Monthly Archives: June 2019

Baseball Cards

If there is a better time than a warm afternoon in late June to post this reading on baseball cards, I can’t imagine when that would be. Here is the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that 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.

Walter Wallace Decodes the Rockingham Meeting House Cemetery

While I realize that it’s not most people’s idea of fun, I like to spend time in cemeteries. I appreciate funerary art. I enjoy the solemnity and quiet of cemeteries. I benefit from the perspective cemeteries provide. And, since the advent of the smartphone, I enjoy using cemeteries as a primary source in historical research. One can learn a lot about the demographics of a town by its deceased citizens.

So, I am pleased to see that my pal Walter Wallace, in Springfield, Vermont, has worked with a local cable access production company to offer this video on Puritan symbolism on gravestones at the Rockingham Meeting House, in Rockingham Vermont, where he is a docent. Incidentally, this meeting house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.

Great work, Walter!

Victor Hugo on Schools

“He who opens a school door, closes a prison.”

Victor Hugo (1802-1885)

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

Cultural Literacy: Woody Guthrie

Billy Bragg, an British singer I’ve been listening to for over thirty years, announced yesterday on his Twitter feed that New York City will rename part of Mermaid Avenue on Coney Island (where Woody lived, and which is also the name of an excellent trio of albums of Woody’s songs by Mr. Bragg and the American rock band Wilco) as Woody Guthrie Way. Furthermore, this years Mermaid Parade features Arlo Guthrie as King Neptune and Nora Guthrie as Queen Mermaid. They are, you will perceive, Woody’s children. If you’re in Brooklyn, or anywhere near Coney Island, I urge you to attend this cool event.

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Woody Guthrie in celebration of the events limned above, and of Mr. Guthrie as an American treasure.

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.

Term of Art: Particle

“A word that does not change its form through inflection and does not fit easily into the established system of the parts of speech. Among individual words commonly so classed are the negative particle not (and its contraction n’t), the infinitive particle to (to goto run), the imperative particles dodon’t (Do tell meDon’t tell me) and letlet’s (Let me see now; Let’s go). There is also a set of adverbial and prepositional particles that combine with verbs to form phrasal verbs (out in look outup in turn up) and prepositional verbs (at in get at; for in care for). The term pragmatic particle is sometimes used for words that play a role in maintaining discourse and are also known as fillers and discourse markers: ohahwell, yesnoactuallyanyway.”

Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

The Weekly Text, June 21, 2019: Five Worksheets on Differentiating and Using the Nouns Capital and Capitol

OK, here, very simply, because I am exhausted on this first Friday of the summer break, are five homophone worksheets on the nouns capital and capitol. Right off the top of my head, looking at these, I can see a number of ways to edit and revise them to take students more deeply into these words and the concepts they represent.

That’s it. I hope you’re enjoying nice weather and the free time to get out in 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.

The Algonquin Wits: George S. Kaufman on His Failures

“During the influenza epidemic of 1918, just after his first play had opened in New York, Kaufman reportedly went around advising people to ‘avoid crowds–see Someone in the House.'”

“After the flop of his first play, Someone in the House, Kaufman remarked, ‘there wasn’t.'”

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

Surreptitious (adj)

OK, if you can use it, here is a context clues worksheet on the adjective surreptitious. It means, of course, “done, made, or acquired by stealth” and “acting or doing somethings clandestinely.”

I’m off this morning to take the Massachusetts Test of Educator Licensure (MTEL) in English. Wish me luck on this four-hour test.

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.

League of 12 Cities–Dodecapolis

“Arezzo * Cerveteri * Chiusi * Cortona * Perugia * Populonia * Veii * Tarquinia-Corneto * Vetulonia * Volterra * Bolsena * Volci

The Aeolian Greeks, Ionian Greeks, and Etruscans all preserved ancient memories of how their ancestors were linked together in leagues of twelve that jointly honored a sacred place. No definitive list survives, however. The cities above are the most widely accepted modern Italian cities that have an Etruscan foundation, though there may have been three separate Etruscan leagues, each composed of twelve cities.”

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.

Word Root Exercise: Dyn, Dyna, Dynam/o

Here, on a rainy Thursday morning, is a worksheet on the Greek word roots dyn, dyna, and dynam/o. They mean power, energy, and strength. These are, as the worksheet shows, some very productive roots in English. A number of STEM-related words start with this root, among others.

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.