Monthly Archives: September 2018

Word Root Exercise: Omni

OK, it’s a Sunday morning and I’m preparing to send out a clutch of resumes for some positions that might be appropriate for me. On my coffee break at the moment, let me post this worksheet on the Latin word root omni. It means all. It is a very productive root in English, forming the basis of the adjectives omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, among many other words.

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.

John Maynard Keynes on Work

“I work for a Government I despise for ends I think criminal.”

Letter to Duncan Grant, 15 December 1917

Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

The Weekly Text, September 7, 2018: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Shimon Bar-Kokhba

As we go into the long Rosh Hashanah holiday weekend here in New York City, I’d like to wish my Jewish friends, colleagues, students, and neighbors a joyful and safe new year.

Apropo of the holiday (see below as well), here is a worksheet on Shimon Bar-Kokhba, a great Jewish warrior who fought against nearly impossible odds when he took on the Roman Empire under Hadrian. This comprehension worksheet accompanies 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.

Freud’s 3 Elements of Personality

Id * Ego * Superego

“Sigmund Freud conceived of the personality as consisting of three interrelated influences. The Id is a person’s natural instincts and desires, such as to procreate, to eat and to survive. The Ego uses reason to mediate between reality and the Id, so one might say that in today’s world I can only afford two children, or there are six people needing to eat so I can’t have the whole chicken. Lastly, there is the Superego, akin to the conscience, and thought to originate as an internal version of what parents, school, and society teach. This introduces the concept of ‘I should’–for example, share my good fortune with those less fortunate than myself.”

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.

Cultural Literacy: Israel

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Israel. This short exercise is meant mostly to introduce the topic before moving on to more in-depth study of the Middle East.

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 Algonquin Wits: Harold Ross on Coherence

Ross once stated emphatically to Robert Benchley: ‘Don’t think I’m not incoherent.'”

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

Extant (adj)

Here is a context clues worksheet on the adjective extant. I think this is a word high school seniors ought to know. It means “currently or actually existing” and it turns up, in my experience, quite often in educated discourse.

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: Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler

The book is long, drawn out, full of repetitions, and marred throughout by its obscenity and irreligion.”

Catholic World

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

Word Root Exercise: Medi-

Here is a worksheet on the Latin word root medi if you can use it. It means middle, so you already know how productive this root is in English.

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.

Naive Art (n)

“Primarily understood as works produced by artists who lack formal training, although trained artists may deliberately affect a naive style. The term most clearly describes such early-20th-century artists as the Douanier Rousseau, whose childlike, non-naturalistic paintings completed in bright colors influenced early modern artists. Their apparent affinity with non-Western art and their bold expressiveness made them appealing to the early Modernists searching for new forms of expression.

See ‘Outsider’ art.”

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