George Santayana on Heaven and Hell

Posted on October 23, 2026 | Leave a comment

“Men have feverishly conceived a heaven only to find it insipid, and a hell to find it ridiculous.”

George Santayana

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

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Bespoke (adj)

Posted on October 23, 2026 | Leave a comment

Here is a half-page context clues worksheet on the adjective bespoke. For some reason, this adjective, which means custom-made, found its way into everyday discourse a few years ago, about the same time curate did, I think. I whipped up this context clues sheet and then, of course, never used it. Maybe someone can find something to do with it. It certainly doesn’t strike me as a word students in secondary school–provided they’re not planning to go to work on Savile Row or its equivalent–need to know.

Honestly, some of the uses of this word I encountered made me cringe.

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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Editorialize

Posted on October 23, 2026 | Leave a comment

“Editorialize (verb): To express one’s opinion or point of view; introduce opinion or bias into reporting of facts or information; admix comment with reportage; characterize or label, Noun: editorializer, editorialization.

‘Girls, Shmul editorialized in his little book, live a stone age life in a blown-glass cave.’ Grace Paley, The Little Disturbances of Man”

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

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Cultural Literacy: Take-Home Pay

Posted on October 23, 2026 | Leave a comment

Given that most wage-earners have seen it shrink consistently over the past 18 or so months (not to mention over the past two or three generations), now strikes me as a propitious time to publish this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the term take-home pay and the concept it represents. This is a half-page worksheet with a one-sentence reading and two comprehension questions. This document, obviously, could be dilated to move an inquiry on the effect of inflation on take-home pay, something we’re all dealing with (unless your income is derived from invested capital, and even then you might be taking a haircut) right now.

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: Speech Codes

Posted on October 23, 2026 | Leave a comment

“speech codes: Regulations adopted on many college campuses that prohibit certain kinds of speech deemed offensive by various groups—for example jokes that make fun of women, blacks, Hispanics, or individuals with disabilities. Advocates of speech codes claim that they are necessary to protect campus civility and to eliminate verbal harassment. Critics claim that they stifle freedom of speech and violate Constitutional protections. In public higher education, speech codes have been largely eliminated by litigation, but many private universities continue to enforce them.”

Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.

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The Weekly Text, 23 October 2026: A Pair of Learning Supports on Annotating Text

Posted on October 23, 2026 | Leave a comment

In my final couple years of co-teaching high school English Language Arts class, I was disappointed that students rarely read entire books (although I had the good fortune to work with two English teachers who did assign entire books), and therefore seldom performed any substantial interpretive work on what they did read–which was and is, I expect, short passages from novels. Students annotate these texts, but don’t really write anything insightful about them. Still, given how little students read these days, they struggled with adding interpretive notes–i.e. annotating–even these short texts.

So I developed this learning support on annotating for analogy, allusion, metaphor and tone, and this one on rhetorical analysis for ethos, pathos, and logos.

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, Reference, The Weekly Text

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William Carlos Williams

Posted on October 9, 2026 | Leave a comment

“William Carlos Williams: (1883-1963) U.S. poet. Trained as a pediatrician, Williams spent a lifetime writing poetry and practicing medicine in his hometown of Rutherford, New Jersey. He is noted for making the ordinary appear extraordinary through clear and discrete imagery and powerful evocation of the world of common objects, as in the fresh impressions of the sensuous world expressed in ‘The Red Wheelbarrow,’ from Spring and All (1923). Paterson (1946-58), a five-part long poem, evokes a complex vision of modern American life. His other poetry includes Pictures from Brueghel (1962; Pulitzer Prize). His numerous prose works include essays, a trilogy of novels, short stories, drama, and autobiography.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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Common Errors in English Usage: Nevertheless and Notwithstanding

Posted on October 9, 2026 | Leave a comment

From the pages of Paul Brians’ book Common Errors in English Usage (Sherwood, Oregon: William James 2013, to which he allows unfettered access at no charge at his Washington State University web page, here is a worksheet worksheet on the adverb nevertheless and the adverb and preposition notwithstanding. This document stresses that these word are always spelled as one, not, therefore, as never the less or not withstanding.

My own contribution to this material involves defining these words–which mean basically the same thing–and stressing their use as transition words in prose. This is an unstructured worksheet; in other words, there are no cloze exercises here. Students will write declarative sentences from subject to period using nevertheless and notwithstanding.

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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Rotten Reviews: Cat Man

Posted on October 9, 2026 | Leave a comment

[This rotten review refers to the novel Cat Man by Edward Hoagland]

“This lengthy description of the lower depths of existence among men who pick up a living around travelling circuses is frequently disgusting in an eager, repetitious, small-boy way.

The New Yorker 

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

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Cultural Literacy: T.S. Eliot

Posted on October 9, 2026 | Leave a comment

Although I expect he is not much taught at the secondary level (where, nonetheless, I first encountered him), here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on T.S. Eliot. This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of four sentences and four comprehension questions. A short, symmetrical, and almost thorough introduction to this important, if controversial, twentieth-century poet.

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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