Monthly Archives: July 2018

Nadir (n)

While I realize it is not word in particularly common use (not to mention students in secondary schools one hopes, not experienced the concept in their own lives yet), I think there is nonetheless the place in the high school classroom for this context clues worksheet on the noun nadir.

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.

James Jones: From Here to Eternity

The first novel (1951) by James Jones (1921-77), who was serving in the US infantry in Hawaii when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941. Twice promoted and twice reduced to private, he fought at Guadalcanal and was wounded in the head by a mortar fragment. The novel, which won a National Book Award, draws on his own experiences in Hawaii and caused a sensation for its expose of army brutality and its outspokenness about sex and military mores. The film (1952) was a slick, sexually oblique version directed by Fred Zinnemann. The title comes from the poem ‘The Gentlemen Rankers’ (1889) by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) about oppressed junior ranks:

‘Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,
Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha’ mercy on such as we.'”

Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.

Bare (adj), Bear (n), and Bear (vt/vi)

Here are five worksheets on the homophones bare and bear. They’re short, and therefore, in my classroom, useful for a number of purposes, most commonly to begin an instructional period after a class transition.

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.

Fresco

“Called ‘buon fresco’ or ‘true fresco,’ the technique of painting on moist lime plaster with water-based pigments.”

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

Heckle (vt)

If a teacher maintains a healthy sense of humor about him- or herself, I would argue, he or she will find him- or herself as the butt of students’ jokes, which may even manifest itself in classroom banter. Put another way, and more subjectively, my students and I have had a few laughs at my expense on more than one occasion.

Students should possess the vocabulary to describe this badinage, hence the arrival of this context clues worksheet on the transitive verb heckle, which doesn’t exactly describe this classroom situation; that said, it gives teacher and students an opportunity to discuss the difference between heckling and banter.

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.

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

“A film (1991) directed by by Jon Avnet and with a screenplay by Fannie Flagg, adapted from her own novel. Evelyn Couch, a middle-aged housewife, finds inspiration in the story told her by Ninny Threadgoode, an octogenarian lady in an old folk’s home. Her story from her youth concerns a relative, Idgie Threadgoode, an early feminist, who many years before had run the cafe in Whistle Stop, Alabama. Idgie rescues her friend Ruth from an abusive marriage, and Ruth joins her at the cafe, cooking such Southern delights as Fried Green Tomatoes.”

Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.

Cultural Literacy: The Dreyfus Affair

Last year, for the first time, I taught sophomore global studies in an integrated co-teaching (ICT) classroom here in New York City. This cycle of social studies instruction covers the period, roughly, from the beginning of the Enlightenment to the present day. In this maelstrom, I found it a bit odd that the curriculum didn’t at least touch on The Dreyfus Affair, if for no other reason its role as a precursor to the anti-Semitic horrors of the twentieth century.

Superficial though it may be, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Dreyfus Affair. It is a modest attempt to rectify what I consider to be a significant gap in the New York State sophomore global studies curriculum.

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 Rejections: The Great Days by John Dos Passos

“I am rather offended by what seems to me quite gratuitous passages dealing with sex acts and natural functions.”

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

Beginnings of the Civil War

If you teach United States History, than you might find useful this reading on the beginnings of the Civil War as well as the reading comprehension worksheet that accompanies it. It serves any number of purposes which will be contingent, ideally, on the student to whom it is assigned.

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

Optical Mixing

“The involuntary mixing of juxtaposed colors by the eye and brain. Thus, at a certain distance, juxtaposed dabs of red and yellow pigment produce the sensation of orange. The colors seen by optical mixing appear clearer and more brilliant than those obtained by mixing colors on a palette.”

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