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.

Plausible (adj)

Here is a context clues worksheet on the adjective plausible. It means, variously, “superficially fair, reasonable, or valuable but often specious (a plausible pretext)”; “superficially pleasing or persuasive, (a swindler…  then a quack, then a smooth, plausible gentleman —R. W. Emerson),” and “appearing worthy of belief (the argument was both powerful and plausible).”

For this worksheet, the first and last definitions are the one the context tries to elicit from students. Incidentally (and editorially as well, for which I ask forgiveness), I’ve long believed, and believe now more than ever, given the outhouse of misinformation that social media has become, that we should use at least some of our schools’ time teaching students about media literacy. If I designed a unit to address this perceived need, I would conduct a lesson on plausibility very early on in the cycle.

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.

Fiction

“Fiction: A vague and general term for an imaginative work, usually in prose. At any rate, it does not normally cover poetry and drama though both are a form of fiction in that they are molded and contrived—or feigned. Fiction is now used in general of the novel, the short story, the novella (qq.v) and related genres.”

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

Term of Art: Number

“Number: A grammatical category used in describing parts of speech that show contrasts of plural, singular, dual, etc. In English, the number system is basically a two-term contrast of singular and plural, shown in nouns and some pronouns and determiners, and to some extend in verbs. Even dual words, such as both, either, neither, take singular or plural verb concord: both taking the plural; either, neither usually taking the singular. English nouns, as far as number is concerned, can be divided into: singular only, plural only, and words that can be both. Singular-only nouns are: (1) Uncountable nouns which can occur with such uncountable-specific words as much, little: much money, little sugar. (2) Most proper nouns: Edinburgh, the Thames (in which other restrictions apply). Plural only nouns are (1) Countable: people in six people, but not in the European peoples. (2) Usually uncountable: not enough clothes (not six clothes); many thanks (not five thanks); trousers (a pair of trousers but not usually three trousers). The vast majority of countable nouns can be both singular and plural (book/books, fox/foxes, mouse/mice), but a few have no distinct plural form (as with one sheep/three sheep). Many nouns, however, have both countable and uncountable uses, in which case they may have a plural in some uses (What an excellent wine/What excellent wines!) but not in others (I never drink wine). Pronouns having distinct singular and plural forms include personal, reflexive, and possessive. Number contrast is neutralized with you, but the second-person reflexive forms distinguish yourself and yourselves. Demonstrative pronouns also have separate forms, singular this, that being used with singular countable nouns (this restaurant) and with uncountable nouns (this food). Number contrast in verbs, except in the verb be, is confined to the distinct third-person singular tense form (look/looks).”

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

Word Root Exercise: Bi, Bin

Here is a worksheet on the Latin word roots bi and bin. They mean two and twice. But you already know that, and your students probably will before long as they work their way through this material.

Of course these are extremely productive roots in English, and this worksheet includes many of the most frequently used words containing bi or bin, to wit: biannual, bicameral (a useful social studies word), bilingual, bicycle, and bifocal.

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.

Ad Infinitum

“Ad Infinitum To infinity: without limit, endlessly or ceaselessly; forever.

‘Administrators expedited, finalized, implemented, processed ad infinitum, while social workers, already famed for euphemism, called their investigators case workers….’ Mary Dohan, Our Own Words.”

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

Palaver (n)

It’s Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day today, so here is a context clues worksheet on the noun palaver. It means, variously, “a long parley usually between persons of different cultures or levels of sophistication,”  “idle talk,” and  “misleading or beguiling speech.” The context in this worksheet calls for the latter two meanings.

I know this isn’t the most commonly used word in the English language, but I think it might make a reasonable surrogate for a commonly used epithet among many of the students I have served, to wit, bulls**t (please forgive me that vulgarism, even in its elided form, on this G-rated blog).

Incidentally, this word can also be used as a verb to mean, intransitively, “to talk profusely or idly,” “parley,” and transitively to mean “to use palaver to cajole.” The word has an interesting pedigree: it arrives in English from the Latin parabola (“parable,” “speech”) via the Portuguese palavra (“word,” “speech”).

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.

Cultural Literacy: Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the proverb “every cloud has a silver lining.” This is a half-page worksheet with the barest of reading, one simple sentence, and three questions.

Two of the questions (namely two and three) ask students to apply their understanding of this expression by identifying an instance in their own life in which a cloud had a silver lining–or, as the reading as it, “Every misfortune has its positive aspect.” Then students are asked to compose a simple declarative sentence that includes this proverb.

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.

Joseph Addison, Presciently, on Today’s Political Discourse

“Our disputants put me in mind of the cuttlefish, that when he is unable to extricate himself, blackens all water about him until he becomes invisible.”

Joseph Addison

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

J. Edgar Hoover

Here is a reading on J. Edgar Hoover along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. From the Intellectual Devotional series, this is a good general introduction to Hoover’s biography.

Any “good” biography of J. Edgar Hoover must by definition include his subversion of democracy, via COINTELPRO, during his reign as FBI Director. Hoover was a nasty piece of work, and he’s just the kind of villain that students find fascinating; he’s also a good figure with which to begin a critical examination of United States history in the twentieth century, including the Civil Rights Movement and the anti-Vietnam War upheavals. It’s an established fact that COINTELPRO monitored Malcolm X closely; his daughters, earlier this year, released a letter from the late New York City Police officer Raymond Wood in which Detective Wood confessed to participating with the FBI in the conspiracy to murder Malcolm. Netflix has done an admirable job of exposing this with the excellent documentary series Who Killed Malcolm X? I found it riveting.

In other words, these two documents are a gateway to some juicy, engaging stuff. I can already think of two students of mine who would have engaged deeply in a unit around these circumstances and events.

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.

Literary Art

“Literary Art: Art with its subject matter drawn from a text; illustration. Literary art is generally thought to be aesthetically superior to narrative art. Many romantic painters, e.g., Eugene Delacroix and William Blake, worked in the literary tradition”

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