Monthly Archives: January 2020

A Short Lesson on the Neolithic Period

OK, here is a lesson plan on the Neolithic Period of human history. I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on carbon which serves to familiarize students with that element in preparation for a lesson on carbon dating organic material to establish its age. If this lesson goes into a second day, you might want this context clues worksheet on the noun mayhem. Finally, here is the short reading and comprehension worksheet at the center of this lesson.

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.

Thomas Edison

Moving right along on my lunch break, here is a short reading on Thomas Edison and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet if you can use them.

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.

Write It Right: Afford

“Afford. It is not well to say ‘the fact affords a reasonable presumption’; ‘the house afforded ample accommodation.’ The fact supplies a reasonable presumption. The house offered, or gave, ample accommodation.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.

Candidate (n)

It’s that time of the political season again–the first voting in the 2020 presidential election will occur in less than two weeks. This is as good a time as any, then, to post this context clues worksheet on the noun candidate.

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: Rhetorical Question

“Rhetorical Question: A question that expects no answer. The answer may be self-evident (If she doesn’t like me why should I care what she thinks?) or immediately provided by the questioner (What should be done? Well, first we should…). The question is often asked for dramatic effect. Rhetorical questions are sometimes announced with such a phrase as I ask you (when nothing is in fact being asked): ‘Garn! I ask you, what kind of a word is that? / It’s Ow and Garn that keep her in her place / Not her wretched clothes and dirty face’ (Alan Jay Lerner, My Fair Lady, 1956).”

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

Common Errors in English Usage: Complementary and Complimentary

Here’s an English usage worksheets on the adjectives and homophones complementary and complimentary if you need your students to know, understand, and differentiate these two 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.

Rotten Reviews: All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren

“Somewhere, Mr. Warren loses his grip on his backwoods opportunities and becomes so absorbed in a number of other characters that what might have been a useful study of an irresponsible politician whose prototype whe have had melancholy occasion to observe in the flesh turns out to be a disappointment.”

The New Yorker

“The language of both men and women is coarse, blasphemous, and revolting—their actions would shame a pagan hottentot.”

Catholic World

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

Cultural Literacy: Acid Rain

You don’t hear much about it anymore–perhaps because we have much bigger, more threatening environmental catastrophes on our civilizational plate–but if you can use it, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on acid rain.

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: Pastiche

“Pastiche (noun): A literary work that draws on styles, formats, etch., of other sources and thus is eclectic and derivative, and often whimsical or irreverent (but not with humor as a primary intent); book or story made up of borrowings from other writers; hodgepodge; stylistic imitation of a writer at work; parody. Noun: pasticheur.

‘His novels were pastiches of work of the best people of his time, a feat not to be disparaged, and in addition he possessed a gift for softening and debasing what he borrowed, so that many readers were charmed by the ease with which they could follow him.’

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night”

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

A Lesson Plan on Addiction

Here is a lesson plan on addiction along with its short reading and its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. If you want slightly longer versions of both they’re under that hyperlink.

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.