show is trying to be.
o Everyone were confused why John dead.

7. Fusillade (Noun) - A simultaneous or rapid and continuous discharge of many firearms.
o In addition to the slaying of Super Man, the member of the audience was wounded by the fusillade of shots.
o He commenced a regular fusillade on the house, smashing nearly the whole of the windows, besides damaging the framework.
o An assassin makes a Fusillade into the president house; he was lucky because he went shopping.

8. Fusion (Noun) - A fusing or melting together.
o Like all stars, the sun generates its energy by a nuclear process known as thermonuclear fusion.
o An excellent fusion of funk, Latin and jazz which took his audience into the early hours of the morning.
o This is equally the case with back specialists, many of whom still favor spinal fusion for chronic low back pain.

9. Suffuse (V) – To spread all over or through something.
o Massive numbers of factual errors suffuse the book, which make it a veritable minefield.
o The light is suffused with color from a couple of notable windows in the north aisle.
o The whole film has the feeling of being projected at two-thirds speed, so suffused is it with this overwhelming sense of ponderousness.

VOC means Sound or Speaking

VOC


VOC means sound or speaking. VOC is the Greek/Latin root word. There are many root words that we have learned. For instance, Vol, Bel, SAT or SATIS, TEN, VIT or VIV and FUS. This root word will help you if you see any word that have a root word VOC in the word you will know that the word is about sound or speaking. Here are some words and the examples that have a root word VOC.

Equivocal (adjective): Allowing the possibility of several different meanings.
-Politicians are famed for providing equivocal answers to straight questions.
-One of a student in my classroom has an equivocal answer; he doesn’t know the answer when the teacher asks him.

Equivocate (Verb): to use ambiguous or unclear expressions, usually to avoid commitment or in order to mislead.
-When asked for his opinion on the death penalty he equivocated.
-The suspect equivocates when a police ask him the question.

Vociferous (adjective): crying out noisily; clamorous.
-A vociferous scream reverberated off the nearby walls.
-His son always makes a vociferous noise and it is annoying me when I hear it.

Provocative (adjective): tending or serving to provoke or incite.
-Carol asked a question in class that was so controversial the teacher thought it was too provocative to discuss.
-My provocative conversation makes my friend punches on my face.

Convocation (Noun): a group of people gathered in answer to a summons; assembly.
-My friends who studied in high school come into the convocation for meeting.
-One of my colleague was fired; he usually comes late for the convocation.

Evocative (adjective): tending to evoke.
-The movie was so evocative that I cried.
-The picture that my son draws is so evocative of my past.

Vocalize (Verb): to make vocal; utter articulate; sing; to endow with a voice; cause to utter.
- I feel so impressed that the singers could vocalize the music perfectly.
-My sister’s band has the best singer in the world; he vocalizes the melodious music.

My older brother is a bad boy; he usually skips the class and never does his homework. When the teacher asks him a question, he always has an equivocal answer. He likes to annoy me. When his provocative conversation makes me angry, I malign to my father that he harms to me and when he asks, my brother equivocates. My father punishes him by incarcerating him in his room for 3 days. When I walk past his room, I hear a vociferous noise from his room. I think he is vocalizing but he is crying. It is so evocative that I laugh. My father interdicts me from opening his door but he is going to the convocation in that time. I open it to talk to him and finally, I condone his behavior.

These are the examples of the root word VOC. It’s very useful if you remember all of these words or you can just remember the root word VOC which means sound. So if you see any word that has a root word VOC, remember it means SOUND OR SPEAKING.





By Too

Penelope Kapusta

Hi I’m Erika, and this story is about a girl named Penelope who is practically the perfect women and lives the perfect life. She achieved everything she wanted in life. The point of this story was to use the root words Viv-Vit which means to be alive or full of life, to be lively. The root words, relate to the personality of the main character, Penelope.





Penelope Kapusta is a 23 year old woman who lives in New York, New York. Her father is the owner of Virgin records and her husband is the guitar player for Three Days Grace. Penelope isn’t your typical type of girl. When you see her, you see a beautiful tall brunette sense of fashion and charm. Her personality is full of vitality; she’s always smiling and lively. Because of her vivacious personality and beauty inside and out, she was named Miss Latina 2010. She now has a contract with Victoria Secret, which means she travels all over the world. She’s been everywhere, to L.A to Tokyo and Madrid.

People quickly fall in love with her. She is full of love, joy, peace, patience, and most important of them all is that she respects herself. There’s one thing about her personality that makes her stand out the most, she has a relationship with Jesus Christ. She’s known Jesus since the day she was born. She tries the best to spread his gospel. She knows how vital it is to spread his word. It’s for people to have a revival in their life. Her and her husband used to go to random places and sing Christian songs. Joe, her husband, plays the guitar and she sings. She has a very beautiful voice. It’s very similar o Christina’s Aguilera’s. Their favorite song to sing is “I want to hold your hand”, the Across the Universe version, She sings that song perfectly. One time a teenage girl started to cry because of the beauty of her voice. She got asked if she wanted a record deal, and she’s working on it now.

