Monthly Archives: August 2021

Word Root Exercise: Ambi, Amphi

OK, last but not least today, here is a worksheet on the Latin word roots ambi and amphi. They mean both, on both sides, and around. 

These are extremely productive roots in English, yielding ambience, ambivalent, ambiguous, an amphibian, to name just four. These are all good words to help students to understand abstract nouns, adjectives, and substantives.

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.

Rotten Reviews: Joan Didion

“Rotten Reviews: Salvador

‘…she makes the tiny republic of El Salvador into a mirror reflecting her own basic contempt for liberal democracy and—why not say it?—the American Way of Life.’

Commentary”

Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.    

The Unabomber

Here is a reading on the Unabomber along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

This is one of the better articles from the Intellectual Devotional series. The writer recites the facts of the case while keeping the whodunit angle front and center. I only developed these documents recently, so I’ve never used them in the classroom. Still, having used successfully many articles from these books, I think I can predict that this one will be of high interest to students, so I have tagged it as such.

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.

The Index

“The Index: The popular name for the Index Liborum Prohibitorum (Latin, ‘index of prohibited books’), the Vatican’s ever-changing list of proscribed publications, which Roman Catholics were forbidden to read except in special circumstances. The first index was made by the Inquisition in 1557, although St. Gelasius (pope 492-96) issued a list of prohibited writings in 494. In 1571 Pope Pius V set up a Congregation of the Index to supervise the list, and in 1917 its duties were transferred to the Holy Office. In addition to the Index there was the ‘Codex Expurgatorious’ of writings from which offensive doctrinal or moral passages were removed. The Index and the Codex were banned in 1966.

All books likely to be contrary to faith and morals, including translations of the Bible not authorized by the Church, were formerly placed on the Index. Among authors wholly or partly prohibited were: Joseph Addison, Francis Bacon, Geoffrey Chaucer, Benedetto Croce, Gabriele D’Annunzio, Rene Descartes, Edward Gibbon, Oliver Goldsmith, Victor Hugo, John Locke, John Milton, Montaigne, Girolamo Savonarola, Voltaire and, for a long time, Copernicus, Dante and Galen.

Index Liborum Prohibitorum was also the title given to the first ever bibliography in English of erotic and pornographic writing. It was published in 1877 by Henry Spencer Ashbee (1834-1900), businessman, book collector and member of the Royal Academy of Madrid, who left his collections of erotic and Spanish literature to the British Museum. Some experts have suggested Ashbee as the pseudonymous ‘Walter,’ author of the pornographic classic My Secret Life (1888-92).”

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

Cultural Literacy: Fiscal Policy

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on fiscal policy. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading comprising three long and fairly dense compound sentences, with three comprehension questions.

As I revised this document for posting, it occurred to me that it is probably inadequate to the task of assisting students in developing an understanding of fiscal policy. So this might be a seed document from which others could and probably should grow. Also, the reading might better serve English language learners and emergent readers if it were broken up, and two or three more comprehension questions added. As always, I would be very interested to hear what you have done with this.

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.

Pat Conroy on Serving as a Teacher

“There’s no word in the language I revere more than ‘teacher.’ My heart sings when a kid refers to me as his teacher, and it always has. I’ve honored myself and the entire family of man by becoming a teacher.”

Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides (1986)

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

Berate (vt)

It’s Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day today, so here is a context clues worksheet on the verb berate. It means “to scold or condemn vehemently and at length.” You only use this verb transitively, so don’t forget your direct object: you must berate someone or something–but really only someone.

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: Temporal-Sequential Organization Problems

“temporal-sequential organization problems: Children with this type of organizational problem have trouble completing long-term assignments, understanding and having a sense of time, and understanding and following directions.

Almost every task a child does involves sequence, whether that task involves getting dressed, completing an assignment, or reading a book. Knowing the sequence and being able to follow it are important developmental skills.

School can be overwhelming for students who cannot recognize a step-by-step plan needed to master a concept such as memorizing the alphabet, understanding the seasons, or learning the multiplication tables. Spelling can be a particular problem for these children, who cannot remember the sequence of letters, which is also required for word recognition during reading.

Concepts of time are also very difficult for these children, who have trouble mastering days of the week, months of the year, and how to tell time. The ability to manage time is also compromised, and completing a long-term assignment by the due date is quite a challenge. Because a concept of time is foreign to these children, they easily lose track of time, which can interfere with a child’s ability to pace work during a test.”

Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.

A Learning Support on Writing the Interrogative Sentence

Here is a learning support on writing the interrogative sentence. This is something I assembled myself using a variety of sources; it’s lengthy–two full pages of text with a number of examples.

In my experience, students struggle to write interrogative sentences. This points to a much bigger problem (and perhaps a fundamental failing in our educational systems and pedagogy) that I seek on a daily basis to solve in my classroom: students don’t really know how to ask questions. Since all learning begins with a question, this troubles me greatly, which is why I worked assiduously to create a support that would answer all students’ questions about, well, asking questions. I know I ask for this at the bottom of every documents post, but I would be especially grateful to you for your comments on this document.

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.

Write It Right: Can for May

Can for May. “’Can I go fishing?’ He can call on me if he wishes to.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.