Rotten Reviews Omnibus: Lillian Hellman

Posted on August 9, 2026 | Leave a comment

Toys in the Attic

“It is curious how incest, impotence, nymphomania, religious mania and real estate speculation can be so dull.”

Richard Findlater, Time and Tide

 “Lillian Hellman has chosen to write on a Tennessee Williams theme in an Agatha Christie style.”

Times (London) 

Scoundrel Time

“Scoundrel Time is historically a fraud, artistically a put-up job, and emotionally packed with meanness.”

Dwight MacDonald, Esquire

Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.   

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Common Errors in English Usage: Militate/Mitigate

Posted on August 9, 2026 | Leave a comment

They’re not the most common or high-frequency words in English, but they’re worth knowing (especially mitigate), so here is a on the use of the verbs militate and mitigate. This is a full-page document with a reading of two sentences and ten modified cloze exercises.

This material, as I expect you’re tired of reading, but in the case of Paul Brians’ and his book Common Errors in English Usage (to which, I am always astonished to report, he allows free access at his Washington State University web page), I like to give credit where it is always due. All of the materials under the header above (i.e. Common Errors in English Usage) come from Professor Brians’s book.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Worksheets

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Disinformation

Posted on August 9, 2026 | Leave a comment

 “Disinformation (noun): False or misleading information or documentation contrived to deceive or subvert, especially deliberate fabrication by an intelligence agency. Verb: disinform.

‘If I say the US is intervening in El Salvador to help a gang of nun-raping cutthroats with no popular support, I may be misinformed, or I may be disinformed.’ Alexander Cockburn, Village Voice”

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference

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Cultural Literacy: Direct Object

Posted on August 9, 2026 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the direct object of verbs. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences and three comprehension questions.

You might want to take a look at the second sentence of this two-sentence reading: it is long and contains a plethora of colons, semicolons and quotation marks–exactly the kind of thing that, in my experience, trips up emergent or struggling readers, or students who are learning to use English as a second language. A light editing–breaking this sentence up into two independent clauses with some supporting explanation should do the job.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Heptameter

Posted on August 9, 2026 | Leave a comment

“Heptameter: In prosody, a line of verse containing seven metrical feet in any meter. It is usually identified together with the name of the meter: for example, iambic heptameter.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

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The Weekly Text, 14 August 2026: Introduction to Writing Sentences Lesson 10, Avoid the Passive Voice!

Posted on August 9, 2026 | Leave a comment

Phew: It has been a lot of work (with more to come), but with this tenth lesson plan (of 17) of the Introduction to Writing Sentences unit published, I finally feel like I’ve made some progress on this endeavor. This lesson, as the header reports, is on avoiding using the passive voice in sentences. In my experience, students enjoy this lesson as it is about as straightforward an exercise in editing as they are likely to encounter. So it is satisfying. Also, students learn to write declarative sentences in the active voice, the gold standard for expository prose.

This lesson opens with this worksheet on parsing sentences to find pronouns. Finally, here is the scaffolded worksheet on dealing with the passive voice in sentences that is the gravamen of this lesson.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Lesson Plans, The Weekly Text, Worksheets

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Mark Twain on Soap and Education

Posted on August 7, 2026 | Leave a comment

“Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre but they are more deadly in the long run.”

Mark Twain

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.

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Common Errors in English Usage: Might Ought, Might, Ought

Posted on August 7, 2026 | Leave a comment

This week’s adaptation from Paul Brians’ excellent reference manual Common Errors in English Usage (which, amazingly, he allows no-cost access to at his Washington State University web page) is this worksheet on the use of might and ought. In this reading, Professor Brians steers students away from the solecism might ought toward the proper use of these two auxiliary verbs; the worksheet calls upon students to write, extemporaneously, sentences using these auxiliaries properly.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Term of Art: Reliability

Posted on August 7, 2026 | Leave a comment

“reliability: A statistical term that refers to the consistency of test scores in different contexts or with different populations. A judgment of a high degree of reliability indicates that a test is dependable and relatively free from random errors of measurement.”

Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.

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Cultural Literacy: Jurisprudence

Posted on August 7, 2026 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of jurisprudence. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three relatively comprehensible sentences and two comprehension questions. I must admit, until I reviewed this document prior to publication on this blog, I didn’t have quite the grasp of this concept that I thought I did.

Any student looking down the road at law school might benefit from a look at this material.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Social Sciences, Worksheets

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