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.

The Weekly Text, June 19, 2019: A Lesson on the Simple Past Tense of Verbs

This week’s Text, is a lesson plan on the simple past tense of verbs. I begin this lesson after a class change with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the famous proverb “Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Scorned” (I’ve often heard this expression attributed to Shakespeare, but it actually comes from a play by Restoration dramatist William Congreve, “The Mourning Bride“). If circumstances necessitate a second day for this lesson, then here is another do-now exercise, this one a homophones worksheet on the worksheet on the adjectives veracious and voracious. You’ll need this scaffolded worksheet which is the primary work of this lesson; you and your students might also find useful this learning support and word bank. Finally, here is teacher’s copy of the worksheet.

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.

Cultural Literacy: Radioactive Waste

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on radioactive waste if you have any use for it. It seems to me if we are going to generate garbage like this and not find a way to store it safely, then we have an obligation to make sure our students understand what it is and how it might affect their future.

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.

Silhouette

“Silhouette: A profile likeness of a person or scene cut from black paper and usually mounted against a white background. Named for French amateur practitioner of the art, Etienne de Silhouette, Louis XV’s finance minister.”

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

Television

Finally, on this fine summer day, here is a reading on the origins and development of television as a technology and a cultural force along with its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

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: Idiot

“Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot’s activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but ‘pervades and regulates the whole.’ He has the last word on everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions of opinion and taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line.”

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

Salutation (n), Valediction (n)

These context clues worksheets on the nouns salutation and valediction might be useful at most schools to introduce these two concepts–useful for understanding forms of correspondence–to your students. You could also use them as they are, or rewrite them, to introduce the words salutatorian and valedictorian to your graduating seniors.

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: Privative

“Privative: Indicating lack of loss of, absence of, or negation, e.g., the prefixes ‘un-,’ ‘a-,’ ‘non-,’ the suffix ‘-less.'”

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

Common Errors in English Usage: Alumnus, Alumni

Here is an English usage worksheet on sorting out the use of alumnus and alumni. If you’re so inclined, it would take only a moment to explain the inflections at the end of these Latin words and in so doing plant basic knowledge about inflected languages in students’ minds.

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.

Timothy Shanahan on Leveled Literacy Curricula

“Leveled reading emphasizes students’ current limitations, rather than increasing their possibilities, especially for the least advantaged of our students. We can do better.”

Timothy Shanahan

“Limiting Children to Books They Can Already Read: Why It Reduces Their Opportunity to Learn.”  American Educator 44.2 (Summer 2020): 17. Print.

Word Root Exercise: Pept, Peps

Last but not least this morning, here is a worksheet on the Greek word roots pept and peps. They mean digestion. Now you know why people with sour dispositions are often described as dyspeptic. Connotations aside, this is another word root that will show up in the lexicon of the healthcare professions, should you have students…well, professing an interest in a career in health care.

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.