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.

Cultural Literacy: Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on gross domestic product (GDP). This is a half-page worksheet with three sentences and three comprehension questions. In spite of its brevity–or perhaps because of it, because the basic concept of GDP is simple–this is a good basic explanation of this broad measure of economic activity in a nation state, state, or province.

I would think this would be useful in just about any social studies class, but especially in the second half of high school.

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.

Term of Art: Visual Perception

“visual perception: The ability to recognize and interpret visual information provided to the brain. Difficulties in visual perception are separate from and unrelated to impairment in the visual system that may diminish visual acuity or result in visual impairment or blindness. Visual perception involves the determination and discrimination of spatial information, as well as performance on tasks such as the discrimination of letters and words, geometric designs, and pictures.

Visual perception is an essential component of learning, especially in regard to reading development and to acquiring classroom information. Difficulties with visual perception may significantly affect and individuals ability to discriminate letters and words, and to work with mathematical information.”

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

Common Errors in English Usage: Goal (n), Objective (n)

Once again, from Paul Brians’ book Common Errors in English Usage (to which he allows access at no charge at the Washington State University website), here is a worksheet on using and differentiating the nouns goal and objective. This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of two brief paragraphs and ten modified cloze exercises.

And, once again, Professor Brians supplies a clear and concise exposition of the use of these words–and makes room for a broader discussion about English usage and clear communication.

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.

Fete Galante

“Fete Galante: A scene of an elegant, festive occasion in an open-air setting, depicting dancing, musicales, comedy, etc. Antoine Watteau introduced the fete galante and it became a specialty of French Rococo art.”

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

Stipulate (vi/vt), Stipulation (n)

Here is a context clues worksheet on the verb stipulate and another on the noun stipulation. This has always seemed to me a word students should know before they leave high school. If nothing else, it gives teachers the opportunity to say to students, “If anyone is looking down the road at law school, here are a couple of words useful to know.

For the record, stipulate is used both intransitively and transitively. Intransitively, it means “to make an agreement or covenant to do or forbear something,” “contract,” and “to demand an express term in an agreement — used with for.” Transitively, it means “to specify as a condition or requirement (as of an agreement or offer)” and “to give a guarantee of.” The noun stipulation means “an act of stipulating” and “something stipulated; especially a condition, requirement, or item specified in a legal instrument.”

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.

Ambiguity

“Ambiguity (noun) The state or quality of having more than one possible meaning; unclear or unresolved sense; a double meaning or equivocal word or expression. Adjective: ambiguous; adverb: ambiguously; noun: ambiguousness

‘Disraeli has a standard reply for diplomatic ambiguity for people who sent him unsolicited manuscripts to read: “Many thanks; I shall lose not time in reading it.”’ Robert Hendrickson, The Literary Life.”

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

Friedrich Nietzsche

Not that demand for it is likely to be great, but here, nonetheless, is a reading on Friedrich Nietzsche along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

I wrote this material for a student I worked with at the very beginning of my teaching career. After he used it, I don’t believe I ever printed another copy of it. I have some history with Nietzsche, so I can tell you that this is a workmanlike, mostly superficial account of his philosophy. But how, really, to deal with a thinker of Nietzsche’s range, depth, and insight in one page? Impossible, I say.

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.

Write It Right: Clever for Obliging

“Clever for Obliging. In this sense the word was once in general use in the United States, but is now seldom heard and life here is less insupportable.”

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

Word Root Exercise: Extra-, Extro

Here is a worksheet on the Latin word roots extra and extro. They mean outside and beyond. This two roots are at the base of a lot of high-frequency words in English, including two adjectives commonly used in your own school–extracurricular and extramural.

Or how about the strong expository verb extrapolate? Surely something we want students to be able to do. Then of course there is always the old standby, extraordinary, literally “beyond ordinary.” 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.

Nighthawks

“Nighthawks: A painting (1942) by the US artist Edward Hopper (1882-1967), showing people at an all-night coffee stand. A nighthawk is the same as a ‘night owl,’ i.e. someone who likes to stay up all night. A nighthawk—also called a mosquito hawk or bulbat—is also the name for any of a group of American nightjars. Nighthawks has also been used as the title of two films, one (1978) about the night-time cruising of a gay British schoolteacher, and the other (1981) about American policemen pursuing a terrorist.”

Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.