Here is a context clues worksheet on the verb devise, which is used only transitively. In other words, don’t forget the direct object naming what you intend to devise.
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.
“Salon Des Refuses: The exhibition promoted by Napoleon III in 1863 to show works rejected by the Paris Salon. Because it undermined the prestige of the academic art sanctioned at the official salon, it is often cited as signaling the birth of the avant-garde and modern art. It showed works by Edouard Manet, Eugene Boudin, Ignace Henri Fantin-Latour, Camille Pissarro, James McNeill Whistler, and others.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Moving right along this morning, here is a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “Of Ghouls and Goblins.”
I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of the role model. Finally, to execute this lesson, you’ll need the PDF of the illustration and questions and the typescript of the answer key.
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 Invisible Man: The title of two very different novels. The first is a work of science fiction by H.G. Wells (1866-1946), published in 1897. In this story a scientist finds the secret of invisibility, which lures him into temptation. The first film version(1933), starring Claude Rains, was highly regarded, but its several sequels less so.
The second novel with this title was by the black US writer Ralph Ellison (1914-94). Published in 1952, it won the 1953 National Book Award for fiction. The novel tells the story of a Southern black who moves to New York, participates in the struggle against white oppression, and ends up ignored and living in a coal hole.
I am an invisible man. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fibre and liquids—and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.
The Invisible Man, prologue.
Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.
Here are five homophone worksheets on the nouns troop and troupe.
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.
“Abroad, adj. At war with savages and idiots. To be a Frenchman abroad is to be miserable; to be an American abroad is to make others miserable.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged humor, literary oddities
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Sword of Damocles. This expression, which comments on the ever-present danger to those in power from their courtiers. You’ll hear this turn up occasionally as an idiom 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.
“Humanism: In the first place, the humanists of the Renaissance period were students of literae humaniores (q.v.); the literature of Greek and Latin poets, dramatists, historians and rhetoricians. At the Renaissance (q.v.) there was a great revival of interest in Classical literature and thought and this revival was, to some extent, at the expense of medieval scholasticism (q.v.). The long-term influences of this revival were immense and incalculable, and they led to an excessive devotion to Classical ideals and rules in the late 17th and 18th centuries.
Humanism, a European phenomenon, was a more worldly and thus more secular philosophy; and it was anthropocentric. It sought to dignify and ennoble man.
In its more extreme forms humanistic attitudes regarded man as a the crown of creation; a point of view marvelously expressed in Hamlet by Hamlet:
‘…What a piece of work is man. How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty. In form and moving how express and admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension, how like a god. The beauty in the world. The paragon of animals.’
It would have been inconceivable that anyone in the 14th century should have expressed such a view. Then Hamlet adds: ‘And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?’ And in that one line he summarizes another attitude or feeling, which a man in the 14th century would have responded to instantly.
At its best, humanism helped to civilize man, to make him realize his potential powers and gifts, and to reduce the discrepancy between potentiality and attainment. It was a movement that was at once a product of and a counteraction to a certain prevalent skepticism; a way of dealing with the disequilibrium created by the conflict between belief and doubt. Humanism turned out to be a form of philosophy which concentrated on the perfection of a worldly life, rather than on the preparation for an eternal and spiritual life.
The popularity of the courtesy book (q.v.) in the 16th and 17th centuries, for instance, suggests what a radical change there had been in man’s view of himself. He was increasingly regarded as a creature perfectible on earth. Hence the secular emphasis on courtesy books.
Humanistic ideas and beliefs pervade much other literature of the Renaissance period. Ficino (1433-1499); Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494); Erasmus (1466-1536); Guillaume Bude (1468-1540); Sir Thomas More (1478-1535); Juan Luis Vives(1492-1540); and Montaigne (1533-1592) were outstanding humanists.”
Excerpted from: Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New York: Penguin, 1992.
OK, here, on a sunny Sunday morning, is a lesson plan on collective nouns and subject-verb agreement. I open this lesson with this Everyday Edit worksheet on artist Alexander Calder (and, as always, in the interest of giving credit where credit is due, remember that you can find a year’s worth of Everyday Edit worksheets–for free–at the Education World website). I include this learning support on forming plural nouns with this lesson.
This scaffolded worksheet is at the center of the lesson. Finally, here is the teacher’s copy of the worksheet.
Parenthetically, let me mention that I have tagged this as a Weekly Text. Normally, I only post a Weekly Text on Friday, then cross-post it at the AFT’s Share My Lesson website. Until the COVID19 crisis passes, I’ll be putting up materials I would normally only post as Weekly Texts as, well let’s call them Daily Texts.
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.
“Teaching is the world’s most important job.”
UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)
Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.
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