“Tole: Items of tinware painted with decorative designs. Also called toleware, it was much practiced by amateurs and artisans in the 18th and 19th centuries.”
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
Tagged art/architecture/design
The minute I started writing this English usage worksheet on the adjectives sensual and sensuous worksheet I worried that I had waded into dangerous waters–and I expect I don’t need to explain why. In any case, these are a couple of frequently used words in English, do it’s up to us to find, uh, a suitable way to present them. As you will see, sensual, which as the worksheet’s reading tells students, …”often has a slightly racy or even judgmental tone lacking in ‘sensuous,’” caused me some problems when writing cloze exercises for it.
As with just about everything else at Mark’s Text Terminal, this is a Microsoft Word document, so you can alter it to suit your circumstances and needs.
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.
“Essay (French essai, “attempt”): a composition, usually in prose (Pope’s Moral Essays in verse are an exception), which may only be a few hundred words (like Bacon’s Essays) or book length (like Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding) and which discusses, formally or informally, a topic or a variety of topics. It is one of the most flexible and adaptable of all literary forms….”
Excerpted from: Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New York: Penguin, 1992.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Several years ago I developed this reading on Michel de Montaigne and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet to use with a unit I was working on to support students in their various essay-writing endeavors around the school and across the common branch curriculum.
What I discovered in the course of this project was that students really didn’t understand what an essay is (then, as often happens, I discovered as well that my own grasp of the essay form wasn’t what it should be for someone in my position). Hence these documents: Montaigne, as you may know, is really the father of the essay form–particularly the kind of discursive composition which is often characteristic of essay writing.
In any case, I’m not sure I ever used this in the form you have it here–i.e. in its entirety. Depending on the needs and abilities of the students I served, I’ve chopped the reading up in pieces, but also edited the material I considered most salient in it into one paragraph. I’ve used parts of the worksheet and none of it at all. It’s a solid conspectus of Montaigne’s life and work, therefore a good introduction to him for high school students
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.
“Struggling to pacify the ‘head of protocol’ at a Paris casino, after his companion Harpo Marx had distressed the gentleman with a few good-natured antics, Aleck turned to Harpo and asked, ‘How can I explain you?… There’s no French word for boob.’”
Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.
Posted in English Language Arts, New York City, Quotes, Reference
Tagged humor, literary oddities
Because it’s Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day today, and because it is used in educated discourse with sufficient frequency, here is a context clues worksheet on the noun bailiwick. The context clues on this document are a bit dense; it’s hard to avoid that when dealing with abstract nouns like this one, which means “the sphere in which has one superior knowledge or authority: a special domain.” This is exactly the kind of word that challenges certain struggling learners, so beware of that.
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.
“bureaucracy: (deriv. Fr., office + Gk., rule) Originally a semi-ironic term analogous to democracy or aristocracy, originating in 18th-century France for officials given titles of nobility. Under Napoleon (1804-1815) the country was run by units of centralized administration known as bureau. The term now describes the rule of a body of high officials or the caste of officials itself, usually with connotations of lack of initiative and too strict an adherence to rigid rules.”
Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged term of art, united states history
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the term czar. This noun, of course, describes the absolute rulers of Russia (and, incidentally, like the German Kaiser, originates in ancient Rome with the Latin Caesar). But it also has been used, as the reading on this document explains, to describe public officials with wide-ranging powers. For example, the conservative writer and political activist William Bennett served as the director of the Office of National National Drug Policy under President George H.W. Bush, in which capacity he was known as the “Drug Czar.”
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.
“Because for For. ‘I knew it was night, because it was dark.’ ‘He will not go, because he is ill.’”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged diction/grammar/style/usage
Here, once again, is Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day rendered as a context clues worksheet on the verb reprove. It’s used both intransitively and transitively. It means “to scold or correct usually gently or with kindly intent,” “to express disapproval of : CENSURE,” and “to express rebuke or reproof.”
It’s a solid verb, but perhaps not one students must know. In any case, I’ve done one of my jobs for the day.
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.
 | A Measurement Conver… on An Elegantly Simple Cooking Co… |
| A Measurement Conver… on The Weekly Text, October 25, 2… |
 | markstextterminal on Cree |
 | panzer046a139293db on Cree |
| markstextterminal on Cree |
Mark's Text Terminal 
You must be logged in to post a comment.