The River’s Bank and a Familiar Word
While reading a science article, a student stops at this sentence: “The river’s bank was soft after the storm, so the turtles dug their nests there.” The student says, “Bank means a place for money, so the sentence doesn’t make sense.” The teacher asks the student to use the other words in the sentence-river, soft, storm, turtles, nests-to choose a meaning. A second sentence in the article says, “Erosion wore away the bank, and the nests slid into the water.” The student must also explain why the first meaning did not fit.
1. What does bank mean in the article? Explain how context clues support your answer.
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Here, bank means the edge of the river. The clues point to land beside water: “river’s bank,” “soft after the storm,” turtles “dug their nests there,” and “erosion wore away the bank.” Nests on a riverbank can slide into water when the bank erodes. A money bank does not fit because turtles do not nest in a money bank and erosion affects land, not a financial building. Replacing bank with “river edge” makes every sentence make sense.
2. The student says, “I know bank, so I don’t need context.” Explain why this strategy fails here and what to do instead.
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The strategy fails because bank has more than one meaning. Knowing one meaning does not tell you which meaning is used in this sentence. A good reader pauses, lists possible meanings, and tests each against nearby words such as river, soft, erosion, and nests. If a meaning does not fit, the reader rereads and tries another. Context is not extra; it is the tool that selects the right meaning.
3. Write a short definition of bank as used here, and explain how a reader can check it.
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A workable definition is “the raised land along the side of a river.” To check it, substitute the definition into both sentences: “The river’s raised land along the side was soft after the storm” and “Erosion wore away the raised land along the side.” Both substitutions keep the meaning clear. The check also shows why the money meaning fails: it cannot be soft after a storm or worn away by erosion beside turtles’ nests.