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.

A Miscellania of Rotten Rejections

“Peyton Place, that ersatz Desire Under the Elms, a mish-mash of small-town sext steamy enought to tempt, you would think, all profit-minded publishers (and what other kind, you might ask, is there?) was turned down by fourteen of them. A work as different from Peyton Place as can imagined, William Appelman Williams’s The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, was rejected by more than twenty publishers before it was finally accepted. It has now been reprinted several times and is recognized as an outstanding revisionist work. Jonathan Livingston Seagull also flew through some twenty rejections.”

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

Anathema (n)

When I wrote this context clues worksheet on the noun anathema, I meant to write one on the verb anathemize, which kept turning up on some curriculum on medieval history that turned up in a social studies class I co-taught some years ago. This worksheet, I guess, would be easy enough to convert to the verb if one were so inclined.

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.

Philander Knox on Politics as Usual

“Oh, Mr. President, do not let so great an achievement suffer from any taint of legality.”

Philander C. Knox (1853-1921)

Quoted in Tyler Dennett, John Hay: From Poetry to Politics (1933). Knox’s reply, as attorney general, to President Theodore Roosevelt’s request for a legal justification of his acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone.

Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

Manic-Depressive Disorder

For health teachers and may counselors, this reading on manic-depressive disorder and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet might be useful. This illness is relatively common in teens, in my experience.

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.

Cultural Literacy: Every Dog Has His Day

I’m off this morning to take a certification test to teach history to high-schoolers here in Massachusetts. On my way out the door, let me drop this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the American idiom “every dog has his day.”

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.

Book of Answers: Alice Walker

Did Alice Walker start out by writing fiction or poetry? The first published work of the poet and novelist was a book of poetry: Once: Poems (1968). She followed up soon after, however, with a novel: The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970).

Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

Stonewall

Before Pride Month 2019 slips away, I want to post this reading on the Stonewall Riot and the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that accompanies it. Stonewall was a key moment in United States History and LGBTQ history, so these documents are core materials. They have been, in my classrooms, of very high interest to LGBTQ students.

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: Listening Vocabulary

“The number of words a person understands when they are heard in speech; also, hearing vocabulary, sometimes called ‘receptive vocabulary.'”

Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.

Alienate (vt)

Here is a context clues worksheet on the verb alienate, which is used only transitively. Don’t forget your direct object–you need to alienate someone or something to complete this word’s meaning. This seems like a particularly important word for everyone in the world to know right now.

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.

George Bernard Shaw on Newspapers

“A newspaper is a device unable to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilization.”

George Bernard Shaw

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.