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: Ad Hominem

Posted on January 15, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Ad Hominem To the man: appealing to the sentiments or prejudices of the hearer of listener rather than to his or her reason or intelligence; disparaging a person’s character rather than his or her sentiments; personal rather than substantive or ideological.

‘The boss knows all about the so-called fallacy of the argumentum ad hominem. ‘It may be a fallacy,’ he said, ‘ but it is shore-God useful. If you use the right kind of argumentum, you can always scare the hominem into a laundry bill he didn’t expect.’ Robert Penn Warren, All the King’s Men.”

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

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Avid (adj)

Posted on January 15, 2020 | Leave a comment

OK, here is a context clues worksheet on the adjective avid, which is in common enough use in English that students should know it before they graduate high school.

Just sayin’.

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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Word Root Exercise: Phor, Phore

Posted on January 15, 2020 | Leave a comment

It turns out to be a complicated piece of language, but here, nonetheless, is a worksheet on the Greek roots phor and phore. These mean, variously, to bear, to produce, to carry, and state. As you’ll see from the English words that grow from this root, it basically divides its labors between the concrete and the abstract in language.

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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The 7 Liberal Arts

Posted on January 14, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Grammar * Rhetoric * Logic * Arithmetic * Geometry * Music * Astronomy/Cosmology

The Seven Liberal Arts divide between the trivium of logic, rhetoric, and grammar and the quadrivium of arithmetic, music, geometry and cosmology. The Trivium were the arts considered necessary for the creation of an active citizen of the ancient world, well educated enough to be able to analyze what was being said, check it for rationality and to be able to speak and answer in his turn. With the addition of the quadrivium by the scholastics of the early medieval age, the whole basic course structure and purpose of a university education was established—which was to create an aware citizen. The system endured, more or less unchanged, right through to nineteenth-century Europe.”

Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.

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A Lesson Plan on Manic-Depressive Disorder

Posted on January 14, 2020 | Leave a comment

Here is a lesson plan on manic-depressive disorder as well as the short reading and the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that are the work of this lesson. (If you’d like a reading and worksheet that are a little longer than these, you’ll find one under this hyperlink).

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.

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Term of Art: Rationalism

Posted on January 14, 2020 | Leave a comment

Rationalism: 1. The doctrine associated especially with the French philosopher Rene Descartes (1596-1650), the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-77), and the German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm von. Liebniz (1646-1716) that it is possible to obtain knowledge by reason alone, that there is only one valid system of reasoning and it is deductive in character, and that everything is explicable in principle by this form of reasoning…. 2. The more general view that everything is explicable in principle by one system of reasoning. 3. A general commitment to reason as opposed to faith, religious belief, prejudice, tradition, or any other source of belief that is without foundation in reason. Rationalist: one who believes in or practices rationalism (1, 2, 3). Rationalistic.

Excerpted from: Colman, Andrew M., ed. Oxford Dictionary of Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

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Afflict (vt), Affliction (n)

Posted on January 14, 2020 | Leave a comment

Here are two context clues worksheets on the verb afflict and the noun affliction. The verb is only used transitively. I’m hard pressed to imagine why these aren’t two words students should know by the time they graduate high school.

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.

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Anathema

Posted on January 14, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Anathema (noun) An ecclesiastical pronouncement that damns, bans, or excommunicates the person so denounced; solemn curse or declaration of obloquy; unyielding condemnation; person or thing regarded as accursed, detestable, or to be excluded at all costs. N. anathemization; v. anathemize

‘Confiscate! The mere word was anathema to him, and he stormed back and forth in excoriating condemnation, shaking a piercing finger of rebuke in the guilt-ridden faces of Captain Cathcart, Colonel Korn, and the poor battle-scarred captain with the submachine gun who commanded the M.P.s.’ Joseph Heller Catch 22″

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

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A Lesson Plan on Steroids

Posted on January 14, 2020 | Leave a comment

OK, health teachers, maybe you can use this lesson plan on steroids and its work, this short reading and this vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. If you’d like a slightly longer version of the materials for this lesson, you can find them here.

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.

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A Trio of Rotten Reviews: George Bernard Shaw

Posted on January 14, 2020 | Leave a comment

George Bernard Shaw I, Arms and the Man

“Shaw may one day write a serious and even an artistic play, if he will only repress his irreverent whimsicality, try to clothe his character conceptions in flesh and blood, and realize the difference between knowingness and knowledge.”

William Archer, World

George Bernard Shaw II, Major Barbara

“There are no human beings in Major Barbara: only animated points of view.

William Archer, World

George Bernard Shaw III, Man and Superman

“I think Shaw, on the whole, is more bounder than genius…I couldn’t get on with Man and Superman: it disgusted me.”

Bertrand Russell, letter to G.L. Dickinson

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

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