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Friday, September 20, 2013

3:2 - Tenement

When & Where: I was sitting in my apartment reading Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope by Nikki Grimes (2008) when I came across the word tenement. It's a children's book that I was reading for LTED 626, so I was surprised at the vocabulary. The sentence was: "It was early evening, and a boy named David sat on a tenement floor, glued to the TV" (p. 1).

Level of Familiarity: I have heard this word used before, possibly in a history class or having something to do with being a tenant but I never knew what it meant.

What it Means: www.dictionary.com says a tenement is "a run-down and often overcrowded apartment house, especially in a poor section of a large city."



Reflective Commentary: I liked this word because it gave a lot of detail about what kind of apartment the boy lived in, without having to go too in-depth. I immediately was able to visualize where this little boy lived and what kind of life he had, just based on that one word. I could possibly see myself using this word when I'm talking about different areas in the city, or when I'm talking about a run-down house so that people will have a better understanding of what it is that I'm describing.


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