Monthly Archives: June 2024

George Bernard Shaw on Chess

Posted on June 21, 2024 | Leave a comment

“Chess is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever when they are only wasting their time.”

George Bernard Shaw

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

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Common English Verbs Followed by an Infinitive: Want

Posted on June 21, 2024 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the verb want when followed by an infinitive. I want to move all of these worksheets out of my drafts folder.

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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Term of Art: Social Skills Problem

Posted on June 21, 2024 | Leave a comment

“social skills problems: Children with a learning disability (especially nonverbal disabilities) may have trouble with social skills as a result of problems with perception. Children in this situation tend to be isolated, with few close friends, and only rarely participate in school activities. They are often rejected by children their own age because of odd behavior or poor school performance.

Teachers tend to rate these children as being easily led and with poor social adjustment. These problems may be caused by poor social comprehension, the inability to understand another’s point of view, poor language skills, or misinterpretation of body language.”

Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.

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Cultural Literacy: Subsidy

Posted on June 21, 2024 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of a subsidy. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of one sentence and one comprehension question. Just the basics, but useful, I would think, for any introductory economics course as well as a range of topics in United States history.

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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Write It Right: Demise for Death

Posted on June 21, 2024 | Leave a comment

“Demise for Death. Usually said of a person of note. Demise means the lapse, as by death, of some authority, distinction, or privilege, which passes to another than the one that held it; as the demise of the Crown.”

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

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The Weekly Text, 21 June 2024: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on the Chemical Elements

Posted on June 21, 2024 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is this reading on chemical elements along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. The reading derives from the Intellectual Devotional series of books, whose readings I have found quite useful in classroom practice. Both documents are formatted in Microsoft Word so that you can easily convert them to a format of your choice as well as edit them for specific students or classroom use.

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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Book of Answers: Pamela

Posted on June 14, 2024 | Leave a comment

“What was Pamela’s last name in Samuel Richardson’s Pamela? Andrews.”

Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

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Common English Verbs Followed by an Infinitive: Seem

Posted on June 14, 2024 | Leave a comment

OK, finally this morning, here is a worksheet on the verb seem when used with an infinitive. This worksheet seems to be intellectually lightweight.

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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Communique

Posted on June 14, 2024 | Leave a comment

“Communiqué (noun): An official announcement or bulletin, usually addressed to the media or other official bodies rather than the public.

‘The communiqué contained—here you proceed at your own risk and probably would be well advised to have a companion—friendly and cooperative relations, harmonious relations, constructive relations, cooperative relations, the totality of varied relationships, a close and mutually beneficial relationship based on the principal of equality (it’s only the beginning folks, only the beginning), a common determination, an enhanced scope for creativity, the maintenance of peace and the evolution of a stable international order….The Tokyo communiqué somehow left out resolute action, which governments often promise to take and the end of meaningless meetings.’ Edwin Newman, A Civil Tongue”

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

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Cultural Literacy: Obscenity

Posted on June 14, 2024 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of obscenity. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences (the last a compound separated by a semicolon) and three comprehension questions. While obscenity as a legal concept doesn’t much appear in the press anymore, mostly because it appears to be a settled legal issue, it certainly was in the news a great deal when I was in high school.

So this may currently be irrelevant material–something I learned about in school because it was current in a way that it no longer is.

But 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.

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