Wednesday, 2/2/00
Vocabulary Pretest +
  1. Even though we were losing in the first half, I knew we would eventually _______.
  2. When I asked if she wanted to go skydiving, she ________(ed), and said she was scarred.
  3. The stain on the white shirt stood out ______(ly).
  4. As far as what happens when we die, there is a lot of ________(ion), but no facts.
  5. "Don't cry over spilled milk" is an old expression that means not to ______ too much over mistakes that you can't change.
  6. The man swore ______(ly) after he hit his thumb with a hammer.
  7. A comic book collecter must be very _______ when it comes to the condition of the comic. The smallest flaw can effect the value immensely.
  8. Very few things annoy teachers more than __________(ce).
  9. As he sat in the principals office, he hoped for ________ intervention; maybe an angel would swoop in and save him. (Not.)
divine, brood, prevail, lurid, speculate, discerning, stark, demur, impertinent
"Poem #435" by Emily Dickinson 

Much Madness is divinest Sense-- 
To a discerning Eye-- 
Much Sense--the starkest Madness-- 
'Tis the Majority 
In this, as All, prevail-- 
Assent--and you are sane-- 
Demur--you're straightway dangerous-- 
And handled with a Chain-- 

  1. What does she mean?
  2. What does she mean when she says, "'Tis the Majority In this, as All, prevail"? What is "this"? Is she right?
  3. What would a good title for this poem be?

    4. Do you agree with the idea of this poem? Why/not?
 "Sometimes I ain't so 
sho who's got him
a right to say a man is crazy 
and when he ain't. 
Sometimes I think there 
ain't none of us pure crazy and ain't
none of us pure sane until 
balance of us talks him that-a-way.
It's like it ain't so much 
what a fellow does, but it's the way the majority of folks 
is looking at him when he does it." 
                                                   
From As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner 
"The Earth Men"
by Ray Bradbury