Monthly Archives: July 2022

Keystone

“Keystone: The wedge-shaped stone at the center point of an arch regarded as locking the other stones of the arch in place.”

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

Cultural Literacy: Atlantis

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Atlantis, the mythological city swallowed by the ocean. This is a half-page worksheet with a two-sentence reading, on a longish compound, and three comprehension questions. Just the facts, as Joe Friday liked to say.

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: Curious for Odd or Singular

“Curious for Odd, or Singular. To be curious is to have an inquiring mind or mood—curiosity.”

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

Enamor (vt)

The only thing that accounts for this context clues worksheet on the verb enamor in my folders is that it must have been the Word of the Day at Merriam-Webster at some point. My crowd does tend to use the word a good deal, but I can’t say with any certainty that it is a commonly used English word. You won’t be surprised to hear, owing to the presence of the Latinate root amor, that this verb means “to inflame with love — usually used in the passive with of “; less, well, passionately, enamor can also mean “to cause to feel a strong or excessive interest or fascination — usually used in the passive with of or with <baseball fans enamored of statistics>.”

In any case, it is used only transitively. Don’t forget your direct object, and nota bene, as above, that on generally uses of or with to precede the direct object of enamor.

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.

Isaac Asimov on Problems, Knowledge, and Ignorance

“If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.”

Isaac Asimov (1920-1922)

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

Common English Verbs Followed by Gerunds: Justify

Here is a worksheet on the verb justify when used with a gerund. I cannot justify spending this much time on developing a series of materials that have no value.

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: Tenure

“tenure: A legal guarantee that a teacher cannot be removed from his or her position without cause and that any removal will be done in accordance with due process. Teaches in public schools usually gain tenure if they have served satisfactorily for three to five years. Tenure was created to protect teachers from capricious administrators and to preserve their academic freedom.”

Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.

Pi

OK, moving along to a subject that I really cannot teach (mathematics), here is a reading on pi along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I guess that’s pretty much all there is to say about that.

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.

Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi

“Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi: (1746-1827) Swiss educational reformer. Between 1805 and 1825 he directed the Yverdon Institute (near Neuchatel), which drew pupils and educators (including Friedrich Froebel) from all over Europe. His teaching method emphasized group rather than individual recitation and focused on such participatory activities as drawing, writing, singing, physical exercise, model making, collecting, mapmaking, and field trips. Among his ideas, considered radically innovative at the time, were making allowances for individual differences, grouping students by ability rather than age, and encouraging formal teacher training.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

Word Root Exercise: Vers, Vert

OK, if you can use it, here is a worksheet on the Latin word roots vers and vert. They mean turn. So you probably won’t be surprised to hear that these roots turn up in commonly used English words such as adverse, divert, extrovert, and revert, since all involve a turning of some sort. I think a nifty assessment for this worksheet would be to ask students if they can think of any words that spring from this root–e.g. reverse, obverse, subvert, etc–that are not included in the worksheet.

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.