Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom “If the shoe fits, wear it.” This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences and three comprehension question. A solid explanation of this once-common idiom (if not still?) in English.
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.
“Corruption (noun): Change of an unfamiliar term or form to one more familiar, or departure form correct of standard word use; debased or unorthodox word form; perverted wording of a text or document. Adjective: corrupt; verb. Also BASTARDIZATION
‘His voice was polite again; he even chuckled. ‘After the first shock of seeing the Scrolls destroyed, we realized you’d actually given us a unique opportunity. All the texts are corrupt, you know, even these—copies of copies of copies, full of errata and lacunae—but we never could agree on a common reading, and of course the old Scrolls acquired a great spurious authority for sentimental reasons, even thought the contradict each other and themselves.’ John Barth, Giles Goat-Boy”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
This week’s Text is this lesson plan on the Greek word roots -cracy and -crat, which mean government, rule, and power. I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the verb administer, which I hope, perhaps naively or erroneously, points the way toward the meaning of these two very productive roots. We get aristocracy, democrat, meritocracy, and bureaucracy from these roots; all are included on this scaffolded worksheet, which is the gravamen of the lesson
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.
“fascism: [E20th] The term fascism was first used of the right-wing nationalist regime of Mussolini in Italy (1922-1943), the Partito Nazionale Fascista (National Fascist Party), and later applied to the regimes of Franco in Spain and the Nazis in Germany. It comes for the Latin fascis “bundle.” In ancient Rome the fasces were the bundle of rods, with an axe through them, carried in front of the magistrate as a symbol of his power to punish people.”
Excerpted from: Creswell, Julia. Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
“An aristocracy in a republic is like a chicken whose head has been cut off: it may run about in a lively way, but in fact it is dead.”
Excerpted from: Sherrin, Ned, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations. New York: Oxford University Press. 1996.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes
Tagged fiction/literature, humor, women's history
OK, for the final documents post of Women’s History Month 2025, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Carry Nation, the once-famous temperance crusader. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences and two comprehension questions.
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.
“Lilian (Mary) Baylis: (1874-1937) British theatrical manager and founder of the Old Vic. She assisted her aunt, Emma Cons, in the operation of the Royal Victoria Hall and Coffee Tavern, and on Cons’s death in 1912 she converted the hall into the Old Vic, which became famous for its Shakespearean productions. Between 1914 and 1923 the theater staged all of William Shakespeare’s plays, a feat no other playhouse had attempted. In 1931 she took over the derelict Sadler’s Wells Theatre and made it a center of opera and ballet.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Elizabeth Cady Stanton. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences, the first a bit long, and three comprehension questions.
Incidentally, the reading on this document terminates with the imperative to “See Seneca Falls Convention” in parentheses. You’ll find a Cultural Literacy worksheet on that event 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.
“Elizabeth Barret Browning: (1806-1861) English poet. In childhood she suffered a spinal injury and, until her meeting with Robert Browning, seemed to be doomed to invalidism and seclusion from the world. Barrett and Browning’s courtship under the eyes of her jealous, tyrannical father, their elopement, and subsequent happy married life in Italy form one of the most celebrated of literary romances. Hawthorne describe Mrs. Browning as ‘a pale, small person scarcely embodied at all,’ and this ethereality of her physical appearance is reflected by the palpitating fervor and unworldly tenderness and purity of her work. Often, however, these qualities decline into stridency, diffuseness, and confusion. Her themes were dictated by her broad humanitarian interests; a deep if unorthodox religious feeling, her affection for her adopted country, Italy; and her love for Browning. Her greatest work, Sonnets from the Portuguese, a sequence of love sonnets addressed to her husband, remains an extraordinary and living achievement. Her other works include Essay on Mind, with Other Poems (1826), a translation of Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound (1833), The Seraphim and Other Poems (1838), Poems (1844), Casa Guidi Windows (1851), Aurora Leigh (1856), Poems before Congress (1860), and Last Poems (1862). See THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN, LADY GERALDINE’S COURTSHIP.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, poetry, readings/research, women's history
For the fourth and final Friday of Women’s History Month 2025, here is a reading on Edith Wharton with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.
And that is it for Women’s History Month for 2025.
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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