“single-sex education: Classes or schools that enroll only girls or only boys. Advocates of single-sex schooling claim that it helps adolescent students concentrate on their studies, free of distracting socialization with or potential intimidation by the opposite sex. Critics claim that single-sex education is comparable to racially segregated schooling.”
Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.
Do you hear kids bandying about the word “anal” to describe their more fastidious or compulsive classmates? I think I have heard it at least once a year since I became a teacher. It’s mostly used properly, but when it isn’t, this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the anal personality might help to clarify things. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two compound sentences and three comprehension questions.
There’s no mention of Sigmund Freud here, which is an interesting omission considering that the anal stage is the second part of his theory of psychosexual development. This worksheet, again, just explains the basics of the anal personality’s characteristics as (from the text) “…excessive orderliness, extreme meticulousness, and often suspicion and reserve.”
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.
“Linoleum Block: Linoleum glued to a block of hard wood and used as a surface on which to carve designs for relief process prints.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
It was almost certainly a Word of the Day at Merriam-Webster during the pandemic, so here is a context clues on the verb deracinate. It means “uproot,” and “to remove or separate from a native environment or culture; especially to remove the racial or ethnic characteristics or influences from.” In other words, to some extent, the melting pot of American culture and society is to some extent a deracinating process.
This verb is used (if it is used at all anymore) only transitively. Don’t forget your direct object.
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.
“To learn English, you must begin by thrusting the jaw forward, almost clenching the teeth, and practically immobilizing the lips. In this way the English produce the series of unpleasant little mews of which their language consists.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.
Adapted from Paul Brians‘ excellent book Common Errors in English Usage (to which he allows access at no charge under this hyperlink), here is a worksheet on the use of the nouns individual and person in declarative sentence. This is a full-page worksheet with only the short reading from Mr. Brians’ book: the actual work for this document is a free-write using both individual and person in sentences, and then assessing which word sounds better in prose.
And that is pretty much it.
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.
“Bibliography (noun): The study or historical cataloguing of books and writings, including dates, places of publication, description of editions, etc., or a volume containing such information; textual scholarship; listing of writings, or of sources of information in print, dealing with a particular subject, period, or author, often with descriptive notes; in a particular book, a list of works consulted by the author. Adj. bibliographic, bibliographical; adv. bibliographically; n. bibliography, bibliographer.”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged professional development, readings/research, term of art
Coming to the end of this morning round of publishing, here is a worksheet on the verb escape when used with a gerund. I escaped considering the quality of this material by putting on some Three Stooges shorts.
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 Rime of the Ancient Mariner: A long poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), published in Lyrical Ballads (1798), his joint collaboration with William Wordsworth. The poem opens with the Ancient Mariner buttonholing a guest at a wedding to tell him his tale. Having shot an albatross (traditionally bad luck at sea), the Ancient Mariner and his shipmates were subjected to fearful penalties. On repentance he was forgiven, and on reaching land told his story to a hermit. At times, however, distress of mind drives him from land to land, and wherever he stays he tells his story of woe, to warn against cruelty and to persuade men to love God’s creatures.
The story is partly based on a dream told by Coleridge’s friend George Cruikshank, and partly gathered from his reading. Wordsworth told him the story of the privateer George Shelvocke, who shot an albatross while rounding Cape Horn in 1720, and was dogged by bad weather thereafter. Other suggested sources are Thomas James’s Strange and Dangerous Voyage (1683) and the Letter of St Paulinus to Macarius, In Which He Relates Astounding Wonders Concerning the Shipwreck of an Old Man (1618). A full examination of the possible sources is to be found in The Road to Xanadu (1927) by J.L. Lowes.
‘The Ancient Mariner would not have taken so well if it had been called The Old Sailor.’
Samuel Butler, Notebooks (1912)”
Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Moving along on this run I’m on this morning, here is a reading on Robert Oppenheimer along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. He’s always been a figure who interested me–mostly for the crisis of conscience he suffered for what he unleashed on the world.
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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