Monthly Archives: August 2020

Rotten Rejections: The Clan of the Cave Bear

“We are very impressed with the depth and scope of your research and the quality of your prose. Nevertheless, the length presents a unique problem, for production costs are rising and the reading public are reluctant to buy expensive novels unless the author has an established reputation such as the one enjoyed by James Michener. In any case, we don’t thing we could distribute enough copies to satisfy you or ourselves.”

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

Provincetown

I worked part of a school year in Springfield, Massachusetts. The kids I served there–and this was more a function of social class and the dismal high school they were compelled to attend–had a vague knowledge of Cape Cod, but not really any understanding of its geography, history, or role in the origins of the United States. Others, alas, weren’t aware it was geographically and legally part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Since I was a “literacy interventionist” (whatever that is), without a set curriculum, I prepared this reading on Provincetown and its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet to foster understanding of the Cape and its history. The LGBTQ kids were pleased to get ahold of this information.

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: Context Clues

“context clues: Using information in a sentence or paragraph surrounding a new term to help the reader understand that term. There are several items to look for when searching for context clues, including

  • a punctuation mark (such as a comma or dash) that may signal that information is being presented about the new term
  • key words: words such as or and that is may signal that definition is to follow.
  • Definition: sometimes the meaning of a new word may be made clear by reading the entire paragraph in which it appears.

Learning to use context clues to gain meaning is an important reading skill. A student who is able to use the context to identify an unknown word, grasp the meaning of a word, or comprehend a passage read, will become a good reader.”

Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.

Common Errors in English Usage: Data and Datum

Here is an English usage worksheet on the nouns, singular and plural respectively, datum and data, along with a context clues worksheet on this noun pair. Why two? Well, as above, somewhere along the line, I started two and shepherded them far enough along to make it worth finishing them. In any case, the English usage worksheet is ten cloze exercises, and the context clues worksheet, also ten sentences, is a bit different than most I write in that it actually supplies the definitions up front and asks students to evaluate sentences to see whether or not datum or data are used properly.

As both worksheets explain, the usage rule on these words is shifting rapidly at the moment. My guess? There are still a few college professors out there that expect students to understand the difference between datum and data in grammar, style, and usage. Moreover, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that computer science courses require an understanding of proper application of these two words.  If nothing else, these worksheets can be used to help students build and reinforce their understanding of subject/verb agreement. Most of the sentences setups use is and are as verbs, so students can use the number of the verb to determine whether or not datum or data is the right word to use.

Finally, understanding the difference between datum and data, two words of Latin origin, provides a basis for understanding usage of a similarly nettlesome Latin pair, medium and media, and a Greek pair used across the common branch curriculum, and indeed in all fields of knowledge, criterion and criteria.

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: Conservative for Moderate

“Conservative for Moderate. ‘A conservative estimate’; ‘a conservative forecast’; ‘a conservative statement,’ and so on. These and many other abuses of the word are of recent growth in the newspapers and ‘halls of legislation.’ Having been found to have several meanings, conservative seems to be thought to mean everything.”

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

Malaise (n)

It’s Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day today, and a pretty solid abstraction, so here is a context clues worksheet on the noun malaise.

That is all.

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.

Book of Answers: James Fenimore Cooper

“Who is the title character in James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans (1826)? Uncas, the son of Chingachgook. He is killed defending Cora, his love, against Magua.”

Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

Metacomet

Now that this nation is showing some signs of willingness to face its past of colonial exploitation and subjugation, the time may be right to use this reading on Metacomet and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet in the classroom. 

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: Hermeneutics

“hermeneutics: Movement in the philosophy of science, according to which the task of the human sciences is to elucidate the structure of the social institutions underlying behavior. Thus the aim of linguistics, as one human (and therefore ‘hermeneutic’) science, is to elucidate the rules of language, seen as rules that constitute such an institution.”

Excerpted from: Matthews, P.H., ed. The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

A Lesson Plan on the Laws of Motion from The Order of Things

Here’s a lesson plan on the laws of motion built around this short worksheet with a list of the laws of motion adapted from Barbara Ann Kipfer’s book The Order of Things, one of fifty of these short lessons that will ultimately appear on this blog.

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.