Monthly Archives: June 2021

Edgar Allan Poe

Here is a reading on Edgar Allan Poe along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I believe he is taught at the secondary level. This is a good introduction to Poe’s biography and his bibliography.

Have you read Poe, beyond hearing James Earl Jones read “The Raven” on The Simpsons first “Treehouse of Horror” episode? I confess my own reading of Poe doesn’t extend very far beyond that. He is a very influential figure in the history of American letters. His first editions are some of the most sought after in the antiquarian book trade; his very first book, Tamerlane, which doesn’t even bear his name (the author is given as “A Bostonian) is a high spot in book collecting–it is known as the “black tulip” of American literature. The last copy that came up at auction sold for $662,000. His influence abroad may be even more pronounced, especially in France.

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.

Epictetus on Education

“Only the educated are free.”

Epictetus, Discourses (101 A.D.)

Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.

Word Root Exercise: Anthrop/o

Here is a worksheet on the Greek word root anthrop/o. It means man and human; I always teach it as meaning simply human, just as I avoid locutions like “mankind” in the interest of avoiding sexism in language.

You can probably already perceive that this is very productive root in English. It gives us, of course, anthropology, anthropocentric, philanthropy, and misanthrope among a number of other commonly used words in the high school curriculum. And it you are interested in teaching students about global warming and environmental degradation in this, the Anthropocene Era, this is worksheet leads the way in building the necessary vocabulary for such an endeavor.

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.

Glasgow School

“Glasgow School: A group of painters who gathered in Glasgow, ca 1850-1918, who rejected academic conventionality and painted in a spirited style of naturalism. The best known of them include David Young Cameron and E.A. Walton.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

Annotation (n)

Here is a context clues worksheet on the noun annotation; I don’t know why I didn’t post it at the same time as this one on the verb annotate, which is used both intransitively and transitively.

I wrote these because I worked in a school in which students were assigned work compiling annotated bibliographies without ever learning what it means, as an act or academic practice, to annotate. I hope these help.

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.

Term of Art: Diacritic, Diacritical Mark

“Diacritic, Diacritical Mark (noun): A distinguishing mark given to a character or letter to indicated stress or pronunciation, such as a superscribed accent; phonetic sign. Adjective: diacritic, diacritical.

‘The ‘etymons,’ as he called them were the root terms for Pass and Fail, but inflected with prefixes, infixes, suffixes, and diacritical marks to such an extent, and so variously from fragment to fragment, that conflicting interpretations, in his opinion, could be said to figure the intellectual biography of studentdom, as has been amply demonstrated in a wealth of what he called Geistesgeschichten…. John Barth, Giles Goat-Boy.'”

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

Cultural Literacy: Mixed Economy

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of a mixed economy. It’s a full-page worksheet with four questions, but it can–and very easily, because it is a Microsoft Word Document–be expanded or contracted depending on how much you need students to know about the subject. It’s decent general introduction, but it does presuppose some knowledge of the difference between market and command economies, and private and public enterprises.

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.

The Devil’s Dictionary: Rational

“Rational, adj. Devoid of all delusions save those of observation, experience and reflection.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000. 

A Learning Support on Joint Possessives

Here is a learning support on joint possessives‘ cribbed from Paul Brians’ Common Errors in English Usage

Professor Brians does a nice job of explaining how best to handle this tricky construction and make it sound proper and read the same way. You will not that joint possessive constructions are trickiest with pronouns.

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.

Terms of Art: Anglophile, Anglophobe, Anglophone

“Anglophile: 1. Admiring or loving England and the English and/or the English language: the anglophile party in Scotland. 2. Someone with such an attitude: unrepentant Anglophiles. The term may or may not include Britain as a whole, and non-English Britons may experience Anglophilia.

Anglophobe: 1. Also Anglophobic. Fearing or hating England and the English and/or the English language: Anglophobe reaction. 2. Someone with such an attitude: an inveterate Anglophobe. The term may or may not include Britain as a whole, and non-English Britons may experience Anglophobia.

Anglophone: [Often used without an initial capital]. 1. A speaker of English: (Africa) locally born anglophone whites; (Quebec) certified anglophones, permitted by law to send their children to English-medium schools. 2. Of speakers of English: an anglophone school. The term occurs mainly where French is also used. It contrasts with francophone (French-speaking), allophone (speaking a language other than French or English), arabophone (speaking Arabic), hispanophone (speaking Spanish), lusophone (speaking Portugese), etc.”

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