“Insignificant for Trivial, or Small. Insignificant means not signifying anything, and should be used only in contrast, expressed or implied, with something that is important for what it implies. The bear’s tail may be insignificant to a naturalist tracing the animal’s descent from an earlier species, but to the rest of us, not concerned with the matter, it is merely small.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.
Here is a context clues worksheet on the adjective vulgar. It means, in the context these sentences supply, “lacking in cultivation, perception, or taste,” “coarse,” “morally crude, undeveloped, or unregenerate,” and “gross.” I don’t recall using this in the classroom, but I remember vividly writing it the day after a former president mocked a disabled reporter.
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.
“Total Physical Response: A language teaching method based on the belief that students will learn better when full bodily motion is involved in the process. Developed by educator and researcher James J. Asher, TPR is supposed to replace the traditional learning strategy of sitting at a desk and reading a book. Verbal commands are replaced by physical ones. For example, teachers may teach the alphabet by having students like on the floor to form letter shapes or have students learn punctuation by mimicking the shape of a period, a comma, or an exclamation point. There is some historical precedent for TPR; in the early 19th century, some pedagogues believed that students would learn the alphabet if they ate biscuits in the shape of letters, an ineffective practice that eventually disappeared.”
Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.
Here is a reading on The Pentagon with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I don’t know how much utility these documents carry, but I suspect that they would be best used with a student who has a particular interest in the topic. The reading is an informative summary on the building and its history, and is sufficiently up to date to include the attack on The Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Somehow, the editors of the Intellectual Devotional series fit all of that into a one-page text.
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.
“University: A place in which a civilization’s knowledge is divided up into exclusive territories.
The principal occupation of the academic community is to invent dialects sufficiently hermetic to prevent knowledge from passing between territories. By maintaining a constant flow of written material among the specialists of each group they are able to assert the acceptable technique of communication intended to prevent communications. This in turn establishes a standard which allows them to dismiss those who seek to communicate through generally accessible language as dilettantes, deformers, or popularizers.”
Excerpted from: Saul, John Ralston. The Doubter’s Companion. New York: The Free Press, 1994.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged humor, literary oddities, philosophy/religion
Here is a context clues worksheet on the noun farrago. It means “a confused mixture” and “hodgepodge.” I have to believe that this was a Word of the Day from Merriam-Webster during the pandemic lock-down, and, with little else to do, I wrote this. I guess I’ll add it to the growing, and therefore mildly embarrassing, list of words on this blog that students really don’t need to know.
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.
“Demonstrative Pronoun: A pronoun that shows where something is in relation to the speaker and listener. Standard English has four demonstratives, paired and with number contrast; this/these here, that/those there. Some dialects have three (this, that, yon/yonder) and Scots has this, that, yon/yonder and its variant thon/thonder. The set of three are comparable to Latin hic this near me, iste, that near you, ille that over there. For some grammarians, the term covers the demonstratives however used; for others, demonstrative pronouns (‘I like that,’ Give me some of these’) are distinguished from demonstrative determiners (‘I like that one,’ ‘Who are these people?’).”
Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
To depart from the Latin/Roman emphasis in this morning’s posts, here is a worksheet on the possessive pronouns his and her’s. This is essentially a document to remind students that one never uses an apostrophe with possessive pronouns–just the s without punctuation. This is full-page worksheet that has no structured (i.e. cloze) exercises, but rather calls upon student to compose extemporaneously a series of five sentences using possessive pronouns without apostrophes. This, like almost everything else on this site, is a Microsoft Word document. Therefore, you may alter it to your needs.
And, because giving credit where credit is due is an essential operating principle at Mark’s Text Terminal, let me say once more that this material was adapted from Paul Brians’ book Common Errors in English Usage, to which Professor Brians offers access without charge at the Washington State University website.
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.
“Ex Voto: (Lat., out of thankfulness) A painted or sculptured image given to God or gods in thanksgiving for favors and blessings. Occasionally the donor is depicted in the work.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
Here is a worksheet on the Latin word roots intra and intro. They mean within, inward, inside, and into. You’ll find these roots at the base of words used in the medical profession like intradermal, intramuscular, and intravenous, but also in higher frequency English words like intramural and introduce–all included on this worksheet.
These roots should not be confused with inter which means between and among; if you seek a word root worksheet on inter, you can find that here.
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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