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.

Term of Art: Chronicle

“Chronicle (noun): A chronological record of events or facts, especially a historical narrative or register without interpretation or comment; account; story. Noun: chronicler; verb: chronicle.

‘The Franks, as a family, came to an end, and, fittingly enough, thought the diarist, so did her chronicle of their effort to go sensibly on as themselves, in spite of everything.’ Philip Roth, The Ghost Writer.”

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

A Lesson Plan on Admission of States (and Readmission after the Civil War) to the Union from The Order of Things

As I mentioned the previous posts in which I published these documents (and you can learn more about these materials in the “About Posts & Texts” page on the homepage of this blog, just above the banner photograph), I began to contrive lessons from Barbara Ann Kipfer’s book The Order of Things just about the time I left public education last month. So, because I have only used these materials in the classroom a couple of times, they remain somewhat tentative.

Nonetheless, I wrote 30 of them, and have the document templates prepared to write 30 more–at least. If you’ve ever considered commenting on Mark’s Text Terminal, I would be very much obliged to hear what you think of these lessons. I intended them for emergent and struggling readers as a means to experience directly the task of reading and comprehending two symbolic systems (i.e. numbers and letters) at the same time.

So, here is a lesson plan on admission (and readmission after the Civil War) of states to the Union, along with its reading and comprehension worksheet. The worksheet is relatively short; like most other things on this blog, however, it is in Microsoft Word and therefore easily manipulable to your needs. I suppose, as I look at these, they have the potential for transfer into cross-disciplinary instruction.

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.

Larry Bird

OK, while Jimmy Rushing (“Mr. Five by Five“)  sings the blues in the background, let me offer this high-interest reading on Larry Bird along with its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Bird, in my experience over the years, remains of interest to students who are likewise interested in professional basketball.

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.

Origami V

This is the fifth of five posts on origami; as I said in the last one, blink, of you’ll miss it. I scanned the documents in these posts from two different origami books I bought for use in my classrooms. None of this intellectual property, needless to say, is mine to give away. Desperate times call for bold measures, which is why I’m here putting up one more of these posts.

First, here are the folding terms and directions for the documents in this and the previous (i.e. Origami IV) post. And here are the directions of the origami figures themselves:

origami 42 magnolia blossom; origami 43 rose; origami 44 leaf; origami 45 swan; origami 46 butterfly; origami 47 crane; origami 48 frog; origami 49 chinese wheel; origami 50 koi.

Here is a wikiHow article on how to make origami paper. Finally, once more, here are a trove of videos on origami from YouTube.

Term of Art: Conjunctive

“Conjunctive: Indicating joining or connecting, or functioning as a conjunction by linking sentences and clauses, e.g., the adverbs ‘accordingly,’ ‘yet,’ ‘consequently.'”

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

Word Root Exercise: Tom, -Tome, -Tomy, -Stomy

Here is a word root worksheet on the Greek roots tom,-tome,-tomy,-stomy. They mean, oddly, to cut. There are a lot of commonly used words from educated discourse that grow from this productive root–think, for example, of surgeries like hysterectomy, thyroidectomy, and tonsillectomy.

This is another of those words students aspiring to careers in the healthcare professions ought to know.

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 Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

“Rotten Reviews: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

‘…unmanly, sickening, vicious (though not exactly what is called ‘improper’), and tedious.’

Athenaeum

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

A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “The Possible Dreams Auction”

OK, moving right along, here is a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “The Possible Dreams Auction.”

I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom “Feather One’s Own Nest.” You’ll need this scan of the illustration and questions that drive the investigation in order to conduct it. Finally, here is the typescript of the answer key.

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.

Write it Right: Advisedly for Advertently, Intentionally

“Advisedly for Advertently, Intentionally. ‘It was done advisedly’ should mean that it was done after advice.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.

Counterpart (n)

Here is a context clues worksheet on the noun counterpart which is in common enough use that students ought to know it before they leave high school.

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.