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.

Word Root Exercise: Acro

Here’s a worksheet on the Greek word root acro, which means high, extremity, and tip.

As you’ll see if you review or use this document–I’m fairly certain I’ve never used it in the classroom–this root produces some relatively specialized words in English. The most common among the assortment are acronym (presumably because one only uses the tips or extremities of words to form acronyms), acrobat (for obvious reasons), and acrophobia, which means, of course, “abnormal dread of being in a high place”, or more simply, “fear of heights.”

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: Excursus

“Excursus: (Latin ‘running out’) A detailed examination and analysis of a point often added as an appendix to a book. An incidental discussion or digression.”

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

French and Indian War

Here is a reading on the reading on the French and Indian War (known contemporaneously in Europe as the Seven Years’ War) along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. The war raged in North America between Britain and France, who had as her allies Native American tribes. This is a turning point in Great Britain’s hegemony in its North American colonies: while Britain won the conflict, it was at enormous cost. In his attempts to extract payment–by way of unpopular legislation like the Stamp Act— from the American Colonies, King George III so antagonized colonists that he provoked a revolution.

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: Antonym

“Antonym: One of two words or other expressions that have opposite meanings: fast and slow, hot and cold. Some words are antonymous in some contexts but not others: straight is the opposite of bent/curved, but is the antonym of gay in the context of homosexuality. Linguists identify three different types of antonymy: (1) Gradable antonyms, which operate on a continuum: (very) big, (very) small. Such pairs often occur in binomial phrases with and: (blow) hot and cold, (search) high and low. (2) Complementary antonyms, which express an either/or relationship: dead or alive, male or female. (3) Converse or relational antonyms, expressing reciprocity: borrow or lend, buy or sell, wife or husband.”

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

The Weekly Text, December 18, 2020: Four Context Clues Worksheets on Enthusiasm (n), Enthusiast (n), Enthuse (vi/vt), and Enthusiastic (adj)

This week’s Text, which will be the last for this benighted year, is four context clues worksheets on the nouns enthusiasm and enthusiast, the verb enthuse, and the adjective enthusiastic. If you want to make a point about words as they appear across the parts of speech–known in linguistics by the term of art morphology–these might help.

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.

Hieratic

“Hieratic: An expression used to designate the severe, stylized forms of Byzantine art (and its derivatives) in which the presentation of the sacredness of a person or thing takes precedence over any naturalistic qualities.”

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

Vilify (vt)

Here is a context clues worksheet on the verb vilify. It’s used only transitively, so don’t forget your direct object: you must vilify someone. It means “to lower in estimation or importance” and “to utter slanderous and abusive statements against.” and “defame.” One of its synonyms is the transitive verb “malign,” which can also be used as an adjective. We’ve had four years of the daily exercise of the action this verb describes, so it is worth knowing when it shows up in any public discourse. 

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.

Henry Adams on Experience

“All experience is an arch, to build upon.”

Henry Adams

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

This reading on Ralph Waldo Emerson and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet might be useful in presenting high school students with a more robust biographical knowledge of this key figure in American letters. As a philosopher, Emerson was highly regarded by Friedrich Nietzsche, among others; his circle, known as the Transcendentalists, left a mark on American culture that is not always easy to trace, but of clear continuity once its traces are found.

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.

Rotten Reviews: Castle to Castle by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

“…quite a tedious book.”

John Weightman, New York Review of Books 

Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.