Yearly Archives: 2020

42—Life, The Universe, and Everything

Posted on September 30, 2020 | Leave a comment

“In Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the computer Deep Thought takes 7.5 million years to work out the Answer to the Ultimate Questions of Life, the Universe and Everything is ‘42’—even if in the process the question had been forgotten. It is an answer that must disconcert Japanese readers, for 42 in Japan is like 49 in Chinese: when pronounced ‘four’ and ‘two,’ it sounds horribly similar to ‘unto death.’”

Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.

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A Lesson Plan on the Chronology of Space Flights from The Order of Things

Posted on September 30, 2020 | Leave a comment

Here’s a lesson on the chronological order of international space flights and the list as reading and comprehension questions that constitute the lesson’s work. This lesson derives, as does every lesson on this blog under the header The Order of Things, from Barbara Ann Kipfer’s book of the same name.

Incidentally, I’ve just finished writing all the lessons and worksheets for the unit they comprise. There are 50 lessons in all, and I’ll soon post supporting documents for the unit, including a user’s manual for the worksheets and the unit plan itself.

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: Predicate

Posted on September 28, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Predicate: The verb and its related words in a clause or sentence. The predicate expresses what the subject does, experiences, or is. Birds fly. The partygoers celebrated wildly for a long time.”

Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.

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Abstain (vi)

Posted on September 28, 2020 | Leave a comment

OK, last but not least this morning, here is a context clues worksheet on the verb abstain, which is in fact Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day today. It is only used intransitively, and it is a word students probably ought to know and be able to use.

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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Henry Adams on Politics

Posted on September 28, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Politics as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.”

Henry Adams

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

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Cultural Literacy: Populism

Posted on September 28, 2020 | Leave a comment

If there was ever a time where students ought to be receiving rigorous instruction in civic and politics, it’s now. And I don’t mean to say that this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the political philosophy of populism is the solution to any deficit in civics instruction, but it’s a start, especially for struggling learners and emergent readers.

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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Term of Art: Antonomasia

Posted on September 28, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Antonomasia: [Stress: ‘an-to-no-May-zy-a’]. 1. In rhetoric, the use of an epithet to acknowledge a quality in one person or place by using the name of another person or place already known for that quality: Henry is the local Casanova; Cambridge is England’s Silicon Valley. 2. The use of an epithet instead of the name of a person or thing: the Swan of Avon William Shakespeare.”

Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

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Rambunctious (adj)

Posted on September 28, 2020 | Leave a comment

It was Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day yesterday; I found to my surprise that I don’t already have a context clues worksheet on the adjective rambunctious. I don’t think I need to defend this as a word kids ought to know over time. Whether or not it requires a context clues worksheet–this seems like a word that the circumstances of most schools and classrooms offer many opportunities to drop into that most natural of contexts, casual conversation. A teacher could mention, simply in passing, that students’ exuberant behavior is rambunctious. That’s enough with this word, I would think.

All of that said, it might be worth noting, either in passing or to your students, the onomatopoeic quality of this adjective.

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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Historical Term: Billeting

Posted on September 28, 2020 | Leave a comment

[Given the post immediately below this on, it’s worth mentioning that the Third Amendment to the United States Constitution–i.e. the third of the first ten amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights, guaranteed this freedom: “No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.”]

“Billeting The custom of requiring householders to provide accommodation for members of the armed forces. The system was widely abused in the 17th century under Charles I and protests against it were included in the Petition of Right (1628). Despite the forbidding of forced billeting in 1679, it continued under Charles II and James II, ending only when parliament agreed to the building of permanent barracks in 1792.”

Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.

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James Madison

Posted on September 28, 2020 | Leave a comment

A few years back, I read several news accounts like this one from CNN that indicated that Americans, particularly those who fancy themselves experts on the subject, know vanishingly little about the United States Constitution. 

This reading on James Madison and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet will go only a short distance to ameliorate ignorance of the U.S. Constitution, but it will serve as a reasonable introduction to deeper inquiry into this quintessential document from the American Enlightenment. 

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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