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.

Denude (vt)

In a time where the wanton destruction of this planet’s habitat has become a commonplace “market force,” this context clues worksheet on the verb denude ought to be able to find a place in somebody’s classroom. It 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.

Can Wisdom Be Taught?

“Teachers…are particularly beset by the temptation to tell what they know…. Yet no amount of information, whether of theory or fact, in itself improves insight and judgment or increases ability to act wisely.”

 Charles I. Gragg

Because Wisdom Can’t Be Told

 Excerpted from: Wiggins, Grant, and Jay McTighe. Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 1998.

A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case: “A Comedy of Errors”

Here is yet Crime and Puzzlement lesson plan, this one on “A Comedy of Errors.” I open this lesson, in order to get students settled after a class transition, with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the expression “Touch and Go.” Here is the scan of the illustrations and questions needed to conduct the investigation–and 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.

The American Mercury

“The American Mercury: An iconoclastic magazine founded in 1924 and edited by H.L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan. Among its contributors were Lewis Mumford, Sinclair Lewis, Carl Sandburg, and Vachel Lindsay. After Mencken’s retirement in 1933, it was published as a pocket-sized miscellany of conservative tendencies by Lawrence E. Spivak. It eventually became a rightist organ of limited circulation owned by millionaire J. Russell Maguire.”

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

Heal (vi/vt), Heel (n)

Here are five worksheets on the homophones heal and heel, used respectively as an intransitive and transitive verb, and a noun.

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.

Virus

Here is an extremely timely reading on viruses along with its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Enough said.

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.

Serial Art (Serial Imagery)

Serial Art (Serial Imagery): The repetition, with slight variations, of an image in the same work of art, whether a single canvas or related modules of a sculptured work; named in the late 1960s. Andy Warhol and Donald Judd have both worked in the serial image mode. It displays some traits of systemic painting, although it is a distinct movement.”

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

A Lesson Plan on Nouns as the Subjects of Sentences

OK, I need to go to the laundromat at some point today, but first I’ll post this lesson plan on nouns as the subjects of sentences. I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on subject as a grammatical term. Finally, here is the scaffolded worksheet 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.

George Eliot on the Fundamental Humanity of Teaching

“Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another.”

George Eliot (1819-1880)

Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.

Derogatory (adj)

Here’s a context clues worksheet on the adjective derogatory. The verb, incidentally, is derogate and is used both intransitively and transitively. In any case, the adjective is relatively commonly used.

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.