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.

Demure (adj)

It’s Merriam-Webster’s word of the day for today, so here is a context clues worksheet on the adjective demure. I’ve always thought of this as one of those locutions the great Joseph Mitchell called “tinsel words,” but maybe students ought to know it anyway, even if just to understand the meaning of the expression “tinsel word.”

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.

Rotten Reviews: The Handmaid’s Tale

Norman Mailer, wheezing lewd approval of some graphic images he encountered in the writing of Germaine Greer, remarked that ‘a wind in this prose whistled up the kilt of male conceit.’ Reading Margaret Atwood, I don my kilt but the wind never comes. Just a cold breeze.”

The American Spectator

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

Atlanta

Here is a reading on Atlanta and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. It’s a short history of the city if you have students interested.

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: Paean

“Paean: (Greek ‘striking’ from paiein ‘to strike’) A song or hymn of joy, exultation or praise, In ancient Greece it was an invocation (q.v.) or thanksgiving addressed to Apollo the Striker, ‘one who strikes blows in order to heal mankind.'”

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

Term of Art: Contraction

“Contraction: A shortened form of a word or group of words: can’t for cannot; they’re for they are.”

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

A Lesson Plan on Constantine I

Moving along to number nine in a global studies unit of ten lessons on ancient Rome, here is a lesson plan on Constantine I, the first Christian emperor of Rome.

I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the noun wrath; if the lesson goes into a second day as you use it (and as I intended for my own use), then here is another context clues worksheet on the noun legacy.

This is the reading on Constantine I and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that are the work of this 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.

Lares

“Lares: Household gods of the ancient Romans, usually referred to in the singular (lar), there being one lar to a household. The lares were protective, and were usually deified ancestors or heroes. The lars familiaris was the spirit of the founder of the house who, never leaving, accompanied his descendants in all their changes. See PENATES.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

A Lesson Plan on Rome and Christianity

As above and below, this lesson plan on Rome and Christianity is number eight of a ten-lesson global studies unit on ancient Rome.

This lesson opens with this context clues worksheet on the noun treaty as well as a on the verb unite (it’s used both intransitively and transitively) if the lesson, as I intended for my own use, continues into a second day. And here is the reading and comprehension questions that are at the center of this 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.

Academy

“Academy: Originally, the garden near Athens where Plato taught. Art academies developed in reaction to medieval guilds and became schools for the practical and theoretical training of artists, elevating their status in society. In baroque times they were universities of art, and they continued as powerful arbiters of taste until the end of the 19th century. Rigorous study of the human form and highly structured teaching based on classical standards characterized most academy instruction.”

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

A Lesson Plan on the Pax Romana

This lesson plan on the Pax Romana is the seventh of a ten-lesson global studies unit on ancient Rome (as above and below–a run, all told, of twenty posts, ten of them documents posts).

Here’s a context clues worksheet on the noun orator and a second on the noun truce for opening this lesson. And here is the short reading with comprehension questions that is the primary work of this 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.