Places in Women’s History: Shirley A. Chisholm State Office Building, Downtown Brooklyn, New York

Posted on February 27, 2026 | Leave a comment

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Rayonism

Posted on April 17, 2026 | Leave a comment

“Rayonism: A Russian movement, a short-lived offshoot of Cubism and a parallel to Futurism, started in 1913 by Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova. Their emphasis on rendering parallel and crossed beams of light to suggest the fourth dimension was important to the development of Suprematism.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

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Common Errors in English Usage: Literally

Posted on April 17, 2026 | Leave a comment

From Paul Brians’ book Common Errors in English Usage (to which Professor Brians allows free access at his Washington State University page), here is worksheet on the adverb literally. Professor Brians rightly emphasizes the overuse of this word as an all-purpose intensifier. He advises, and I fully agree, that unless you have swallowed a stick of dynamite, you should not say “I literally blew up.”

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: Recall

Posted on April 17, 2026 | Leave a comment

“recall:  A term used to describe the ability to retrieve information from long-term memory. Recall is involved in a broad range of tasks, from remembering a phone number to recalling information for a school exam. While useful as a descriptive term, it does not refer to a specific area of cognitive function.

Difficulty recalling information may be cause by a number of different learning problems. This may include problems imprinting information during processing because of poor attention or short-term memory, as well as difficulty with rapid retrieval tasks that are typically found in expressive language disorders.”

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: Seller’s Market

Posted on April 17, 2026 | Leave a comment

As it is a common expression–both in its literal and metaphorical sense–in everyday English, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the seller’s market. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences and two comprehension questions.

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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Edmund Wilson

Posted on April 17, 2026 | Leave a comment

Edmund Wilson: (1895-1972) U.S. critic and essayist. Born in Red Bank, New Jersey, he attended Princeton University and initially worked as a reporter and magazine writer. Much of his writing, in which he probed diverse topics with scholarship and common sense in clear and precise prose, appeared in The New Republic and the New Yorker. Among his influential critical works are Axel’s Castle (1931), a survey of the Symbolist poets; To the Finland Station (1940), a study of the thinkers who set the stage for the Russian Revolution; and Patriotic Gore (1962), analyzing the American Civil War literature. His other writings include plays, poetry, the short-story collection Memories of Hecate County (1946), and five volumes of posthumously published journals. He was widely regarded as the leading critic of his time.

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

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The Weekly Text, 17 April 2026: The Writing Revolution Learning Supports V; Expository Words Learning Supports

Posted on April 17, 2026 | Leave a comment

At least for the moment, we have (finally!) reached the end of planning materials posts for The Writing Revolution. What you should know, and possibly dread, is that I have quite a lot of materials based in the methods of The Writing Revolution in various stages of development. So those will appear here eventually.

For this morning, however, let me post the last two learning supports, these on expository words:

V-A*Argumentative Nouns and Verbs

V-B*Expository Words

And even though there are only these two items on it, here is the table of contents for these two documents. And, if it is of any use to you, here is the the complete table of contents as I use it for all the learning supports excerpted or adapted from The Writing Revolution.

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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Montaigne on His Preferred Company

Posted on March 27, 2026 | Leave a comment

“I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.”

Michel de Montaigne

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

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Common Errors in English Usage: Lion’s Share

Posted on March 27, 2026 | Leave a comment

From the pages of Paul Brians’ book Common Errors in English Usage (to which, amazingly, he continues to allow free access at his Washington State University webpage), here is a worksheet on the use of the noun phrase “lion’s share.”

This is a relatively spare document, with Professor Brians’ text on the use of this phrase, and plenty of white space for students to practice writing sentences that include it.

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: Social Studies

Posted on March 27, 2026 | Leave a comment

“social studies: A broad conglomeration of school studies that includes history, economics, geography, government, civics, and sociology, as well as consumer education, personal decision making, current events, global studies, environmental studies, ethnic studies, gender studies, and other nondisciplinary studies related to contemporary issues and the social sciences.”

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

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Cultural Literacy: Pulitzer Prize

Posted on March 27, 2026 | Leave a comment

Here’s another item, a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Pulitzer Prize, for which I anticipate exceptionally low interest. This is half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences and three comprehension questions. If you are teaching anything do to with journalism, this might be of some use to you and your students.

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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