Yearly Archives: 2020

Prematurity

Posted on May 22, 2020 | Leave a comment

I worked up this reading on prematurity (in the sense of premature births) and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet for a student, and I think after that one use, it disappeared until today, when I found it in a far corner of my desktop. Health educators, is this something you teach about?

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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Urdu

Posted on May 22, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Urdu: An Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent, associated with the Moghul Empire, in which Persian was the court language. It is used especially Muslims and written in a variant of the Perso-Arabic script. Closely related to Hindi, Urdu has a similar pronunciation and grammar but a more heavily Persianized and Arabicized vocabulary. It is the national language of Pakistan and is its co-official language with English. In India, it is the state language of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, and associate state language of the state of Uttar Pradesh. It is spoken as a first language by c.30m and as a second language by c.100m people in India and Pakistan, and some thousands of people of Indo-Pakistani origin in Fiji, Guyana, South Africa, the UK, and the US.”

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

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Posted in Essays/Readings, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

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A Lesson Plan on the Latin Word Root Lingu-

Posted on May 22, 2020 | Leave a comment

Here is a lesson plan on the Latin word root lingu-, which means language and tongue. You no doubt recognize it as the basis of the word linguist, which is a noun I like to throw around freely in my classroom.

I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the noun tongue in its sense as a synonym for the word language, as in “Fatima’s native tongue is Urdu.” Finally, here is the worksheet that is the center of this lesson.

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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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Lesson Plans, Worksheets

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The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Posted on May 22, 2020 | Leave a comment

“’The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock: A poem by T.S. Eliot (1888-1965), first published in 1915. It depicts the doubts and sexual inhibitions of a shy Bostonian by the name of J. Alfred Prufrock. Eliot took the name of his celebrated central character from that of a St. Louis furniture company.

‘I grow old… I grow old…

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled…

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think they will sing for me.

T.S. Eliot: ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’”

Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.

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Cultural Literacy: Two Worksheets on Rudyard Kipling

Posted on May 22, 2020 | Leave a comment

Let’s move along with a couple of Rudyard Kipling-related Cultural Literacy worksheets, the first a simple biography of the writer, the second a short but cogent analysis of his unfortunate poem “The White Man’s Burden.” If you teach global studies, or whatever your school district calls a broad survey of world history, the latter document might be useful in helping students develop their own understanding of the uses of culture to create, buttress, and therefore justify ideology, in this case the depredations of European colonialism.

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: Ingressive

Posted on May 22, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Ingressive: Indicating the beginning of an action, state, etc., e.g., the verbs ‘get,’ ‘set out,’ “awaken.’ Also INCEPTIVE, INCHOATIVE”

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

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Dominion (n), Dominate (vi/vt)

Posted on May 22, 2020 | Leave a comment

Here are two context clues worksheets on the noun dominion and the verb dominate. The verb is used both intransitively and transitively. I assume I needn’t belabor the relationship between these two words, but I will mention that dom in the languages I have studied generally means, among other things, home (i.e. domicile).

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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Harry S Truman on Politics as a Vocation

Posted on May 21, 2020 | Leave a comment

“My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there’s hardly any difference.”

Harry S Truman

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

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Gilded Age

Posted on May 21, 2020 | Leave a comment

Alright, last but not least this beautiful spring morning is this reading on the Gilded Age along with its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I assume I don’t need to belabor the point that this reading could very well describe our own epoch.

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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20 Fingers and Toes

Posted on May 21, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Twenty is perhaps the oldest, most natural large number for mankind to relate to, for it is the number we achieve by counting up all our fingers and toes. Echoes of this unit (called Vigesimal) can still be found in both the French and English language. The French still express eighty as ‘quatre-vingts’ (four twenties), while English keeps a special word (‘score’) for this number, as in the expression ‘four score and ten.’ And until decimalization was introduced in 1971 the English monetary unit was still so ordered, with twenty shillings to the pound.”

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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