Category Archives: English Language Arts

The final Weekly Text for 2023 is this lesson plan on the Greek word root psych/o. It means “mind,” “soul,”, and “mental process.” You already know that this root produces many shoots in English–many in our own profession–like psychology, psychoanalysis, and psychobiology.

I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the adjective mendacious. It means “given to or characterized by deception or falsehood or divergence from absolute truth.” A useful synonym is dishonest. As I prepare this post, I wonder what moved me to land on mendacious as a useful do-now word for this lesson. In any case, here, finally, is the scaffolded worksheet that is the work for this lesson.

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.

This week’s Text is a lesson plan on the Latin word root port. This is a very productive root in English and the Romance languages, and for the latter there is a list of cognates at the top of the worksheet to illustrate port’s movement across languages. Port means “to carry” and forms the basis of many high-frequency English words like import, export, deport, portable, and report, all of which appear on this worksheet, as well as transport, which does not–but which you can add to the document should you so choose, as this worksheet is formatted Microsoft Word and open to your editing.

I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the verb convey. For the purposes of this context clues exercise, convey means “to bear from one place to another,” “to transfer or deliver (as property) to another, ” and “to cause to pass from one place or person to another.” I hope it’s obvious that this do-now is meant to hint at the meaning of port. Finally, here is the scaffolded worksheet that is the principal work of this lesson.

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.