“Art Brut: A term coined by French artist Jean Dubuffet to characterize spontaneous and rough artistic expression of children, prisoners, and the insane. Dubuffet’s collection of art brut inspired him to reclaim untrained and marginal artistic elements in his own work. See naïve art and ‘outsider’ art.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
I played it quite a bit as a child and an adolescent, and I can still be tempted by a round of it today. If I infer correctly from the student interest I’ve seen in my classrooms in this reading on the board game Monopoly, young people remain interested in it. Here is the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that accompanies the reading.
There is an argument to be made for this game as a learning activity, which is why I have tagged it as differentiated instruction.
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.
“Belles-Lettres (noun): Fine or imaginative , usually sophisticated, writing that, however limited in general appeal, is an aesthetic end in itself, including poetry, drama, light essays, and literary criticism. Adj. belletristic; n. belletrism, belleslettrism, belles-lettrism, belletrist, belle-lettrists.
‘The fear, as in literary criticism, is that one will lapse, or will be accused of lapsing, back into the old belles-lettristic mode, than which it is rightly felt that nothing could be more deadly—though other things can be as bad.’ Michael Tanner, in The State of Language.”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Here is a worksheet on the Greek roots ology and logy. They mean both study of and science. You needn’t think much about these two roots to realize just how productive they are in English. People studying for careers in the health professions would do well to master these roots’ meanings.
Again, though, if you think just for a moment about these roots, you’ll see that that they head just about every department name in the modern university. Every student should know these roots.
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.
“Where in literature did Merlin the sorcerer first appear? In Geoffrey of Monmouth’s The History of the Kings of Britain [Historia Regum Britanniae] (1137). This Latin prose work by the English chronicler also helped build the legend of Merlin’s protégé King Arthur.”
Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged fiction/literature, readings/research
OK, here is a context clues worksheet on the noun tactic if it’s a word you need students to understand.
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.
“Battle of Lepanto: A naval engagement in the Gulf of Corinth on October 7, 1571, fought between the forces of the Ottoman Empire and those of a holy league comprising Spain, Venice, and the papacy. Under the leadership of Don John of Austria, the Christians overwhelmingly defeated the Turks, ending their naval domination of the Mediterranean. Cervantes took part in the battle and was wounded in the left hand.”
It is the subject of a poem by G.K. Chesterton.
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
“Extraordinary how potent cheap music is.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged drama/theater, humor, literary oddities, music
Ok, finally on this beautiful Friday morning in early August, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Stamp Act. This is a piece of legislation from the British Parliament that was a contributing factor to the American Revolution.
In other words, vital prior knowledge for understanding the origins of the United States.
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.
They were huge in 1990 when I first began working with adolescents. Now I wonder if anyone remembers them. I know the Wahlbergs (Donnie was a member of New Kids on the Block and his brother Mark enjoyed a solo career as a rapper with the group “Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch; both are now actors) have parlied their success in the entertainment business into a reality show and, of all things, a burger joint franchise called Wahlburgers.
I usually don’t mention such things on this blog, but I find the fact that Mark Wahlberg became a rapper ironic indeed, given his history of racist violence. He also appears to have confused the action-star roles he plays with reality when he made these idiotic comments about the flights that were used as terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, in the United States.
In any case, here is a reading on the New Kids on the Block and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet if you have students who can’t live without this knowledge of this product of the publicity-industrial complex–a brilliant locution for which I thank the peerless journalist Ron Rosenbaum.
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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