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.

Vestige (n)

Moving right along this morning (light now appears at about 5:30 am, which suits me just fine!), here is a context clues worksheet on the noun vestige. There are a number of uses for this across common branch domains; in any case, it is almost inarguably a word students should know, so that they can master the concept of vestiges.

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 Clash

A couple of hundred years ago, when I was in my late teens and early twenties, The Clash liked to call themselves “the only band that matters“: indeed, it was emblazoned across the front of their towering record “London Calling.” Last week while on spring break, I listened to a podcast series on The Clash, hosted by Chuck D of pioneering Hip-Hop group Public Enemy (an inspired choice, by the way) on the streaming music service to which I subscribe. It brought back great memories of a very different time in this world of ours.

Here is a reading on The Clash and the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that accompanies it. When I’ve given this to alienated students to read, it has aroused, almost to a one, their interest. Whatever you think of punk rock and The Clash, there is no doubt that their music carries a message of rebellion and its concomitant, hope and action to create a better, more just world.

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.

Word Root Exercise: Cracy and Crat

Here is a worksheet on the Greek roots cracy and crat. Unsurprisingly, they mean government, rule, and power–you know, like democracy, physiocrat, and kakistocracy.

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.

Yahoo (n)

Unless you’re teaching Jonathan Swift (to wit, Gulliver’s Travels), or think that you might be able to persuade students to use the word as a softer, more benign insult than students typically use with one another, I suspect this context clues worksheet on the noun yahoo won’t be of much use to you. But there it is if you need or want 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.

The Sun and Nuclear Fusion

A few minutes remain to me before I must leave for work, so I’ll use them to post this just-typed reading on the sun and nuclear fusion and the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that attends it.

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: Dante

Here, on a busy Wednesday morning, is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Dante (Alighieri) if you can find a place for it, say, in a unit on the Italian Renaissance.

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: Typee by Herman Melville

“It is impossible that it could be true and therefore it is without real value.”

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

Trajectory (n)

Finally, on this rainy Tuesday morning, here is a context clues worksheet on the noun trajectory. I suppose there is not much to say about this word other than it might pay to be aware both its denotative meaning, “the curve that a body (as a planet or comet in its orbit or a rocket) describes in space,” and its more connotative meaning, to wit “a path, progression, or line of development resembling a physical trajectory” as in “an upward career trajectory.”

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: Carolingian Empire

As I’ve said before here, I think Charlemagne is an important historical figure who offers a variety of approaches to the essential question “What is Europe (and How Did it Get That Way)?” or something in that line of inquiry. In the last couple of freshman global studies cycles I co-taught in New York, he had just about disappeared from the curriculum.

If you happen to teach him and the events which he caused, and in which he participated, this independent practice worksheet on the Carolingian Empire might be an effective arrow in your quiver.

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.

A Worksheet and Learning Support on Forming the Plurals of Nouns

This combination worksheet and learning support on forming the plurals of nouns is something I’ve very nearly dumped several times. Instead, I reformatted it and cleaned up various design errors. I think it could very easily be converted into a simple learning support by supplying students with the declined plurals.

In fact, there are a number of ways this document could be rearranged for classroom use. I’m confident readers of this blog will figure them out.

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.