Monthly Archives: April 2018

The Devil’s Dictionary: Platitude

Posted on April 23, 2018 | Leave a comment

“Platitude, n. The fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that snores in words that smoke. The wisdom of a million fools in the diction of a dullard. A fossil sentiment in artificial rock. A moral without the fable. All that is mortal of a departed truth. A demi-tasse of milk-and-morality. The Pope’s-nose of a featherless peacock. A jelly-fish withering on the shore of the sea of thought. The cackle surviving the egg. A desiccated epigram.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.

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Susceptible (adj)

Posted on April 23, 2018 | Leave a comment

You might find some use for this context clues worksheet on the adjective susceptible. It’s a strong adjective and a word anyone interested in entering the health professions should know.

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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Aphorism

Posted on April 20, 2018 | Leave a comment

“A compact statement, such as a maxim or proverb, that concisely expresses a principle or common experience. The term was first used by Hippocrates. The beginning sentence of his Aphorisms is a well-known example: ‘Life is short, art is long, opportunity fleeting, experimenting dangerous, reasoning difficult.”

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

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The Weekly Text, April 20, 2018: Three Context Clues Worksheet on Rational (adj), Irrational (adj), and Rationalism (n)

Posted on April 20, 2018 | Leave a comment

Today is National School Walkout Day during which students across the United States, possessed in general of more good sense than adults in our era, will walk out of school to protest the patent insanity of our nation’s gun laws.

Out of respect for the young people staging this protest, I’ll keep this week’s Text short, to wit these three context clues worksheets on the adjectives rational and irrational, and the noun rationalism. If memory serves, I wrote these initially to attend some lessons on the Enlightenment.

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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Oscar Wilde on Skepticism

Posted on April 19, 2018 | Leave a comment

“To believe is very dull. To doubt intensely engrossing. To be on the alert is to live, to be lulled into security is to die.”

Oscar Wilde

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

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A Short Exercise on the Greek Word Root Nephr/o

Posted on April 19, 2018 | Leave a comment

Here is a word root worksheet on the Greek root nephr/o. It means kidney. Hence, the medical specialist who deals with kidneys is a nephrologist.

This is, in other words, another vocabulary-building worksheet for students interested in the health professions.

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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Goethe on Identifying Talent and Teaching to It

Posted on April 18, 2018 | Leave a comment

“Aptitudes are assumed, they should become accomplishments. That is the purpose of all education.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Elective Affinities (1809)

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

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Squander (vt/vi)

Posted on April 18, 2018 | Leave a comment

Here is a context clues worksheet on the verb squander; it’s used both transitively and intransitively.

It’s that thing–you know–that happens with talent in public institutions.

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: Shtick

Posted on April 17, 2018 | Leave a comment

“A worked-up, contrived form of talent of self-presentation to entertain or win attention; an idiosyncratic routine or particular forte; mannerism.

‘Rebuttal is appropriate. For what we have here is no argument but a shtick, as we used to say in Vaudeville, an antic, a bit, a thing.’”

Donald Kaplan, in Language in America

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

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Parsing Sentences: Conjunctions

Posted on April 17, 2018 | Leave a comment

Here is a parsing sentences worksheet for conjunctions that is the kind of thing I use to get students settled after a class change.

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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