“Aristocracy, n. Government by the best men. (In this sense the word is obsolete; so is that kind of government.) Fellows that wear downy hats and clean shirts—guilty of education and suspected of bank accounts.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged humor, literary oddities
Some years ago, I watched a documentary called “Why We Fight” (whose title alludes to a series of documentary films, also called “Why We Fight,” most of them directed by Frank Capra, which sought to justify the United States involvement in World War II) that reported, among other things, that President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in one of the original drafts of his famous farewell speech to the nation, referred not just to a nascent “military-industrial complex” but to a “military-industrial-congressional complex.” The danger of the weapons industry’s interest, for the sake of profit, in global conflict ought to be obvious enough, as should its influence. These are some the biggest, most well-capitalized corporations in this nation.
But when Ike, who wasn’t exactly a conspiracy-minded hippie, said it, it had real gravitas. Too bad we as a nation appear not to have heeded his warning about this phenomenon.
Anyway, maybe this reading on the military-industrial complex and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet might have some utility in your classroom.
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.
“’Low’ Art: Comprises the ‘lesser’ or ‘minor’ arts, also known as the decorative or applied arts. A more contemporary understanding of the term relates it to popular culture. Since the 1960s and the pop art movement, artists have freely appropriated objects from everyday consumer culture for content and conceptual inspiration. Andy Warhol’s infinitely reproducible silkscreens of Marilyn Monroe, and Roy Lichtenstein’s iconic imitations of melodramatic cartoons, challenge basic assumptions previously ascribed to ‘high’ art, such as the uniqueness and seriousness of the artwork. The boundary between ‘high’ and ‘low’ art has faded in the contemporary art scene. Once-marginal artists, such as Keith Haring and his graffiti art were quickly commodified, and their works sold for large amounts of money.”
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
OK, it’s first thing on a Monday morning, and here are five homophone worksheets on the noun floe and the verb flow. Flow is used, incidentally, both intransitively and transively.
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.
“There is a certain cheapness, even and intellectual dishonesty, in pretending that the suburbanites…are pseudo-vertebrates who bend in the middle when confronted by the pressures of living their own lives.
New York Herald Tribune Lively Arts
Excerpted from: Bernard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged fiction/literature, literary oddities
I don’t imagine I need to go on and on about this worksheet on the Latin word root aqua. It means, of course, water. It’s hard to imagine a situation in which students wouldn’t need a thoroughgoing knowledge of this root and the words in English that grow from it.
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.
“Alleged. ‘The alleged murderer.’ One can allege a murder, but not a murderer; a crime, but not a criminal. A man that is merely suspected of a crime would not, in any case, be an alleged criminal, for an allegation is a definite and positive statement. In their tiresome addiction to this use of alleged, the newspapers, though having mainly in mind the danger of libel suits, can urge in further justification the lack of any single word that exactly expresses their meaning; but the fact that a mud-puddle supplies the shortest route is not a compelling reason for walking through it. One can go around.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.
Here are a pair of context clues worksheets on supply as both a noun and a verb. As a verb, it is used both transitively and intransitively.
I worked in an economics-themed high school for ten years, so you’ll understand the word in two parts of speech.
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.
“Annotation (noun): An explanatory of critical note accompanying a text; gloss; authorial or scholarly comment. Adj. annotative, annotatory; n. annotator; v. annotate
‘What do you expect me to do? Go into a monastery? Or spend the rest of my life keeping up with your precious cult—editing and annotating and explaining you, until people get sick of the sound of your name?’ Christopher Isherwood, The World in the Evening”
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
Have you seen Martin Scorsese’s film Gangs of New York? Or perhaps read Herbert Asbury’s book, The Gangs of New York, from which most of the historical material in the film is drawn? You might also have come across Tyler Anbinder’s book–highly recommended, if the subject interests you–on the infamous Lower Manhattan neighborhood which is now subsumed by Chinatown. I became interested in the district after seeing Mr. Scorsese’s film, and spent some time reading, thinking about, and visiting it.
For my esteemed colleagues teaching in New York City, I can assure you from direct experience with my own students in The Bronx and Manhattan that this reading on the Five Points is generally of high interest to kids in the Five Boroughs. Here is the reading’s 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.
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