Unit 3: Vocabulary from Readings 1

I touched the vinyl sleeve, the collar, and peeked at the mustard-colored lining.

I jumped down, hands in my pockets, and in the backyard on my knees I teased my dog, Brownie, by swooping my arms while making bird calls.

But whole pieces still casually flew off my jacket when I played hard, read quietly, or took vicious spelling tests at school.

Later, however, I swiped the jacket off the ground and went inside to drape it across my lap and mope.

African nations that had lived peacefully together for centuries now eyed each other warily.

Islamic law, medicine, and mathematics were taught to the young men destined to become the leaders of their nations.

He could stay in the woods and probably die, or he could submit his body back into bondage.

John Cox had not prospered over the years, but he was still hopeful.

This idea challenged a basic premise of slavery—a premise that Foster must have believed without reservation: that the Africans had been nothing but savages, with no humanity or human feelings, and therefore it was all right to enslave them.

This is not so terrible in itself and I must say that my parents tried to answer every one of my questions very patiently, until...I began even badgering strangers, and they generally can’t stand “children’s endless questions.”

I must admit that this can be very tiresome, but I console myself with the idea that there is a saying that “you must ask in order to know,” which couldn’t be completely true, otherwise I’d be a professor by now.

Most people think parents should try to educate their children and see to it themselves that their characters develop as well as possible.

Even a very small child is a little personality and has a conscience and should be brought up by being treated in this way, so that it will feel that its own conscience is punishing it in the harshest way possible.

By arguing reasonably and by showing the child the mistakes it is making, one would get much better results than by strong punishments.