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.

War of the Worlds

The story of Orson Welles’ broadcast of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds fascinated me as a grade-schooler. I think I was first exposed to it in around fifth grade. But even at that tender age, I was surprised that people were taken in by it–but also sympathetic that they were. I remember trying to imagine myself in the place of the folks who thought Welles was delivering news, rather than a science-fiction story. I could, but only barely.

Any way, here is a reading on Orson Welles’ broadcast of War of the Worlds along with its attendant 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.

Rigor (n)

It’s a word we teachers bandy about enough that students have certainly heard it, perhaps even ad nauseum. This context clues worksheet on the noun rigor should help clear up its meaning for our students, and supply the corollary benefit of helping them understand just what it is we seek to do in the classroom.

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.

Les Fauves

“(Fr., the wild beasts) Originally a contemptuous appellation for a group of French post-impressionist painters who exhibited their work at the Salon d’Automne in 1905. They were so called because of their use of strident color, violent distortions, and broad, bold brushwork. Their leader was Henri Matisse; others were Georges Rouault, Maurice Vlaminck, Andre Derain, and Raoul Dufy.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

The Weekly Text, June 7, 2019: A Lesson Plan on Using Personal Pronouns in the Objective Case

On Tuesday of this week I posted a complete lesson on using personal pronouns in the nominative case. For this week’s, Text, let’s go to the other side of the sentence.

Here is a complete lesson plan on using the personal pronoun in the objective case. I begin this lesson, after a class transition in order to get students settled, with this Everyday Edit on Iqbal Masih, Child Activist (if you and your students like Everyday Edit worksheets, you can help yourself to a yearlong supply of them at no cost by clicking on that hyperlink); in the event that the lesson spills over into a second day, here is a worksheet on the homophones there, their, and they’re.

The center of this lesson is this scaffolded worksheet on using the personal pronoun in the objective case. Finally, here is the learning support on pronouns and case that I also included on the original post, last Tuesday, on using the personal pronoun in the nominative case.

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: Accusative

“Accusative: Indicating a direct object (or noun or pronoun predicated on a direct object) or certain adverbial complements, e.g. ‘She wrote a book,’ ‘He imagined my sister to be her,’ ‘I waited one week.'”

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

Cultural Literacy: Epic

Finally, on this warm and rainy Thursday morning in Springfield, Massachusetts, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the epic as a literary genre. If you’re teaching Homer, this might be just the squib for introducing the conceptual foundations of the epic genre.

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.

Independent Practice: The Hundred Years War

I’m not sure if it makes it into the social studies curriculum anywhere now, but if it does in your classroom, here is an independent practice worksheet on the Hundred Years War.

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.

Rotten Rejections: Sartoris by William Faulkner

“If the book had plot and structure, we might suggest shortening and revisions but it is so diffuse that I don’t think this would be any use. My chief objection is that you don’t have any story to tell.”

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

Regale (vi/vt)

It was Merriam-Webster’s word of the day a while back, so I wrote this context clues worksheet on the verb regale. It is used both intransitively and transitively. I’m not sure high school students need to use it at all; if you think they do, or at least might, then it’s yours for the taking.

It means “to entertain sumptuously : feast with delicacies”  and “to give pleasure or amusement to <regaled us with tall tales>.”

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.

The Age of Anxiety

“(1947) A long poem by W.H. Auden. It concerns men and women who meet by chance in a New York bar in wartime; all are suffering from the modern malaise and feel guilty, isolated, and rootless. In a common dream, they set out on a quest through a barren wasteland. Hope in Christianity is presented as the solution to their problems. The title has frequently been used as a name to describe the mid-20th century.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.