The document emphasizes the importance of academic vocabulary for understanding questions on tests, particularly in literary analysis. It explains key terms like analyze, describe, criticize, evaluate, and infer, providing examples related to poetry and literature. Understanding these terms aids in comprehending themes and making evaluations in literary works.

1. Academic Vocabulary
Very important to understand!

2. Understanding
• When you come across a question on a test or
quiz, you must understand what it is asking if
you are going to answer it properly.
• Example: analyze the poetic devices used in
the poem We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks.

3. We Real Cool
• THE POOL PLAYERS. SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.

4. Analyze:
• To analyze means to identify specific traits and
devices used to convey a theme.
• Look back at the poem and what do you
notice about it? What literary devices does
Ms. Brooks use in the poem?

5. Implied:
• Anything that is not directly stated by an
author but assumed by the reader based on
what is written or spoken.
• Implied meaning is meant to be inferred, or
assumed, by you, the reader.
• Example: We can infer or assume that Romeo
is a very flighty young man who falls “in love”
at the drop of a hat.

6. Describe:
• Give an account of something; tell in specific
detail or words.
• Example: Describe the characteristics of the
pool players in the poem by implied meaning.
• We might be asked to describe the balcony
scene in Romeo & Juliet

7. Criticism:
• The art of judging, evaluating, or critiquing
the quality of a work of art, writing, music or
dramatic production.
• What criticism does Ms. Brooks have about
the pool players in the poem?

8. Evaluate:
• When you evaluate, you make a judgment of
some one or something. You are trying to
judge the importance or significance of the
person or thing.
• Example: Evaluate the effectiveness of the
stage lighting and set in the play, The Night
Thoreau Spent in Jail.

9. Practice:
• Example:
When Henry is in the jail cell and he flashes
back to certain moments in his memory, how
does the lighting create the illusion or
implication of a flashback? Is it effective?
Could anything else work better?

10. Compare and Contrast
• Com- a prefix meaning together: compare.
• Compare: When you compare things, you
state the things they have in common.
• Contrast: you want to state the opposites of
two things…those things that they do NOT
have in common.

11. Conclusion
• If you are asked to draw a conclusion about a
passage, you are being asked to deduce or
come to a reasonable evaluation of that
passage. What conclusion can you draw about
consumers from the following graph?:
• http://image.wistatutor.com/content/feed/tvc
s/circle20graph.gif

12. More conclusions:
• What is the largest expenditure for the
average consumer?
• What is the percentage of income spent on
food in the average household?
• What might be included in “other” expenses?