Handout B: Vocabulary and Context Questions – John Adams (1735-1826)

VOCABULARY AND CONTEXT QUESTIONS

John Adams’s Letters to Abigail Adams, 1776

1. Vocabulary: Use context clues to determine the meaning or significance of each of these words and write their definitions:
   1. dissenting
   2. impelled
   3. hitherto
   4. commencement
   5. controversy
   6. recollect
   7. folly
   8. sundered
   9. calamities
   10. affliction
   11. venality
   12. apprehensions
   13. Providence
   14. epoch
2. Context: Answer the following questions.
   1. Who wrote these documents?
   2. When were these documents written?
   3. Who is the audience of these documents?
   4. Why were these documents written?