Monthly Archives: December 2016

The Weekly Text, December 23, 2016: Two Context Clues Worksheets on Juxtapose and Juxtaposition

Our schools here in New York are closed for the holidays next week, so I plan to spend as little time as possible in front of this computer. That means this is the final Weekly Text for 2016. I offer this context clues worksheet on the transitive verb juxtapose and this one on the noun juxtaposition for this week’s Text.

Happy Holidays! I’ll see you in 2017.

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.

Primary (adj)

I’m working on some new freshman global studies lessons that will use primary documents, so here’s a context clues worksheet on the adjective primary.

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.

Rotten Reviews: T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”

“Mr. Eliot has shown that he can at moments write real blank verse; but that is all. For the rest, he has quoted a great deal, he has parodied and imitated. But the parodies are cheap and the imitations inferior.”

New Statesman

“…it is the finest horses which have the most tender mouths and some unsympathetic tug has sent Mr. Eliot’s gift awry. When he recovers control we shall expect his poetry to have gained in variety and strength from this ambitious experiment.”

Times Literary Supplement

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

Wise Words from Aldous Huxley in a Political Season

“Idealism is the noble toga that that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.”

Aldous Huxley

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

Amid (prep)

Here’s a context clues worksheet on the preposition amid.

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.

The Weekly Text, December 16, 2016: An Exercise on the Greek Word Roots The and Theo

This week, I fell under whatever it is that has afflicted most of the faculty at my school. My doctor, when I finally made it to him, diagnosed bronchitis, something I contract with irritating regularity working in a windowless building with almost 800 adolescents.

So, the Text for this week is nothing special, just this word root worksheet on the Greek roots the and theo. It means, as you probably already know, God. It is surely useful in social studies classes where words like polytheism and monotheism crop up regularly. Given the results of the presidential election, kids might need to know the word theocracy as well.

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.

Will Durant on Why Teaching Will Never Become Boring

“Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.”

Will Durant (1885-1981)

Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.

The Weekly Text, December 9, 2016: An Introductory Lesson Plan on Adjectives

This week’s Text, which I hasten to post so I can plan and execute some new global studies lessons, is an introductory lesson plan on adjectives. I begin this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the noun attribute; this word is a piece of prior knowledge that students can use when they encounter the term attributive adjectives. I have a more explicit lesson on attributive adjective that I’ll post in the not too distant future (I’m in the middle of revising it, for one thing). If this lesson stretches into a second day because of behavior that derails instruction, then here is an Everyday Edits worksheet titled “Sled Dogs Save Nome.” This proofreading worksheet that introduces the adjective is the mainstay of this lesson. Finally, you will probably find useful the teacher’s copy/answer key for the worksheet.

That’s it.

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.

Vanquish (vt)

Here’s a context clues worksheet on the transitive verb vanquish I just whipped up for a global studies class.

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.

Rotten Reviews: Emily Dickinson

“An eccentric, dreamy, half-educated recluse in an out-of-the-way New England Village–or anywhere else–cannot with impunity set at defiance the laws of gravity and grammar…. Oblivion lingers in the immediate neighborhood.”

Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Atlantic Monthly, 1892

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