When was Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde written? Between 1385 and 1390.
When was Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida written? It was first performed around 1602 and first published in 1609.
Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged drama/theater, poetry, professional development, readings/research
Here, in the final documents post of 2023, is a worksheet on the verb prepare as used with an infinitive. I prepared to jettison a wide array of useless curricular materials.
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.
“Contraction (noun): The shortening of word or phrase by omitting a letter or letters, especially within the word, and a curtailment reflected in its pronunciation; an internally truncated word or phrase, with the omitted letter or letters usually indicated by an apostrophe. Adjective: contractional, contractive; Verb: contract.
‘The word that excited Swift to greatest fury was mob, a vulgar contraction of mobile vulgus.’ Ernest Gowers, Plain Words.”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the split infinitive as an issue in grammar and style. This is a half-page document with a reading of four sentences and three comprehension questions.
At this point, I’ve read a sufficient number of grammar manuals which have argued, to my satisfaction, that splitting an infinitive is not only permissible, but even necessary in some instances to specify meaning. Even the Modern Language Association (MLA) has said that split infinitives are “generally” allowed. Nonetheless, as the reading in this worksheet observes, “Some people consider it poor style, or even incorrect style, to split an infinitive.” I expect there are educators somewhere who counsel students to avoid split infinitives. When I worked in three different college writing centers in the 1990s, occasionally a student would wander in with a paper in which their professor had issued the imperative “avoid split infinitives!” The first question these students raised was “What is a split infinitive?”
Hence this 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.
“motivation: Factors within a human being or animal that arouse and direct goal-oriented behavior. Motivation has long been a central subject of study in psychology. Early researchers, influenced by Charles Darwin, ascribed much of animal and human behavior to instinct. Sigmund Freud believed that much of human behavior was also based on irrational instinctive urges or unconscious motives. Walter Cannon proposed that basic human drives served homeostatic functions by directing energies toward the reduction of physiological tensions. Behavioral psychologists, in contrast, stress the importance of external goals in prompting action, while humanistic psychologists examine the role of felt needs. Cognitive psychologists have found that a motive sensitizes a person to information relating to that motive: a hungry subject, for example, will perceive food stimuli as larger than other stimuli. See also behavior genetics, human nature, learning.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
The final Weekly Text for 2023 is this lesson plan on the Greek word root psych/o. It means “mind,” “soul,”, and “mental process.” You already know that this root produces many shoots in English–many in our own profession–like psychology, psychoanalysis, and psychobiology.
I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the adjective mendacious. It means “given to or characterized by deception or falsehood or divergence from absolute truth.” A useful synonym is dishonest. As I prepare this post, I wonder what moved me to land on mendacious as a useful do-now word for this lesson. In any case, here, finally, is the scaffolded worksheet that is the work for this lesson.
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.
“How is it that little children are so intelligent and men so stupid? It must be education that does it.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.
Finally, this morning, here is a worksheet on the verb plan as followed by an infinitive. I plan to continue posting these documents until they are all gone.
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.
“Minor” Arts: Generally, all art forms except the major ones of painting, sculpture, and architecture. See “Low Art,” Decorative Arts, Applied Arts.
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the linguistic concept of spoonerism. This is half-page worksheet with a three-sentence reading and three comprehension questions. I can’t remember now why I prepared this; I suspect it will have relatively low utility in most classrooms, but who knows? I cannot in good faith argue that high school students, my own purview, need to understand what a spoonerism is, let alone know or care about William Archibald Spooner.
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.
 | A Measurement Conver… on An Elegantly Simple Cooking Co… |
| A Measurement Conver… on The Weekly Text, October 25, 2… |
 | markstextterminal on Cree |
 | panzer046a139293db on Cree |
| markstextterminal on Cree |
Mark's Text Terminal 
You must be logged in to post a comment.