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.

Beholden (adj)

Here’s a context clues worksheet on the adjective beholden because it’s Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day today. It also happens to be a commonly used and sturdy adjective, so I submit–particularly because we live in a period of rising political corruption around the world–that this is a word high school students should know upon graduation.

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.

Historical Term: Boss

“’boss’: Phenomenon often found in US politics, but not restricted to the USA, in which the archetypal ‘boss’ is a politician who achieves power locally by corrupt or devious means and then proceeds to strengthen his ‘machine’ (i.e. his supporters) that has helped him to power. His supporters will be nominated to public offices, including the judiciary and police force, and will receive lucrative public contracts. The ‘boss’, susceptible to bribery, will condone lawbreaking if it suits his purposes. He may assume high office himself or might prefer to remain in the background.

The most famous ‘bosses’ include Tweed of Tammany Hall, New York; Platt of New York; Huey Long of Louisiana, and Daley of Chicago. Flagrant examples of ‘bossism’ are now rare. It probably flourished largely because of political apathy and nativity [sic] among large urban immigrant communities and rural populations.”

Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.

Nativism

If there is a better time to post this reading on nativism and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet, I can’t imagine when it would be.

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.

Ally (n), Ally (vi/vt)

Today’s Word of the Day from Merriam-Webster is “grubstake,” which I figured I could pass on. However, you might find that this context clues worksheet on ally as a noun and this one on the word as a verb–used, as above, both intransitively and transitively.

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: Dependent Clause

“Dependent Clause: A group of words that includes a subject and verb but is subordinate to and independent clause in a sentence. Dependent clauses begin with either a subordinating conjunction, such as if, because, since, or a relative pronoun, such as who, which, that. When it gets dark, we’ll find a restaurant that has music.”

Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.

A Lesson Plan on the Scale and Chronology of Evolution from The Order of Things

Here’s another lesson plan from Barbara Ann Kipfer’s book The Order of Things, this one on the scale and chronology of evolution. You’ll need this list and comprehension questions worksheet to complete this lesson in your classroom.

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.

Howard Hughes

Somehow, about six years ago, a struggling student I served improbably found her way to the late Jonathan Demme’s early and critically acclaimed film “Melvin and Howard.” The film is a fictionalized account of Melvin Dummar’s account of encountering Howard Hughes in the Utah desert and giving him a ride to Las Vegas. You can click through on the links to read more about this implausible story.

Anyway, my student, an inquisitive young woman, wanted to know more about Howard Hughes. I worked up this reading on Howard Hughes and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet to supply her with some context for understanding the story in “Melvin and Howard.” Incidentally, I watched the movie myself and didn’t care much for it. Having since seen several of his films, I learned that Jonathan Demme just wasn’t my kind of filmmaker, though I did think his rendition of “The Silence of the Lambs” was the best of the various productions around the legend of the brilliant serial killer, cannibal, and psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter.

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.

Suprematism

“Suprematism: An outgrowth of Rayonism, but more immediately of Analytic Cubism, suprematism was a Russian movement founded in 1915 by Kazimir Malevich, who used the circle, rectangle, triangle, and cross as the basis of a purely abstract style and as a vehicle for his spiritual ideas. Suprematism proved highly significant in the development of Constructivism, despite the latter’s more utilitarian outlook.”

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

A Concluding Lesson Plan on Verbs

If you are a user of this blog, then you may know that I have been, over time, posting all the materials I’ve developed for using the parts of speech to bolster literacy. Since the COVID19 pandemic began, I’ve posted a series of lesson plans on verbs. In fact, with this post, I will have published the entire twelve-lesson unit on verbs that I used in the classroom for several years.

So, if you have accumulated the other eleven lessons, then here is the final lesson plan on verbs, the assessment, for this verbs unit. I open this lesson with this worksheet on the homophones there, their, and they’re. If this lesson continues into a second day (and you’ll see that it is almost inevitable that it will), then here is an Everyday Edit worksheet on National Poetry Month. (If you and your students like the procedural knowledge practice the Everyday Edit worksheets offer you, then you will be pleased to hear that the good people at Education World give away an entire year’s supply of these short exercises.)

Here is the worksheet that serves as a final assessment for the verbs unit posted on this blog.

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.

The Devil’s Dictionary: Circumlocution

“Circumlocution, n. A literary trick whereby the writer who has nothing to say breaks it gently to the reader.” 

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.