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.

Rotten Reviews: Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

Posted on April 10, 2019 | Leave a comment

“Largely a record of sordid realism.”

Athenaeum

“Its ethics are frankly pagan.”

The Independent

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

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Word Root Exercise: Cosmo

Posted on April 10, 2019 | Leave a comment

Finally, on this very productive Wednesday morning, here is a worksheet on the Greek word root cosmo. It means, as you probably assumed, both universe and world. It’s at the root of many English words, especially those related to astrophysics and astronomy; but you also find it under such words in the social sciences like cosmopolitan.

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.

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Tangent (n) and Tangential (adj)

Posted on April 10, 2019 | Leave a comment

If you can use them, here are two context clues worksheets on the noun tangent and its corresponding adjective, tangential. Both of these are words educated people use regularly, which is why our students should learn them.

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.

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Learning Support: English Language Arts Posters Text

Posted on April 10, 2019 | Leave a comment

For a variety of reasons, I have always found the kinds of classroom decorations available for purchase in “teachers’ stores” (what the heck is a teachers store, anyway?) to be insincerely cheerful and annoyingly inauthentic. For that reason, I developed a short unit on making classroom posters. One component of this exercise is this raw text for making classroom posters on English Language Arts topics.

Observing students as they work on creating posters helps me assess a wide range of student abilities, including organizing and executing a task as well as persisting to finish that task, following directions, reading, writing, and spelling, and understanding the basic concepts the text outlines.

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.

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Independent Practice: The Fall of Rome

Posted on April 10, 2019 | Leave a comment

This independent practice worksheet on the Fall of Rome does a nice job, in only a few sentences, of laying out the concept of imperial overreach. That’s a key concept in historiography, so students would be well served to understand 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.

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The Devil’s Dictionary: Amateur

Posted on April 10, 2019 | Leave a comment

“Amateur, n. A public nuisance who mistakes taste for skill, and confounds his ambition with his ability.” 

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.

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Gravity

Posted on April 10, 2019 | Leave a comment

Here are a short reading on gravity and the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that accompanies 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.

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Megaron

Posted on April 10, 2019 | Leave a comment

“Type of dwelling in Mycenaean architecture, with a porch and main chamber having a hearth in the center. Specifically, the ceremonial hall or men’s hall of a Mycenaean palace.”

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

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Cultural Literacy: Bowdlerizing

Posted on April 10, 2019 | Leave a comment

If you happen to need it, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Thomas Bowdler and the act–essentially a form of censorship–that bears his name, bowdlerizing.

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.

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Verdict (n)

Posted on April 10, 2019 | Leave a comment

Here is a context clues worksheet on the noun verdict. It’s a word that is so commonly used, both literally and figuratively, across a variety of contexts, in English that its necessity hardly needs explaining.

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.

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