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.

Postcolonialism

So today seems like an appropriate time to post this reading on postcolonialism along with the comprehension worksheet that accompanies it. This reading deals with postcolonial literary movements and personalities, so if you’re reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, or other postcolonial literature, this might be a useful adjunct.

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.

Hispano-Mooresque (adj)

“General term encompassing all artwork, architecture, and decorative art produced in Spain under Muslim and Christian reigns and the resulting hybrid styles. Dates from the 8th to the 16th centuries.”

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

Cultural Literacy: The Yalta Agreement

If you can use it, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Yalta Agreement. This is…hell, I think I’ll assume social studies teachers understand the importance of the Yalta Agreement and leave it at that.

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.

6 Physicians of Antiquity

“These six physicians were heroes of the medieval era, both to the Christian West and the Muslim East. Dante places them amongst the classical poets in the outer circle of hell, which was set aside for virtuous pagans–a place of green fields overlooked by a castle with seven gates for the seven virtues.”

Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.

Deteriorate (vt/vi)

It seems to me that this context clues worksheet for the verb deteriorate, which is used both transitively and intransitively, would be of some use in just about any classroom, contingent on the students it contains.

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.

Oscar Wilde on Cognition

“Thinking is the most unhealthy thing in the world, and people die of just as they die of any other disease.”

Oscar Wilde

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.

Cultural Literacy: Socialization

It seems to me that this Cultural Literacy worksheet on socialization might be a step in the right direction toward raising students’ awareness of a key concept in human affairs.

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.

Term of Art: Gerund

A nominal form of verbs in Latin: e.g. pugnando (“fight-gerund-abl.sg”) “by fighting.” Hence a term available for verb forms with a noun-like role in other languages: e.g. English fighting is traditionally a gerund in Fighting used to be fun, as opposed to the participle, also in –ing but with a different syntactic role, in people fighting.”

Excerpted from: Matthews, P.H. The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Cosmology (n)

Here, to accompany the quote below it, is a context clues worksheet on the noun cosmology. If memory serves, I wrote this to use with a lesson on Galileo. But it could serve a number of purposes.

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 Brief History of Time

“A book (1988) subtitled ‘From the Big Bang to Black Holes,’ by the British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking (1942-2018), which attempts to explain to a lay audience his ideas about the beginning of the universe, the nature of space-time and black holes, and the possible synthesis of quantum mechanics with the theory of relativity. In it the author asks such questions as ‘Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?’ The book was a surprise success, remaining on the UK bestseller list for more than three years, though it was axiomatically more bought than read.”

Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.