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.

Cultural Literacy: Maya Angelou

OK, last but not least this morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Maya Angelou to begin this blog’s observance of Women’s History Month 2020.

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.

Term of Art: Exposition

“Exposition: At the beginning of his play the dramatist is often committed to giving a certain amount of essential information about the plot and the events which are to come. He may also have to give information about what has “already happened”. All this comes under the heading of exposition. A skillful dramatist is able to introduce this material without holding up the action of the play and without recourse to the obvious devices of narrative. See also PROSTATIC CHARACTER.”

Excerpted from: Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New York: Penguin, 1992.

Aesop’s Fables: “The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg”

OK, here is a lesson plan on “The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg” along with the fable itself with a couple of comprehension questions. This is some relatively new material I’ve worked up to serve the needs of some younger middle-schoolers I teach.

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: Recall

“recall: Political process similar to reselection, except that the local party can demand a representative to appear before it and explain its actions whenever it chooses, that is, during the lifetime of a parliament and not only at the end of his term of office.”

Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.

Contrive (vi/vt)

Here is a context clues worksheet on the verb contrive if you can use it. It seems to me a component of well-rounded vocabulary. It’s used mainly transitively, but it also has intransitive use in the sense of “to make schemes.”

f 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.

Book of Answers: Edith Wharton

“What kind of accident cripples Ethan Frome in Edith Wharton’s novel Ethan Frome (1911)? He and his beloved, Mattie Silver, drive a sled into a tree in a botched suicide attempt.”

Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

Everyday Edit: Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Today begins Women’s History Month 2020. Let’s kick it off with this Everyday Edit worksheet on Elizabeth Cady Stanton. If you like this material, you can find a yearlong supply of it for free at the Education World website.

And, of course, you will find error in this document–that is the reason, after all, it exists.

James Baldwin on the Failure to Act

“If we do not now dare everything, the fulfillment of that prophecy, re-created from the Bible in song by a slave, is upon us: No more water, the fire next time!”

James Baldwin

The Fire Next Time (1963)

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

The Weekly Text, February 28, 2020, Black History Month 2020 Week IV: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Shaka Zulu

OK, here, for the final Friday of Black History Month 2020, is a reading on Shaka Zulu and its accompanying 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.

Langston Hughes on a Dream Deferred

“What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore—

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—

Like a syrupy sweet?

 

Maybe it just sags

Like a heavy load.

 

Or does it explode?”

Langston Hughes

“Harlem” l. 1 (1951)

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.