“‘The bad weather is responsible for much sickness.’ ‘His intemperance was responsible for his crime.’ Responsibility is not an attribute of anything but human beings, and few of these can respond, in damages or otherwise. Responsible is nearly synonymous with accountable and answerable, which, also, are frequently misused.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.
In the event you have a call for it, here is a context clues worksheet on the adjective fraudulent. It seems like an important word to know at the moment.
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.
Here is a comprehension worksheet on Whitney Houston that I wrote to attend the Wikipedia article on the singer and actress. A student in one of the ELA intervention classes I co-teach requested it, so I whipped it up.
A couple of things about this document: first, it follows the Wikipedia article very closely as one scrolls down through it. Even though it looks like the user will have to perform wide and careful searches–and they do, even following the order of the article as closely as this sheet does–all he or she will really need to do is read the article and follow along with the questions. Second, it is long, so I’ve compressed all the material onto one page for the teacher’s convenience. The worksheet will need to be formatted properly, but it can also be edited easily for differentiation in whatever way is appropriate for your student or students.
In any case, the student for whom I developed this expressed her satisfaction with 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.
“A film (1975) written by Frank Pierson and directed by Sidney Lumet about a bisexual man (played by Al Pacino) who stages a bank robbery to fund a sex-change operation for his transvestite lover (played by Chris Sarandon). The plot was based on a magazine article about a real incident. The ‘dog days’ have been identified since Roman times as the hottest days of the summer, between early July and mid-August, when Sirius, the Dog Star, is reputed to add its heat to the sun.”
Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.
In my classroom, we recently completed a vocabulary building exercise using the Greek word roots anthro– and anthropo- (they mean man and human) as a starting point. Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on anthropomorphism to deepen understanding of this particular concept if anyone is interested.
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.
“Maxim (noun): A summary universal truth, fundamental principle, or rule of conduct; proverbial or sententious saying.
‘I guess I was seven when I first heard the maxim that only people with a small vocabulary use “dirty” words. I am forty-seven and have just received a communication from a reader delivering this maxim as though he invented it. William F. Buckley, Jr., Execution Eve'”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged philosophy/religion, term of art
At the beginning of another work week (for me, one of the odder pleasures of getting older is no longer dreading Monday mornings), here is a reading on Wayne Gretzky and the comprehension worksheet that accompanies it. I’ve been producing quite a few new readings and worksheets, particularly high interest stuff, so they’ll be showing up here from time to time.
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.
“The novelist who doesn’t like meanings writes an allegory; the allegory means that men should not mean but be. Ods bodkins. The reviewer looks at the evidence and wonders if he should damn the author and praise the book, or praise the author and damn the book. And is it possible, somehow or other to praise or damn, both? He isn’t sure.”
Reed Whittemore, New Republic
“At times Henderson is too greyly overcast with thought to be more than a dun Quixote.”
Excerpted from: Bernard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, literary oddities
This independent practice worksheet on Alexander the Great probably fits into the social studies curriculum somewhere between grades six and nine. You can always adapt it; like everything else here, the document is in the easily manipulable Microsoft Word.
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.
These five worksheets on the homophones hear and here might be useful in a variety of settings, and I think English language learners might benefit from them. One thing is beyond dispute, I submit: these are two words students really must be able to use properly.
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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