“Relative Pronoun: A pronoun that connects a dependent clause to a main clause in a sentence: who, whom, whose, which, that, whoever, whomever, whichever and whatever.”
Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
I don’t know if I can argue that it’s a word high-schoolers ought to know, but if you think so, then here is a context clues worksheet on the noun misnomer. It means “a use of a wrong or inappropriate name” and “a wrong name or inappropriate designation.”
Misnomer does appear fairly often in educated discourse.
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.
“Structuralism: Seen as a form of constructivism, it is manifest as low-relief sculpture that interprets nature in the tradition of Cezanne by the application of simple geometric forms to a flat surface. Named by American artist Charles Biederman, it has a strong following in Holland and Canada.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
Again, and as below, hearings on Amy Coney Barrett’s elevation to the United States Supreme Court are in session as I write this. Judge Barrett’s presence on the high court could be consequential indeed, especially for the LGBTQ community.
So you’ll understand why I think now is a good moment to post this reading on Gay Rights 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.
“Balance of terror: Mutual fear of commencing a nuclear war, a concept which postulates that no country will use nuclear weapons because of the fear of retaliation by the other side. Such a balance has been held because nuclear war, believed to be mutually destructive, would be non-productive to the aggressor. However, the concept is now questioned by proponents of a ‘limited’ nuclear war who believed that the use of nuclear weapons can be closely controlled and restricted to certain areas without provoking massive retaliation.”
Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.
Alright, moving right along on this rainy day, during which the very consequential confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States are underway, it seems like a perfect time to post this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Latinism ex post facto.
The worksheet introduces the term–it means, just as it sounds, “after the fact”–but then quickly moves on to its conceptual meaning in law. An ex post facto law, as the worksheet explains to its readers, “makes illegal an act that was legal when it was committed, or changes the rules of evidence to make conviction easier.” The United States Constitution forbids the making of ex post facto laws.
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.
“Relative Clause: A clause introduced by a relative pronoun, such as who, which, that, or by a relative adverb, such as where, when, why.”
Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
It is, to sound a familiar theme, the Word of the Day at Merriam-Webster seems like another timely verb to me, so here is a context clues worksheet on the verb usurp, which is used both intransitively and transitively.
N.B. please that the context clues sentences for this word are a bit dense. I struggled to find a way to write simple sentences, then opted for building in some social studies content–e.g. you can see how usurp, which means, basically, “to seize and hold without right”–could easily end up in a short declarative sentence about the Magna Carta.
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.
“Avocation for Vocation. A vocation is, literally, a calling; that is, a trade or profession. An avocation is something that calls one away from it. If I say that farming is some one’s avocation I mean that he practices it, not regularly, but at odd times.”
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
OK, last but not least this morning, here is an English usage worksheet on reknown and renown. The first word is simply a misspelling of the second; put another way, reknown is not a word in English.
Renown, however, is, both as a noun and a verb–and the verb is used only transitively. In this English usage worksheet it is used only, in five cloze exercises, as a noun. Given how short this worksheet is, I’ll suggest that there is plenty of room for helping students understand renown as a verb by asking them to write some sentences using it that way.
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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