“Anno domini: Latin for ‘in the Year of Our Lord’; i.e., in the year since the nativity: generally abbreviated to AD. It was Dionysus Exiguus who fixed the date of the Nativity; he lived in the early 6th century, and his computation is probably late by some three to six years. The custom of determining dates on this basis is said to be the result of the work of the Venerable Bede.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Colosseum in Rome. This is a half-page worksheet with a five-sentence reading and three comprehension questions. It’s a solid and concise introduction to the Colosseum and the spectacles that were staged in it. Perhaps three comprehension questions are insufficient; if so, this is (like almost everything that can be downloaded from this site) a Microsoft Word document which you can alter to you or your students’ needs.
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 Cathedra: Pronounced from the seat or authority or by the right of one’s office, as by a papal declaration; authoritatively judgmental, sometimes without explanation or justification; presumptuous. Adverb: ex cathedra.
‘Both stamped Irving’s ‘Hughes’ samples as authentic, and both spoke forth with the certainty of the Holy Father making a pronouncement ex cathedra.’ James Phelan, Scandals, Scamps and Scoundrels
Here is a context clues worksheet on the noun tribune. This word means, for the context in which it is embedded in this document, “a Roman official under the monarchy and the republic with the function of protecting the plebeian citizen from arbitrary action by the patrician magistrates,” and, more pointedly, “an unofficial defender of the rights of the individual.” I can say with complete confidence that I wrote this in the years I taught Freshman Global Studies in New York City. But the basic concept of the tribune–a defender of the rights of the individual–seems like a concept students should understand.
However, writing context for this noun wasn’t easy, and I am still not fully confident this document meets its goal–i.e. helping students to infer the meaning for the word from the context in which it is situated. What do you think?
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.
“Aventine * Caelian * Capitoline * Esquiline * Palatine * Quirinal * Viminal
Rome was founded as a network of seven villages perched on seven hills, So that Sabines, Latins and Etruscans could all benefit from the markets usefully arranged in the low-lying in between them. The Palatine was the central hillock, the Capitoline overlooked the marshy field of Mars and the Aventine was hard against the banks of the River Tiber. In all honesty the other four hills are not so distinct, just a series of interlinked spurs, but it has always been immensely propitious to have a unit of 7 in your foundation myth, like the very first civilization born in Mesopotamia, Sumeria. Rome doubled up by honoring a list of its first seven kings, beginning with Romulus (753-716), Numa (715-674), Tullus Hostilius (673-642), Ancus Marcius, Lucius Tarquinius Priscus and Servius Tullius and finishing with Tarquinius Superbus.
The power of Rome further spread the allure of a city being founded on seven hills, so that most of the great cities of the world—say, Moscow, Lisbon, Jerusalem, Istanbul or Barcelona—have a story of seven hills. Others which have hardly a hill at all, like Mumbai, are said to be founded on seven islands.”
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.
Here is a reading on Marcus Junius Brutus along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Yes, this is the Brutus who was in up to his neck on the assassination plot against Julius Caesar, and to whom Caesar said, in Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, “Et tu, Brute?”
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.
“speech disorders: Individuals express thoughts, feelings, and ideas out loud to one another through a series of complex movements that mold the basic tone created by the voice into specific sounds. Speech is produced by precisely coordinated muscle actions in the head, neck, chest, and abdomen; this gradual process requires years of practice to master in order to produce understandable speech.
By first grade, about 5 percent of children will develop a noticeable speech disorder, most of which will have no known cause. Most speech disorders in the preschool years occur in children who are developing normally in all other areas, although speech disorders also may occur in children who have developmental disabilities.
One of the most common categories of speech disorder is stuttering, a condition in which there is a disruption in the flow of speech. Stuttering is a condition that involves repetitions of speech sounds, hesitations before and during speaking, and the prolonged emphasis of speech sounds. More than 15 million individuals around the world have this problem, most of whom began stuttering at a very early age.
Children with specific speech sound disorders (also called articulation disorder or phonological disorder) have trouble producing the speech sounds of their language that would be expected for their age. The extent of these errors will affect how easy it is to understand their speech, in some cases making it impossible for others to understand what the child is doing.”
Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.
This week’s Text is final lesson plan of the pronouns unit that I’ve been posting piecemeal for the past couple of years. This is the 13th lesson in the unit and the concluding assessment. Nota bene, please, that is is emphatically not a test, but rather a supported assessment that, as the plan will explain, aims to assist students in developing their own understanding of a number of pieces of discrete procedural knowledge. This lesson should take place over a couple of days, if not three.
Accordingly, I’ve lined up three Everyday Edit worksheets to serve as do-nows for this lesson: the first on Susan B. Anthony; the second on Harriet Tubman; and the third on Jane Goodall. Incidentally, if you and your students find these Everyday Edit worksheets useful, or even enjoyable, as students I have served in the past (to my considerable surprise) have, then I have good news for you: the good people at Education World give away a yearlong supply of them.
There are two supports for this lesson (which students used during earlier lessons, so they will be familiar with them if you too have used them), the first on pronouns and case (with the verb to be conjugated for contextual support), the second on the use of indefinite pronouns (e.g. someone, anyone, everybody, all, etc).
Finally, here is the worksheet for this lesson, which is really more of a graphic organizer. It guides students through all the lessons they have completed for this unit.
And that, esteemed reader, is it. There is now a 13-lesson unit on pronouns available on this site; simply type pronouns into the search bar in the upper-right-hand corner of the home page, and you will find them all.
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.
“Analytic Cubism: The first phase of cubism, from about 1907 to 1912, under the powerful influence of Paul Cezanne, who in 1904 had advised treating nature ‘in terms of the cylinder, the sphere, and the cone.’ Analytic cubists reduced natural forms to their basic geometric parts and then tried to reconcile these essentially three-dimensional parts with the two-dimensional picture plane. Color was extremely subdued, and paintings were almost uniformly monochromatic.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
Posted in Worksheets
In response to a student request, I produced these twelve reading comprehension worksheets on the rapper Eminem. These are pretty basic, and follow the sequence of about two-thirds of the Wikipedia page on Eminem. These documents, like most things you’ll find on this site, are formatted in Microsoft Word; in other words, you can download them and alter them to you or your students’ needs.
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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