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: Free Will

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of free will. This is a half-page worksheet with a two-sentence reading and three comprehension questions.

In other words, it barely introduces, and in no way does justice to, one of the big, big questions in philosophy and religion. But as an adjunct to a fictional allegory on protagonists with circumscribed lives? This might be a useful document. In any case, it is formatted (like most of the things you’ll find on this blog) in Microsoft Word, so it is open source and therefore yours to do with as you need or wish.

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.

3 Playwrights of Athens’ Golden Age

“Aeschylus * Sophocles * Euripides

The apogee of Classical Athens’ two-century-long golden age of literature was the generation who thought and wrote between 461 and 431 BC. Theatre-going Greeks of this time witnessed the high-minded and complex tragedies of Aeschylus, the graceful, measured characterization of Sophocles and the more emotional and passionately charged creations of Euripides.

It is fitting that they are remembered as a trio, for each year three tragic playwrights produced a trilogy of tragedies (and a farcical comedy) that was performed over three consecutive days to honor Dionysus. These festivals were held around the time of the spring equinox. No more than three actors were permitted on the stage at any one time, their faces and that of the chorus covered in masks. At the end of the festival, one of the playwrights was voted the winner and given the prize of a goat, for the word ‘tragedy’ derives from ‘goat song.’”

Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.

Word Root Exercise: Corp/o, Corpor, Corpus

Here is a worksheet on the Latin roots corp/o,corpor,and corpus. They mean, collectively, body. While that is literal in the sense of the human body, as in corpse or corporeal, it is also figurative, as in corporation.

This is a very productive root in English as well as across the Romance languages. Students would benefit from knowing it, I submit. 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.

Write It Right: Casualties for Losses in Battle

“Casualties for Losses in Battle. The essence of casualty is accident, absence of design. Death and wounds in battle are produced otherwise, are expectable and expected, and, by the enemy, intentional.”

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

Garnish (vt)

It’s Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day today, so here is a context clues worksheet on the verb garnish. It’s used only transitively, so don’t forget your direct object: you must garnish something.

The context in this worksheet seeks to elicit from students the culinary definition of garnish, to wit, “to add decorative or savory touches to (food or drink).” To that end, it might be complementary to this trove of documents I posted a couple of years ago for building a lexicon in the culinary arts.

In any event, garnish has a complicated etymology that includes the idea of garnishing wages (though, interestingly, a definition for that act–depriving someone of earnings to settle outstanding debts–is not part of the set of definitions for garnish as a verb), and “decorating,” “furnishing,” and “embellishing.” Another definition is “to equip with accessories.”  Whatever–that’s enough garnish on this blog post.

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.

Fugitive Pigment

“Fugitive Pigment: Pigment that either fades with prolonged exposure to light, is susceptible to atmospheric pollution, or tends to darken when mixed with other substances.”

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

Glasnost

Here is a reading on Glasnost along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. As I was a Russian and Soviet Studies student at both the undergraduate and graduate level, I can tell you that this one-page reading, from the Intellectual Devotional series, does justice to the topic.

Incidentally, the Russian word root glas means “voice.” So, while one popular definition of glasnost is “openness,” it also means, as this definition from Merriam-Webster’s connotes, the freedom to use one’s voice to discuss previously circumscribed or forbidden topics.

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.

Term of Art: Text-to-Text Connection

“text-to-text connection: The act of comparing one reading passage with another.”

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

Common Errors in English Usage: Fatal (adj), Fateful (adj)

Here is a usage worksheet on distinguishing between the adjectives fatal and fateful. This document contains a short passage of text explaining the definitions and usage rules of these two adjectives, followed by ten teacher-authored modified cloze exercises.

As usual, this document is based on text adapted from Paul Brians’ excellent book Common Errors in English Usage. As I’ve mentioned repeatedly in posts featuring these documents, Professor Brians, emeritus of Washington State University, has posted the book on that institution’s website, should you want a look at it.

As for the words themselves, well, they mean, essentially, deadly and destined. 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.

Book of Answers: Winston Churchill’s Nobel Prizewinning Book

“When and for what work did Winston Churchill win the Nobel Prize in Literature? In 1953 for The Second World War.”

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