On February 14, Valentines Day, Penelope and Joe went to a retirement home to sing for the old folks. It was such a special day, in the middle of the song, everyone got in couples and began to dance. After the show, Joe gave her a kiss in front of all the audience, and sang her a song on how much he loved her while playing his guitar.

Penelope finally finished her album. When it got out, it was #1 on the billboard charts for a month. She quickly became famous and was loved by everyone. She was on every Magazine cover. She became a world sensation along with her husband Joe. They would go to every award show together. They would both be nominated for different categories. On the Grammies, Penelope was nominated 8 times. She took four awards that night. The message on her songs was always about love and peace. It had rhythm and beat. She did a world tour. It was the first time she was away from her husband. They’d call each other every night. They missed each other very much.

On March 20, it was to be their anniversary. They were going to meet each other in Italy Rome. Joe was very romantic; he wanted to take Penelope to Italy because that was her favorite place to go. Joe decided to get her a cute, white, fluffy puppy for their anniversary. Penelope wanted one very badly. Penelope bought him a car. When Penelope saw the puppy, she almost broke in tears. She named him Jebus.

When they received a break from their tours, they went back home. When they arrived there, they noticed Jebus was coughing out blood so Joe and Penelope had to take him to the vet. He had a bad disease and had to have a vivisection to fix the problem. Jebus got saved. With the money that Penelope and Joe won, they donated it to save a pet foundation. They continued their careers and made more albums and won more awards. They were both a happy couple for the rest of their lives.

Vitality: exuberant physical strength or mental vigor, full of life.
Vivacious: Full of animation and spirit; lively
Vital: of critical importance
Revival: restoration to life
Vivisection: the action of cutting into or dissecting a living body

An Unlikely Poem

An Unlikely Poem

You and your bright green and pink polka-dot rhinoceros are ludicrous.
You scrutinize me and my oversized pet frog as he
Plop
Plop
Plops
around in our lavish backyard pond.

You vilify us with your harsh criticism as you complain—
but I think you are only frog green with jealousy.

Or are you appalled? Is it the slimy-slick stagnant green water?
Because I’ve been meaning to change that.

Or is it the all of the clamor he makes as he
Plop
Plop
Plops?
Because I’ve been meaning to build a fence.

Or maybe he is a hindrance to your concentration?
Because it takes a lot to train a rhinoceros.

Regardless of your untenable reasons and obvious duplicity—
I am cognizant of your spying.

However, I feel obliged to commiserate with your rhinoceros—
for a wonderful friendship has been kindled.

Everyone knows that bright green and pink polka-dot rhinoceros’s and oversized pet frogs make the best of friends.


As I have just illustrated, advanced vocabulary can be used in yet another useful and fun way. However, if you are still in the process of expanding your impressive vocabulary, (as I think we all are), then here is a list of definitions and sentences to help you along!


Ludicrous- adjective: Causing laughter because of absurdity; provoking or deserving derision; ridiculous; laughable
Example: The stand-up comedian’s performance was ludicrous. He told ridiculous jokes that caused the crowd to roar with laughter.

Scrutinize-verb: To examine in detail with careful or critical attention.
Example: Susie’s teacher scrutinized her paper for mistakes. Her critical eye is what gave her the reputation as a harsh teacher.
Lavish-adjective: Characterized by or produced with extravagance or profusion.
The princess lived a lavish style. Even her dog’s house was a small gold plated mansion.
Vilify-verb: to revile with abusive or defamatory language; malign
The political candidate vilified his opponent. He claimed that the opponent was guilty of running an unfair campaign.

Appall-verb: to strike with disgust or revulsion
The mother was appalled at the unsanitary condition of her son’s room. He had plates of food from two months ago hidden under his bed.
Stagnant-adjective: Not moving or flowing; motionless.
The pool was filled with stagnant water. Obviously it had not been cleaned or touched for months.

Clamor-noun: A loud outcry; a hubbub
The clamor caused by the circus was loud enough to be heard by the neighboring town.

Hindrance-noun: an obstruction or snag; impediment
The strict curfew that Cindy’s parents gave her acted as a hindrance in her social life.

Untenable-adjective: (of theories, propositions, etc.) incapable of being maintained, defended, or vindicated
The prosecutor’s harsh accusations toward the defendant were untenable due to the overwhelming evidence.

Duplicity-noun: Deliberate deceptiveness in behavior or speech.
The young teenager’s duplicity was obvious to her parents when she attempted blame her lateness on an escaped elephant who blocked her way home.

Cognizant-adjective: (sometimes followed by `of') having or showing knowledge or understanding or realization or perception
The elderly man was cognizant of his surroundings. He was able to give his grandchildren precise directions to the lake.

-Shacaira