“Sgraffito: (It., scratched; pl. sgraffiti) A technique of decorating stuccoed surfaces, in which a layer of colored plaster is laid over a dry underlayer and then incised with designs while still damp—making use of the contrasting color of the underlayer. Also, a drawing or words hastily scratched or written on a wall.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
On a ninety-degree day in Vermont, here, appropriately, is a lesson plan on the Aesop’s fable “The Boy Bathing.” You’ll need this reading and inquiry questions for students to conduct the lesson. You’ll notice, as you will in all of these lessons I’ve posted on Aesop’s fables, that there is plenty of room to expand the range and nature of the questions on the worksheet. That’s by design. Aesop’s fables are miniature lessons in philosophy, and the kinds of questions they arouse can be improvised based on student perception, interest, and need.
Incidentally, this is the last of these I have to post at the moment. I could write more relatively easily. Are you using them? If so, leave a comment, and I’ll put writing a few more on my to-do list.
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.
“Relative: Indicating reference to or dependence on an antecedent word, phrase, or clause, or introducing a subordinate clause, e.g., ‘which,’ ‘who,’ ‘whatever.’”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
It’s Merriam-Webster’s word of the day today, so here is context clues worksheet on the noun crux. The crux of this to me is that it seems like a word–and a concept represented by the word–that graduating high school seniors ought to have in their linguistic toolboxes.
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.
“Social Work: The generic term applied to the various applied methods for promoting human welfare through the prevention and relief of suffering. In the late nineteenth century, social work was largely voluntary (notably as a charitable activity on the part of middle-class women), and aimed primarily at the alleviation of material poverty. In the period since the Second World War, social work practice has become increasingly professionalized, and now has a much wider remit embracing emotional and mental as well as economic well-being.
Contemporary social work tends to suffer from a lack of differentiation from the various other social services which comprise the modern welfare state. In Britain, for example, social workers have no legal obligation (and no practical resources) to deal with issues of unemployment, housing, and poverty—all of which are responsibility of other social services. What they are expected to deal with are the wide range of problems which diminish the ‘quality of inner life’; for example, problems and crises associated with adoption, fostering of the young and old, marital reconciliation, sexual and physical abuse, and people’s relationships with one another generally.
There are several models of social work practice. The ‘problem-solving’ approach involves the social worker in reinforcing the client’s emotional and organizational resources to deal with his or her difficulties. The various ‘psycho-social therapies’ stress the need for prior psycho-social diagnosis as a prerequisite for psycho-social treatment. Partly as a reaction against the deterministic and mechanical view of action implied in these approaches, ‘functionalists’ have emphasized the role of the social worker in helping (rather than treating) the client, by sustaining an appropriate supporting relationship with him or her. Other models are oriented towards behavior-modification, crisis-intervention, and short-term task-centeredness. In reality, practice tends to be characterized by eclectic pragmatism, rather than adherence to a specific method. Strong recent influences include feminist theory and anti-oppressive practice. Good recent overviews are Malcolm Payne, Modern Social Work Theory (1991) for Britain, and J. Heffernan et al., Social Work and Social Welfare (2nd edn., 1992) for the United States.
Not surprisingly, many outside observers have expressed concern at the periodic psychotherapeutic takeover of social work; similarly, given its inherently moral character, social work practice has been subject to repeated controversy involving those who view it as primarily a political tool—either for promoting or hindering social justice.”
Excerpted from: Marshall, Gordon, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Now seems like a perfect time to post this reading on the draft riots in New York City in 1863 and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. These events were, among other things, an outbreak of racist violence that included the arson against the Colored Orphan Asylum on Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan–a stunningly shameful attack in an epoch of shameful acts.
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.
“Reflexive: Indicating an action or the agent or grammatical subject upon itself, that is, with the subject and object being the same person or thing, e.g., ‘She feeds herself’ or (implicitly reflexive) ‘She keeps in shape.’”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
This week’s Text, is a lesson plan on the simple past tense of verbs. I begin this lesson after a class change with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the famous proverb “Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Scorned” (I’ve often heard this expression attributed to Shakespeare, but it actually comes from a play by Restoration dramatist William Congreve, “The Mourning Bride“). If circumstances necessitate a second day for this lesson, then here is another do-now exercise, this one a homophones worksheet on the worksheet on the adjectives veracious and voracious. You’ll need this scaffolded worksheet which is the primary work of this lesson; you and your students might also find useful this learning support and word bank. Finally, here is teacher’s copy of the 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.
“agent provocateur (fr) A person placed in the ranks of the enemy during social, political, or industrial conflicts, to damage or compromise the enemy, provoking actions that might not otherwise have taken place. Agents provocateurs have been employed to provoke armed clashes between police and strikers or to induce strikers to act illegally. They have also been used by government agencies against revolutionary groups and in international politics to create disorder or ‘incidents’ as an excuse for war or intervention in others’ affairs.”
Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.
Posted in Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged building vocabulary/conceptual knowledge, term of art
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on radioactive waste if you have any use for it. It seems to me if we are going to generate garbage like this and not find a way to store it safely, then we have an obligation to make sure our students understand what it is and how it might affect their future.
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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