Monthly Archives: July 2024

Oscar Wilde on Fashion

Posted on July 26, 2024 | Leave a comment

“Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.”

Oscar Wilde

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.

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Common English Verbs Followed by an Infinitive or a Gerund: Love

Posted on July 26, 2024 | Leave a comment

Here is a a worksheet on the verb love when used with an infinitive or a gerund.

She loves to walk on the beach.

She loves walking on the beach.

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: Story Seeds

Posted on July 26, 2024 | Leave a comment

“story seeds: Ideas around which a student might build a story. Every story, for example, involves a conflict, so a teacher should provide a student with a conflict as a story seed and have the student create the setting, the characters, the incident that starts the conflict, and so on.”

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

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Cultural Literacy: Pogrom

Posted on July 26, 2024 | Leave a comment

Because it turns up in various social studies textbooks, I whipped up this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the pogrom as a form of civil strife to provide context for, well, for the history of Europe from 1850 to 1950. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences and two comprehension questions.

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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Posted in Independent Practice, Social Sciences, Worksheets

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Monochromy

Posted on July 26, 2024 | Leave a comment

Monochromy: That which is completed only in one color or shade. See grisaille.

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

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The Weekly Text, 2 August 2024: A Lesson on the Latin Word Root Trans

Posted on July 26, 2024 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is a lesson on the Latin word root trans. It means “across,” “through,” “change,” and “beyond.” This is an extremely productive root in English, yielding such high frequency words as transact, transcript, transit, transform, and transfer. In fact, all of those words are on the scaffolded worksheet that is the principle work of this lesson, and which includes, as all the Latin word root worksheets on this blog do, a list of cognates from the Romance languages.

I use this context clues worksheet on the transitive verb ford to open this lesson. It means “to cross (a body of water) by wading.” Needless to say, it is meant to point students toward the meaning of across in this word root.

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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William Feather Indicts Civilization

Posted on July 25, 2024 | Leave a comment

“One of the indictments of civilization is that happiness and intelligence are so rarely found in the same person.”

William Feather

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 or a Gerund: Like

Posted on July 25, 2024 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the verb like when used with an infinitive or a gerund.

I like to publish blog posts–even with documents as dubious in quality as this one.

I like publishing blog posts–even posts with sketch material, in hopes that someone will comment.

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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Conflation

Posted on July 25, 2024 | Leave a comment

“Conflation (noun): A combining or blending or two or more versions of a text; confusion or mixing up. Adjective: conflated; Verb: conflate.

‘Big, heavy textbook….They aim to take in a typical freshman, gawky and clueless, process him cover to cover, and turn out a conflation of Walter Pater and George Orwell.’ Richard Lanham, Style.”

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

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Cultural Literacy: Raison d’Etre

Posted on July 25, 2024 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Gallicism raison d’etre. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences–the first a short compound separated by a colon and containing quoted material, the second a phrase giving the this term’s meaning, i.e. “reason for being.” There are three comprehension questions, the third of which asks students to compose a sentence containing raison d’etre.

Yes, I stipulate that this isn’t exactly a high frequency word in the English language. But educated people do use the word because it is useful in its place. Enough said.

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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