Monthly Archives: March 2020

Word Root Exercise: Gon, Gonio

Moving right along on this chilly Sunday afternoon, here is a word root worksheet worksheet on the Greek roots gon and gonio. Math teachers, you know these roots–which mean angle–because they show up in words like pentagon and polygon. These are, needless to say, very productive roots 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.

Everyday Edit: Ida B. Wells

Here is an Everyday Edit worksheet on Ida B. Wells, the estimable journalist and civil rights activist. If you like this, and would like to use Everyday Edits in your teaching practice, head on over to Education World, where the good people who operate that site give away a twelve-month supply of them.

If you find typos and errors in this document, don’t notify me, because I can’t do anything with this PDF. Instead, fix them! That’s the purpose of the document.

Write It Right: Necessaries for Means

“Necessaries for Means. ‘Bread and meat are necessaries of life.’ Not so; they are the mere means, for one can, and many do, live comfortably without them. Food and drink are necessaries of life, but particular kinds of food and drink are not.”

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

Elicit (vt), Illicit (adj)

Depending on what region of the country whence you hail (if you’ll forgive me that locution), these might not necessarily be homophones, but these five homophone worksheets on the homophones elicit and illicit might also serve as vocabulary-building worksheets. Nota bene that elicit as a verb has only transitive use–so don’t forget your direct object!

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.

Anna Akhmatova on the Stalinist Purge Years

“In those years only the dead smiled, glad to be at rest.”

Anna Akhmatova

Requiem “Prologue”

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

Cultural Literacy: Maya Angelou

OK, last but not least this morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Maya Angelou to begin this blog’s observance of Women’s History Month 2020.

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: Exposition

“Exposition: At the beginning of his play the dramatist is often committed to giving a certain amount of essential information about the plot and the events which are to come. He may also have to give information about what has “already happened”. All this comes under the heading of exposition. A skillful dramatist is able to introduce this material without holding up the action of the play and without recourse to the obvious devices of narrative. See also PROSTATIC CHARACTER.”

Excerpted from: Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New York: Penguin, 1992.

Aesop’s Fables: “The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg”

OK, here is a lesson plan on “The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg” along with the fable itself with a couple of comprehension questions. This is some relatively new material I’ve worked up to serve the needs of some younger middle-schoolers I teach.

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.

Term of Art: Recall

recall: Political process similar to reselection, except that the local party can demand a representative to appear before it and explain its actions whenever it chooses, that is, during the lifetime of a parliament and not only at the end of his term of office.”

Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.

Contrive (vi/vt)

Here is a context clues worksheet on the verb contrive if you can use it. It seems to me a component of well-rounded vocabulary. It’s used mainly transitively, but it also has intransitive use in the sense of “to make schemes.”

f 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.