Monthly Archives: April 2018

Ptolemy’s 1,022 Stars

“The great quest of medieval science was for a perfect copy of Ptolemy’s Almagest, written in Egypt in 147 AD. It was known to have thirteen sections, with the most accurate analysis of star and planetary paths ever achieved, alongside a catalogue of 1,022 starts listed on a scale of magnitude from 1 to 6. It was a key that threatened to unlock the secrets of the heavens.”            

Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.

Squeamish (adj)

Here, on a Monday morning, is a context clues worksheet on the adjective squeamish. Yeah–a perfect word for a Monday morning, therefore one our students should know as they face their own working lives of Monday mornings.

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: John Updike and Rabbit Run

“This grim little story is told with all the art we have learned to expect from Updike, but the nagging question remains: what does it come to? Rabbit, Janice and Ruth are all creatures of instinct, floundering in a world they cannot understand…The author fails to convince us that his puppets are interesting in themselves or that their plight has implications that transcend their narrow world.”

Milton Crane, Chicago Tribune

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

A Short Exercise on the Greek Word Root My/o

Ok, it’s just before the final period on a Friday afternoon, and as I work to clear off my computer desktop before shutting down and leaving, I find that I left this worksheet on the Greek word root my/o (it means muscle) lying around, so I’ll throw it up for your use.

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.

The Devil’s Dictionary: Clergyman

“Clergyman, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of bettering his temporal ones.”

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

The Weekly Text, April 13, 2018: A Lesson Plan on Using Adverbs of Time

It’s Friday the thirteenth, and so far nothing bad has happened in my tiny corner of the universe; I hope the same is true for you.

This week’s Text is a complete lesson plan on using adverbs of time. I begin this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on anthropomorphism. However, if the concept of anthropomorphism is too abstract for your students, or if this lesson enters a second day, then here is a homophone worksheet on the nouns profit and prophet that may well be useful to you in other areas of your practice. When teaching this lesson, I also use this learning support which might also be useful elsewhere in your classroom; it’s in Microsoft Word, in any case, so it will be easy to bend to your needs. Here is the structured, scaffolded worksheet that is the mainstay of this lesson. Finally, here is the teacher’s copy of the worksheet to guide you in guiding your students.

And that’s it for another week. I hope spring has sprung where you live. The first azaleas are in bloom in the New York Botanical Garden, which is pleasant indeed.

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.

Leo Tolstoy, the Sage of Yasnaya Polyana, Hadn’t Seen Anything Yet

“Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.”

Leo Tolstoy

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

Controversy (n)

Here is a context clues worksheet on the noun controversy, which is a word high-schoolers really ought to know. It’s a word that shows up across the curricula in the social sciences and humanities.

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.

Knowledge is Power and Capital

“Wealth, if you use it, comes to an end. Learning, if you use it, increases.”

Swahili saying

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

A Short Exercise on the Greek Word Roots Leuk/o and Leuc/o

Here is a word root worksheet on the Greek word roots leuk/o and leuc/o. They mean white and colorless. As you can see, the first of these roots can be found in the noun leukemia. This is another one of those Greek roots that produces a lot of words related to medicine and 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.