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.

Derivative

“Derivative: 1. A word or other item of language that has been created according to a set of rules from a simpler word or item. 2. A complex word: girlhood from girl, legal from leg- (law), legalize from legal. 3. Of an essay, article, thesis, etc., and usually pejorative: depending on an earlier and better piece of work.”

Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

A Learning Support on Using a Comma to Set off a Nonrestrictive or Parenthetical Word, Phrase, or Clause

OK, last but not least today, here is a learning support on using a comma to set off a nonrestrictive or parenthetical word, phrase, or clause. This is the fifth of fifteen forthcoming posts on learning supports for using the comma in prose. (You can find an excursus on this choice of publishing practice here.)

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.

Jacobean Style

“Jacobean Style: The style of architecture, interior decoration, and furniture associated with England and the reign of James I (1603-1625). In it classical elements are combined with strapwork and northern European figural motifs.”

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

Cultural Literacy: Revolutionary War

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the American Revolutionary War. This is a one-worksheet with a six-sentence reading and seven comprehension questions. It is an adequate general introduction to the topic. In the United States, this period of our history is taught thoroughly, so I doubt this document would be of much use beyond, perhaps, an independent practice (i.e. homework) assignment to start a much broader unit on the American Revolution.

However, if you’re one of the growing number of international users of this blog, this document might have greater utility. This material isn’t part, frankly, of your mythology. All you need are the basic facts, which this short reading supplies.

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.

Man of Letters

“Man of Letters: A well-educated, well-read, civilized and perhaps learned person—who may also be a writer (e.g. a belle-lettrist). ‘A man of capital letters,’ on the other hand, is one who thinks he is these things but is, in fact, very limited. Pope’s victims in The Dunciad might be called ‘men of capital letters’. See also BELLES LETTRES; LITERATI.”

Excerpted from: Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New York: Penguin, 1992.

A Learning Support on Using a Comma to Separate Clauses

Here is a learning support on using a comma to separate clauses. This is the fourth of a total of fifteen learning supports on using the comma forthcoming on Mark’s Text Terminal. (You can find an excursus on this choice of publishing practice here.)

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.

Book of Answers: The Transcendentalists’ Resting Place

Where are Emerson, Thoreau and Hawthorne buried? In Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Massachusetts.

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

Word Root Exercise: Junct

Here is a worksheet on the Latin word root junct. It means “to join.” As you have probably noticed, this is a robustly productive root in English, growing such relatively high-frequency words as conjunction, injunction, junction, and juncture.

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.

Banality

“Banality (noun): An insipidly dull or obvious remark; dreary commonplace. Adj. banal; adv, banally.

‘At moments, in the bar afterwards, I let the rank maleness of my fellows blow through me, and try to think their wrinkled whiskery jowls, their acrid aromas, their urgent and bad-breathed banalities, into some kind of Stendhalian crystallization.’ John Updike, A Month of Sundays”

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

A Learning Support on the Use of a Comma after an Introductory Word or Phrase

Here is a learning support on the use of a comma after an introductory word or phrase. This is the third of fifteen learning supports on using the comma forthcoming on this blog. (You can find an excursus on this choice of publishing practice here.)

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.