Lesson Plan: Why Are So Many People Superstitious?
II. While Reading Activities
Word Inference
- acquaintance |əˈkwāntəns| noun a person one knows slightly, but who is not a close friend: a wide circle of friends and acquaintances.
- frown |froun| verb furrow one’s brow in an expression of disapproval, displeasure, or concentration: he frowned as he reread the letter.
- aghast |əˈɡast| adjective [predicative] filled with horror or shock: when the news came out they were aghast.
- high five |ˌhī ˈfīv| informal, chiefly North American noun-a gesture of celebration or greeting in which two people slap each other’s open palm with their arms raised: they gave each other an exuberant high five in the middle of the press center.
- Superstitions |ˌso͞opərˈstiSH(ə)n| noun a widely held but unjustified belief in supernatural causation leading to certain consequences of an action or event, or a practice based on such a belief: she touched her locket for luck, a superstition she had had since childhood.
- exorcism |ˈeksôrˌsizəm| noun- the expulsion or attempted expulsion of an evil spirit from a person or place.
- *ward off phrasal verb -To ward off a danger or illness means to prevent it from affecting you or harming you. She may have put up a fight to try to ward off her assailant.
- animate |ˈanəˌmāt| [with object] verb bring to life: the desert is like a line drawing waiting to be animated with color. • give inspiration, encouragement, or renewed vigor to: she has animated the nation with a sense of political direction.
- irrational |i(r)ˈraSH(ə)nəl| adjective 1 not logical or reasonable.
- veteran |ˈvedərənˈvetrən| noun -• a person who has served in the military: a veteran of two world wars.
Sources:
New Oxford American Dictionary
*Collins English dictionary
Grammar Focus: English Subject Pronouns
A few months later, at the Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge, a friend waved me over. ‘Hey! I thought that was you. Were you praying back there?’
She’d seen me kneeling in mud, touching a solar-yellow dandelion. ‘Yes,’ I said, to expedite my day, because this seemed less bonkers than explaining what I was actually doing.
From him, I learned that superstitions can be a form of prayer,
You release the fear that comes from feeling responsible for everything that happens to you —
Reading Comprehension Fill-ins
After Hurricane Andrew destroyed our home in 1992 (a nine-foot storm surge seemed to choose us, leaving the other houses on our block largely untouched), I developed a repertoire of new superstitions overnight, like mental mushrooms sprouting out of the saltwater that had flooded up to our ceiling.
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