“Godwin earnestly sticks by her characters… The only trouble is, like the people next door, they’re nice but not very interesting.”
Saturday Review
Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes
Tagged fiction/literature, humor, literary oddities
Epistemology, officially (from Merriam-Webster, of course!), simply defined, is “the study or a theory of the nature and grounds of knowledge especially with reference to its limits and validity.” Unofficially, and for the consumption of secondary-school students, it means “how we know what we know” and “how we validate what we know.” In many respects, along with reification (to reify is “to regard (something abstract) as a material or concrete thing”) teachers are in the epistemology business.
In any event, some years ago, I had a student who had conceived an interest in Western Philosophy. His grandmother had one of those Great Courses on cassette tape, and he listened to it with her. This was a tough Bronx street kid–I later heard he’d been arrested for attempted murder; but he had an acute interest in philosophy. Among the number of things I worked up to keep him engaged is this reading on epistemology along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.
I hope you are enjoying the summer break.
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.
“Confession (noun): Admission of acknowledgement, especially of personal sin, wrongdoing, responsibility, etc; a public disclosure of one’s misconduct or fault in a matter; declaration of faith or love; candid, often soul-searching or remorseful memoir or autobiographical discourse. Plural: a spiritual autobiography or book of frank reminiscences or revelations. Adjective: confessional; Adverb: confessionally; Noun: confessionalism; Verb: confess.
‘I’m catching her up on the details only to make a point about bad confessional writers (the Voice is full of them): they’ve got their eye on the effect their making. Far too often they confess something only to make us admire their anguish, their courage, their honesty; or they squeeze a little bit of experience until it’s dry, hoping to make in yield up some grand historical truth.’ David Denby, The New Republic”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
Finally this morning, here is a worksheet on the verb phrase would like when used with an infinitive. I would like to avoid writing instructional materials that are more or less useless.
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.
“story map: A graphic used to illustrate the various elements of a short story. Typically, these elements include setting (time and place); conflict; protagonist; antagonist; minor characters; and elements of the plot (exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, crisis, falling action, resolution, and denouement).”
Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.
“…When her mother passed, Elizabeth got a copy of that book On Death and Dying, which identified the Five Stages of Grief. When Pepper was laid low, the Four Stages of Putting Your Foot Up Somebody’s Ass provided similar comfort.”
Whitehead, Colson. Crook Manifesto. New York: Doubleday, 2003.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes
Tagged black history, fiction/literature, humor
This week’s Text is another lesson, this one on Shakespeare’s plays in chronological order of publication, adapted from Barbara Ann Kipfer’s superlative reference book The Order of Things.
You’ll need this worksheet with a reading (which is a list) and attendant comprehension questions. Nota bene, once again, that this series of lessons from The Order of Things, at least in my design conception, is meant to serve emergent and struggling readers as well as learners of English as a new language. Many, if not most of the lessons adapted from Ms. Kipfer’s book offer students a chance to deal with two symbolic systems–i.e. numbers and words–in a relatively stress-free way.
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.
Here is a worksheet on the verb wish when it is used with an infinitive. I wish to produce better materials for teaching writing than this one.
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.
“Award Show: Mechanism by which the members of a given profession attempt to give themselves the attributes of the pre-modern ruling classes—the military, aristocracy and priesthood—by assigning various orders, decorations, and medals to each other.
These shows are superficial expressions of corporatism. As with the pre-modern classes, their awards relate principally to relationships within the profession. Each time the words “I want to thank” are used by someone being decorated, they indicate a relationship based on power. The awards have little to do with the corporation’s relationship to the outside world—what you might call the public—or for that matter with quality.”
Excerpted from: Saul, John Ralston. The Doubter’s Companion. New York: The Free Press, 1994.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Social Sciences
Tagged humor, literary oddities, philosophy/religion
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on satire. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two relatively simple sentences and three comprehension questions. A short but solid introduction to this important cultural concept.
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.
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