Monthly Archives: April 2020

Word Root Exercise: Liter

Posted on April 1, 2020 | Leave a comment

OK, finally this morning, here is a worksheet on the Latin word root liter. While it sounds like it should be related to a measure of liquid (as we use it by itself in English), it actually means letter. Now you know why you find it at the root of words like literature in English. Needless to say, this is a very productive root 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.

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Rotten Reviews: On Mark Twain

Posted on April 1, 2020 | Leave a comment

“A hundred years from now it is very likely that ‘The Jumping Frog’ alone will be remembered.”

Harry Thurston Peck, The Bookman 1901 

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

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John Lennon

Posted on April 1, 2020 | Leave a comment

OK, I’m drawing down to the last couple of posts for this morning. Here is a high-interest (depending on whom you’re teaching, I guess) reading on John Lennon along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

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.

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Term of Art: Collective

Posted on April 1, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Collective: Indicating a group or aggregate of persons or things, e.g. the nouns ‘herd’ and ‘grove.’”

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

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Contraption (n)

Posted on April 1, 2020 | Leave a comment

Here is a context clues worksheet on the noun contraption. Kids who have been read to as children very likely have heard and therefore understand this word; kids who haven’t enjoyed the benefits of nightly story time, and English language learners, probably have not. In any case, it is a word in common enough use in English that kids ought to know it.

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.

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Social Realism

Posted on April 1, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Social Realism: A trend in 20th-century art before 1950. Often political in nature, social realism is distinctive in its realistic depictions of the ills of society. The influence of Mexican muralists Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros was felt by North American social realist and WPA artists. Some North Americans emerged from the Ashcan School, while others, like Ben Shahn, evolved separately.”

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

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Cultural Literacy: Multiculturalism

Posted on April 1, 2020 | Leave a comment

For reasons I never understood (and still don’t, frankly), it was anathema to academic conservatives about the time I began to think about going to college in the late 1980s, but I think this Cultural Literacy worksheet on multiculturalism is something to which students ought to be exposed.

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.

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Mesopotamia

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“Mesopotamia: An ancient region of southwest Asia in present-day Iraq, lying between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. Its alluvial plains were the site of the ancient civilizations of Akkad, Sumer, Babylonia, and Assyria, now lying within Iraq.”

Excerpted from: Wright, Edmund, Ed. The Oxford Desk Encyclopedia of World History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

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Everyday Edit: Sapporo Snow Festival

Posted on April 1, 2020 | Leave a comment

April is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, so for the next 30 days I’ll post a plethora of materials related to the history of Asia and Asians in global history. To that end, here is an Everyday Edit worksheet on the Sapporo Snow Festival. If you find typos in this document, fix them! That’s the point of the exercise.

Because I always feel remiss anytime I fail to give credit where credit is due, let me remind you (as I will every time I post an Everyday Edit) that the good people at Education World post on their website, free for the taking, a yearlong supply of Everyday Edits. If we want students to write well–and I’m hard pressed to imagine why we wouldn’t–they need to learn to copyedit.

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Baghdad

Posted on April 1, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Baghdad or Bagdad: City, capital of Iraq. Located on the Tigris River, the site has been settled from ancient times. It rose to importance after being chosen in AD 762 by Caliph al-Mansur (r. 754-775) as the capital of the Abbasid dynasty. Under Harun ar-Rashid it achieved its greatest glory, reflected in the Thousand and One Nights, as one of the world’s largest and richest cities. A center of Islam, it was second only to Constantinople in trade and culture. It began to decline when the capital was moved to Samarra in 809. It was sacked by the Mongols under Hulegu in 1258, taken by Timur in 1401, and captured by the Persian Suleyman I in 1524. It was a shadow of its former self in 1638, when it was absorbed by the Ottoman empire. In 1921 it became capital of the kingdom of Iraq. In 1958 a coup d’etat in Baghdad ended the monarchy. Severely damaged by bombing in the Persian Gulf War, it has since suffered under international trade sanctions.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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