Excerpt from "Temple Grandin"

Compare the excerpts from the autobiography to the excerpt from Chapter 6 ("Hampshire School for Wayward Wizards") from Sy Montgomery's biography "Temple Grandin: How the Girl Who Loved Cows, Embraced Autism and Changed the World."

Here are all the word lists to support the reading of Grade 6 Unit 2's texts from SpringBoard's Common Core ELA series: Walk Two Moons, The Little Mermaid, …And Although the Little Mermaid Sacrificed Everything…, He Might Have Liked Me Better with My Tail, Travels with Charley, Saying Farewell to a Faithful Pal, Dogs Make Us Human, My Story, Temple Grandin
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. prance
    spring forward on the hind legs
    Bay Lady was the horse she rode most of the time: great in the ring--but halfway on the trail she'd prance and plunge.
  2. colic
    acute abdominal pain, especially in infants
    Circus, a big, gentle horse, died of colic, a digestive disease brought on by eating oat straw.
  3. gorgeous
    dazzlingly beautiful
    Beauty was gorgeous, but she bit and kicked.
  4. sensitive
    responsive to physical stimuli
    Horses, like autistic people, are very sensitive to detail and don't like change.
  5. familiar
    well known or easily recognized
    That's why a horse might be frightened of a new white hat, but not a familiar black one
  6. mount
    go upward with gradual or continuous progress
    Temple could tell when a horse was starting to get nervous: a fearful horse swishes his tail, and the swishing becomes more rapid with mounting fear.
  7. detail
    a small part considered separately from the whole
    But because Temple also noticed the same details the horses did--like a bale of hay slightly out of place--she could make small changes to calm the animal's fear before it turned to panic.
  8. farrier
    a person who shoes horses
    When the farrier came to hammer new shoes onto the horses' hooves, she held the reins and kept the horses calm.
  9. mend
    restore by putting together what is torn or broken
    Back at home, Temple's mother wished her daughter would study harder and get better grades instead of riding horses and mending bridles.
  10. responsible
    worthy of or requiring trust; held accountable
    But Temple was proud that she now had an important, responsible job in the barn.
  11. welfare
    a contented state of being happy and healthy and prosperous
    The welfare of nine horses depended largely on her care.
  12. academic
    marked by a narrow focus on or display of learning
    To Temple, her academic classes didn't seem to matter half as much.
  13. concentrate
    direct one's attention on something
    Soon she began to find it impossible to concentrate on schoolwork anyway.
  14. overdrive
    a high gear used at high speeds to maintain the driving speed with less output power
    The rush of new chemicals her body was producing to change her into a young woman threw Temple's unusual brain into overdrive.
  15. panic
    an overwhelming feeling of fear and anxiety
    She started having panic attacks.
Created on Wed Aug 13 15:39:51 EDT 2014 (updated Wed Aug 13 16:21:47 EDT 2014)

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