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: Code Mixing

“code mixing: Sometimes distinguished, though not always in the same way, from code switching. E.g. where a speaker switches as frequent intervals from one language etc. to another, for no discoverable external reason.”

Excerpted from: Marshall, P.H., ed. The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

A Learning Support on Poetry Terms

This short learning support on poetry terms is the last of the English Language Arts learning supports I have to publish for the time being. I expect, as I continue to teach, I’ll develop more of them. Maybe you can use this cogent explanation of basic terms of art in poetry.

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: Homophone

“homophone (noun): Words having the same pronunciation but not the same origin, spelling or meaning, e.g., ‘peace’ and ‘piece.’ Adjective: homophonic, homophonous; adverb: homophonically; noun: homophony.

‘The coat of arms of the Shakespeare family, which shows its crest eagle shaking a spear, is a kind of pun weakened by etymology, but when Joyce calls Shakespeare—very justly—”Shapesphere” he has gone step further than homophony or homonymy. By changing two consonants he has interfered minimally with the shape of the name and enormously expanded its connotation.’ Anthony Burgess, Joysprick‘”

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

Grate (n), Grate (vi/vt) and Great (adj)

Here are five homophone worksheets on the noun grate, the verb grate (it’s used both intransitively and transitively), and the adjective great. These are three words students need to know and use properly–and God knows I have seen some grand usage lapses involving these commonly mistaken homophones.

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 Shot Heard Around the World

If July 30th isn’t high summer, I don’t know what is.

So it’s a particularly good time to post this reading on the legendary Shot Heard Around the World that decided the 1951 National League Playoffs between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants. It’s a legendary moment in the history of Major League Baseball; the story aroused my interest in the game, and I am now a baseball fan. In any case, here is the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that accompanies the reading.

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.

Arnold Toynbee on the Importance of Applying Knowledge

“History not used is nothing, for all intellectual life is action, like practical life, and if you don’t use the stuff,–well, it might as well be dead.”

Arnold J. Toynbee on NBC (1955)

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

Word Root Exercise: Onym

One look at the list of vocabulary words on this worksheet on the Greek word root onym will expose just how productive this root is in English. Indeed, it shows up in a wide range of commonly used English words. It means both name and word. You find it in synonym and anonymous, two words so commonly used in English that they alone prove the need for students to know and understand this root.

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.

West Side Story

“A much-performed American musical by Leonard Bernstein (1918-90), with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim (b. 1930). It was first staged in 1957. The story is an updated version of Romeo and Juliet set in New York’s West Side dockland area, with the Montagues and the Capulets being replaced by rival teenage gangs, the Sharks and the Jets. The rivalry erupts into violence as a result of the love between Tony, one of the Jets, and Maria, the sister of the leader of the Sharks. The 1961 film version won an Oscar for best picture.”

Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.

Cultural Literacy: Henry David Thoreau

This Cultural Literacy worksheet on Henry David Thoreau is a good–and perhaps more importantly, short–general introduction to the this paragon of Transcendentalism and important American thinker and writer.

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.

Daniel Willingham on Reading and Sound

“A lot of technical experiments indicate that sound and meaning are separate in the mind, but everyday examples will probably be enough to make this idea clear. We know meaning and sound are separate because you can know one without the other.”

Excerpted from: Willingham, Daniel T. The Reading Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2017.