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Common Core State Standard
LS.CCS.4/5/6 Grades 3-12: Students are asked to determine the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words through multiple choice vocabulary quizzes. Quizzes are designed to help students demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships and nuances in words, acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate general academic and domain-specific words, and gather vocabulary knowledge when considering a word or phrase important to comprehension or expression. Students are then asked to find the words within the newspaper and copy the sentence for context to its overall meaning or function in a sentence.
This Week's Word In The News 

CANVASS

DEFINITION:
A systematic approach to interviewing residents, merchants, and others who are in the immediate vicinity of a crime and may have useful information.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
In a press release, police said Lewisville Fire Department officials pronounced the man deceased on the scene. Police started a homicide investigation immediately, and canvassed the area in search of witnesses.
The Denton Record-Chronicle, 09/14/2026

Words in the News Quiz
5 Middle School Words

Click on the correct answer in the quiz below.
Then see if you can find the word in your newspaper -- the print edition, the website or the digital edition and copy the sentence for context. NOTE: High School words are much harder to find!


1. Unanimous

A picture or decorative design made by setting small colored pieces, as of stone or tile, into a surface.

Grossly offensive to decency or morality.

Being without or almost without hope

Sharing the same opinions or views; being in complete harmony or accord.


2. Spectrum

The distribution of energy emitted by a radiant source, arranged in order of wavelengths.

Not subject to an obligation imposed on others; exempt.

To honor the memory of with a ceremony

A fungus, usually of the class Ascomycetes, that grows symbiotically with algae,


3. Solstice

To honor the memory of with a ceremony

A fungus, usually of the class Ascomycetes, that grows symbiotically with algae,

A conventional, formulaic, and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image.

Either of two times of the year when the sun is at its greatest distance from the celestial equator.


4. Hypocrisy

Appropriateness of behavior or conduct

Inspiring awe, admiration, or wonder

The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.

Marked by hearty conviviality and good cheer.


5. Silhouette

A drawing consisting of the outline of something, especially a human profile, filled in with a solid color.

A member of an irregular, usually indigenous military or paramilitary unit operating in small bands in occupied territory to harass and undermine the enemy

Using or marked by the use of few words; terse or concise.

A weather phenomenon in the Eastern Pacific that is precisely equivalent to a hurricane.


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