Category Archives: English Language Arts

This category contains domain-specific material–reading and writing expository prose, interpreting literature etc.–designed to meet the Common Core standards in English language arts while at the same time being flexible enough to meet the needs of diverse and idiosyncratic learners.

Assiduous (adj)

Posted on April 18, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a context clues worksheet on the adjective assiduous. It means, as you probably know, “marked by careful unremitting attention or persistent application,” e.g. “an assiduous book collector,” “tended her garden with assiduous attention.” I stipulate that this isn’t exactly a high-frequency word in English. It is, however, a useful one.

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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The Doubter’s Companion: A La Recherche du Temps Perdu

Posted on April 18, 2022 | Leave a comment

“A La Recherche du Temps Perdu: A work of genius written in bed. It opens with the narrator tucked between his sheets. It is rarely read for any length of time on a mattress.

It is also rarely read, but is often talked about and has had a major impact on many people who haven’t read it, if only because of the strain of waiting for Marcel Proust to be mentioned in conversation, which can happen as many as three times in a year. The educated person may the be required to make a comment on what they have only read about.

That literature could mean, as the French novelist Julian Gracq once complained, books more talked about than read indicates the extent to which language today may be used more to obscure and control than to communicate.”

Excerpted from: Saul, John Ralston. The Doubter’s Companion. New York: The Free Press, 1994.

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Time

Posted on April 18, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on time as a philosophical concept, along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. The reading invokes Kant, Leibniz, and Newton; as I recall, I wrote this about ten years ago for a student interested in philosophy. I don’t know that I or anyone else as looked at it since. Here it is for your use. Remember that like everything else on Mark’s Text Terminal, these are Microsoft Word documents, so you can tailor them to your students’ needs.

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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Grammar

Posted on April 15, 2022 | Leave a comment

Grammar: Rules of a language governing its phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics; also, a written summary of such rules. The first Europeans to write grammar texts were the Greeks, notably the Alexandrians of the 1st century BC. The Romans applied the Greek grammatical system to Latin, The works of the Latin Grammarians Donatus (4th century BC) and Priscian (6th century) were widely used to teach grammar in Medieval Europe. By 1700, grammars of 61 vernacular languages had been printed. These were mainly used for teaching and were intended to reform or standardize language. In the 19th-20th centuries linguists began studying languages to trace their evolution father than to prescribe correct usage. Descriptive linguists (see Ferdinand de Saussure) studied spoken language by collecting and analyzing sample sentences. Transformational grammarians (see Noam Chomsky) examined the underlying structure of language (see generative grammar). The older approach to grammar as a body of rules needed to speak and write correctly is still the basis of primary and secondary teaching.

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

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Word Root Exercise: Ram, Rami

Posted on April 15, 2022 | Leave a comment

On the first day of a very badly needed spring break, here is a worksheet on the Latin word roots ram and rami. They mean branch. This root does not produce a bumper crop of high-frequency English words: it gives us ramification, and therefore ramify–or vice versa, because there is a good chance the verb emerged first. This is a Latin root, and as we know from history, the Romans loved action. However, this root also sprouts biramous (“having two branches”) ramus (“a projecting part, elongated process, or branch,” “the posterior more or less vertical part on each side of the lower jaw that articulates with the skull,” and “a branch of a nerve”), which may actually have use for students interested in entering healthcare professions, and ramose (“consisting of or having branches”).

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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Auxiliary Verb

Posted on April 14, 2022 | Leave a comment

“auxiliary: In grammar, a verb that is subordinate to the main lexical verb in a clause. Auxiliaries can convey distinctions of tense, aspect, mood, person, and number. In Germanic languages, such as English and Romance languages such as French, an auxiliary verb occurs with the main verb in the form of an infinitive or a participle.”

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

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Common Errors in English Usage: Ignorant (adj), Stupid (adj)

Posted on April 14, 2022 | Leave a comment

From Paul Brians’ book Common Errors in English Usage, here is a worksheet on differentiating and using properly the adjectives ignorant and stupid. This is a full-page worksheet with a two-sentence reading and ten modified cloze exercises.

Given the current state of American culture and society, I would think this would be timely, and therefore useful, material. But that’s just the perspective of my currently jaundiced eye. On a brighter note, and to give credit where it is so amply due, you should know that Professor Brians allows access to his usage manual at no cost; you can find the webscript (can I coin that portmanteau?) at the Washington State University website.

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: Small School Movement

Posted on April 14, 2022 | Leave a comment

“small schools movement: A movement initiated in the 1970s, mainly in New York City, to establish small schools. Some of these schools were alternative schools for adolescents in need of intensive remediation, whereas others set out to demonstrate that students would get a better education in schools containing fewer than 500 students. Interest in the small schools movement was propelled by pioneers Deborah Meier and her Central Park East schools in East Harlem in New York City and Theodore Sizer and his Coalition of Essential Schools. The movement continued to grow during the 1980s and 1990s and gained momentum with the commitment of $1 billion by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in the late 1990s. With funding from the Gates Foundation, many cities across the United States agreed to divide their high schools into small schools. Advocates claim that small schools offer a warmer, more personalized climate than do large schools and consequently boast higher achievement, attendance, and graduation rates. Critics contend that the small schools are unable to mount a strong curriculum with advanced courses and that the administrative costs of small schools are excessive, the burden on teachers is greater, and the academic results are uncertain.”

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

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The Weekly Text, 15 April 2022: A Lesson Plan on Using Prepositions

Posted on April 14, 2022 | Leave a comment

The Weekly Text on this Tax Day (actually, Tax Day this year is on Monday, 18 April) is the penultimate lesson, a sentence writing review, of seven-lesson unit on the use of prepositions. Without further ado, then, here is the lesson plan.

I open this lesson with this Everyday Edit worksheet on author Yoshiko Uchida; in the event the lesson stretches into a second day, here is another on Basketball’s Beginnings. (And to give credit where it is so deservedly due, the good people at Education World allow access at no cost to a calendar year’s worth of Everyday Edit worksheets, should you find these useful documents work well for your students.) Here is the sentence-writing review worksheet. If you need it, here is the learning support for commonly used prepositions that I work to keep by students’ sides throughout this unit. Finally, here is the teacher’s copy of the worksheet.

Next week I’ll publish as the Weekly Text the assessment lesson for this unit. Then Mark’s Text Terminal will be able to offer a complete seven-lesson unit on using prepositions in prose.

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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Cultural Literacy: Organization Man

Posted on April 14, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of the organization man. This is a half-page worksheet with a one-sentence reading and two comprehension questions. This is a term coined, as a title of a 1956 book, The Organization Man by sociologist William H. Whyte. I don’t know what place, if any, this document might find in the secondary classroom. But if you are concerned about the increasing bureaucratization of everyday life (and if you’re a teacher and not concerned about this, I would like to suggest that you pay greater attention to what is happening in your school and school district–e.g. look for job titles like “assistant vice superintendent”).

I’m just about to finish the late David Graeber’s book on rapidly expanding bureaucracies, Bu****it Jobs, so I suppose this is on my mind–hence this post, even though this document has lain around at the Text Terminal warehouse for several years.

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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