Reading assignments for Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
Form groups of two. Each group researches 10 items and 10 words about their selection.
For the assignment with the reading selection:
Find 10 significant things, such as characters, events, Barbara’s observations and experiences, comments
on working conditions.
For the assignment with vocabulary:
First find the word as it appears in the book and copy the sentence in which it appears.
Define the word.
Write your own illustrative sentence.
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Section 1 has 31 students who research #1-15.
The unpaired student answers any 10 of the study questions found on pages 241-244.
Section 3 has 26 students who research assignment #3-16.
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Here are the reading selections and their vocabulary.
All page numbers are from the paperback edition.
1) 1-10 sumptuous, neophyte, proletarian, plausible, Ph.D., Marxist, illiterate, penury, proposition,
diligently.
2) 11-21 stammer, diversion, anthropologically, indigent, chagrin, dapper, plurality, finicky,
transgression, perennial.
3) 22-39 ruefully, consolidate, incurring, orthopedic, rebukes, funk, culprit, sidling, solipsism,
mélange.
4) 42-49 banal, arresting, appointed, bedraggled, broods (verb), mottled, alleged, invincible,
akimbo, vindication
5) 51-69 bantering, calibrated, harrowing, ramshackle, putative, nonchalant, opine, hierarchy,
ergonomically, postprandial
6) 69-86 oafish, decorum, harried, freelancing, constrained, antagonists, prima facie evidence,
grimacing, infraction, insurrection.
7) 86-101 fecklessness, juxtaposition, elation, infirmity, flouting, surveillance, spectrum, bulk,
curtail, bereavement.
8) 101-119 mitigating, frivolous, voucher, wizened, autonomy, discretion, vaulting,
nonattachment, squeamish, inordinately
9) 121-134 deciduous, pretentious, altruism, wince, perky, diuretic, dementedly, shamanistic,
tribulations, pallid
10) 134-150 gurneys, denunciation, euphemistic, vehemence, disdainful, covert, extortionists,
nostalgic, gentrified, unnerved
11) 150-169 scandalously, congenitally, sinuous, bodice, query, depredations, daunting, gaunt, lull,
svelte
12) 169-191 exorbitantly, unconscionable, cursory, bemoaning, interdependence, supplication,
appalling, canny, hortatory, abasement
13) 193-207 extract, sociological, desisted, splint, inculcate, carousing, dilapidated, complacency,
subsistence, munificent
14) 207-221 dissertation, euphemisms, unilaterally, plethora, authoritarianism, austere, chronic,
stratum, sojourn, affluent
15) 223-235 sassy, Marxist, modicum, pariah, capped, foreclosures, solidarity, feckless, oxymoron,
reflexively
16) Study questions pages 241-244.