Here is a worksheet on the worksheet on the use of the verb phrase advocate for and the simple verb advocate, which is used only transitively.
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.
“A confusing jamboree of piercing noise, routine roller skating, misogyny and Orwellian special effects, Starlight Express is the perfect gift for the kid who has everything except parents.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged drama/theater, humor, literary oddities
A couple of hundred years ago when I was a high school student myself, the primary form of one-upmanship in my crowd consisted in identifying the most obscure, and often the most unlistenable, prog rock band. Then, at exactly the right moment, i.e. when it would most effectively reflect one’s own cultural superiority, one would drop the name of said band into conversation, generally editorializing on the band’s “excellence.” Personally, I wasted a lot of time and money on this exercise in status anxiety, buying and listening to execrable records by bands like Jade Warrior, Aphrodite’s Child (my faux sophistication required me to feign affection for the atrocious album 666 by Aphrodite’s Child), and other groups and artists on Vertigo Records.
And this to some extent continues–or at least it did ten years ago when I was out in the Upper Midwest visiting my hometown. At a cocktail party, one of my interlocutors mentioned to several of us that he’d recently seen Peter Hammill live. I think he assumed that we wouldn’t know that Mr. Hammill had been a founding member of another of these prog rock bands, Van der Graaf Generator, or, indeed, that I still had Mr. Hamill’s song “Imperial Zeppelin,” from his solo album Fool’s Mate, in one of my current playlists. I decided it was best, at age almost fifty, to pass on taking the conversation any further.
Anyway, if you have such students, if they don’t already know about him, this reading on Brian Eno and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet might be of some interest. Eno remains a major figure–and of deserved interest because of his work with David Bowie and U2, to name just two artists with whom he has worked–so this material, relatively speaking, is au courant. But he was, in my day, somewhat arcane–and for me, also mostly unlistenable.
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.
“Teleology: A teleological explanation either explains a process by the end-state towards which it is directed; or explains the existence of something by the function it fulfills. In sociology, the former tends to be confined to theories of purposive human action, whereas the latter is a feature of functionalism. It is widely argued that teleological explanations are admissible only with reference to individuals and groups since they alone have explicitly formulated purposes or goals. Societies, by contrast, set themselves no such objectives. Evolutionary and systems theories, as well as theories which imply a historical logic or inevitability (such as historical materialism), are often criticized as being unacceptably teleological—although there have been controversial attempts to argue that even these explanations can be translated into conventional causal accounts.”
Excerpted from: Marshall, Gordon, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
“Distributive: Indicating reference to a particular thing of to every member of a group, e.g., the pronouns ‘each’ and ‘none.’”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
Here is a worksheet on the Latin word rub. It means red, as you will quickly infer from its basis in the English word ruby. It also shows up in the noun rubella, a form of measles. Care to guess what color they are?
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.
“Herm: Pillar-form sculpture of classical antiquity, typically with a bearded face, armless torso, and prominent phallus. Originally, it probably represented the god Hermes. In European iconography it is symbolic of revelry and abandonment.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
“Hollywood’s Adolph Zukor was said to have offered a trifling $30,000 for movie rights to a Kaufman play. The playwright sent back a telegram offering Zukor $40,000 for Paramount.”
Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.
To finish up this morning, here is a reading on Bono, the lead singer of the rock group U2, along with its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. This work raises some interesting questions about the privileges and responsibilities of fame. I’ve never been a big fan of U2, and Bono has been a bit too messianic for my tastes. In any case, I assume that this is high-interest material, so I have tagged it as such.
It’s hard to argue, however, with the way he has accepted social responsibility for his fame and used it for good works.
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.
“ailing giants Declining industries in the 1920s and 30s—coal, textiles, shipbuilding, iron and steel—which had formed the basis of Britain’s 19-century supremacy. Weakened by outdated techniques and management, falling demand and foreign competition, they accounted for the bulk of long-term unemployment.”
Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged term of art, united states history
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