Monthly Archives: December 2018

Term of Art: Ax-grinder

A carefully worded editorial that is seemingly objective but in fact is purposive and slanted; publicist or flack; one deemed too preoccupied with a given issue.”

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

Word Root Exercise: Hydro-

You might find that this worksheet on the Greek word root hydr/o–it means, unsurprisingly, water, but also hydrogen and liquid–helps students quickly build a lexicon of key vocabulary words to use across the common branch domains, and especially the physical sciences.

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.

Book of Answers: Cento

“What is a ‘cento?’ From the Latin for ‘patchwork,’ a cento is a poem or other literary work composed of lines or passages from other, more famous works, with the meaning altered. Centos were a favorite form in late antiquity. An example is the Cento Vergilianus by Proba Falconia (fourth century), which used bits of Vergil to recount sacred history.”

Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Fragment”

Here is a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “Fragment.” Suffice it to say that this is the first of many of these.

I’ve put up a couple of these before, and traffic to them is consistent. For this one, here is the Cultural Literacy do-now exercise on the idiom “An Ounce of Prevention Is Worth a Pound of Cure.” From the book itself, here is a PDF of the illustration of the evidence with the questions students will consider in analysis and contemplation as they resolve the crime. Finally, here is teacher’s answer key to this case.

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.

Futurism

“Chiefly an Italian literary and artistic movement, futurism stressed the dynamism of motion and appealed to young Italian artists to reject the art of the academies and museums. The first ‘Manifesto of Future Painters,’ proclaimed in 1910 in Turin, was signed by Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carra, Giacomo Balla, Gino Severini, and L. Russolo. Attempting to represent time and motion, these painters and sculptors showed multiples of moving parts in many positions simultaneously. While futurism was not directly associated with fascism until after World War I, evidence of right-wing political ideas and the glorification of war can be found in Boccioni’s States of Mind of 1910-1911.”

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

A Student Self-Assessment and Reflection Tool

This student self-assessment and reflection form has been kicking around my to-do folder for a couple of years now for a couple of reasons. The first is that I could never determine the best way to categorize and tag it (and I post it now because I have decided to take a much more casual attitude toward categories and gags, mostly because I realized this blog has a search function); the second is that this material, I am confident, remains solidly in the authors’ copyright.

Who are, to wit, Jay McTighe and Carol Ann Tomlinson. The book is Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design (Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2006). If you’re interested in curriculum design in general and in particular, in this case differentiating for struggling or idiosyncratic learners (or both), you probably know the names of these two distinguished experts. The book is excellent: I read it twice, taking extensive notes both times. Then I passed it along to assistant principal under whom I served. Every time I visited his office, I noticed that the book was close at hand.

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.

5 Qualifications of Islamic Virtue

“No honour is like knowledge * No belief is like modesty and patience * No attainment is like humility * No power is like forbearance * No support is more reliable than consultation

These qualifications were taught by Ali, the first male disciple of the Prophet Muhammad, his most valiant warrior, his cousin, son-in-law and father of his only male grandchildren. Ali was overlooked in the political succession to the leadership of Islam by the first three caliphs, which allowed him to meditate on the essence of faith in Medina. He is the fountainhead of all the Sufi brotherhoods and mystical practices of Islam, and possessed all these virtues in abundance.”

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.

Guerilla (n/adj)

This context clues worksheet on guerilla affords students the opportunity to see this word used as both a noun and an adjective. I’ve often wondered if, at some point, I should write short application exercises–say, using the word defined in a few extemporaneously written declarative sentences–to complement some of the context clues worksheets I write. This one might be a good place to start with such practice.

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: Republic

“Republic, n. A nation in which, the thing governing and the thing governed being the same, there is only a permitted authority to enforce and optional obedience. In a republic the foundation of public order is the ever lessening habit of submission inherited from ancestors who, being truly governed, submitted because they had to. There are as many kinds of republics as there are gradations between the despotism whence they came and the anarchy whither they lead.”

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

Beatlemania

That the students I serve took the interest they did in this reading on Beatlemania came as a surprise to me. Here also is a worksheet to aid comprehension.

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.