“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.
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 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.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged science literacy
Here is a reading on the Muslim physician Ibn al-Nafis who was the first doctor to map the human pulmonary system. This vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet 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.
“It’s polite, literate, plodding, sententious narrative of considerable competence but not a trace of talent or individuality;… Real dull stuff for us Americans. The values in it are so bloody sanctimonious English that I found it hard to take.”
[Rejection of The New Men]
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, Social Sciences
Tagged literary oddities, philosophy/religion
You might find this context clues worksheet on the noun diffusion useful, particularly if you teach science.
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.
“No so the fanatic. Chaos is his element. When the old order begins to crack, he wades in with all his might and recklessness to blow the whole hated present to high heaven. He glories in the sight of a world coming to a sudden end. To hell with reforms! All that already exists is rubbish. He justifies his will to anarchy with the plausible assertion that there can be no new beginning so long as the old clutters the landscape. He shoves aside the frightened men of words, if they are still around, though he continues to extol their doctrines and mouth their slogans. He alone knows the innermost craving of the masses in action; the craving for communion, for the mustering of the host, for the dissolution of cursed individuality in the majesty and grandeur of a mighty whole. Posterity is king; and woe to those, inside and outside the movement, who hug and hang on to the present.”
Excerpted from: Hoffer, Eric. The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951.
This week’s Text is a complete lesson plan on the Latin word root ver–it means true. You know, it turns up in words like veracity, verify, and verdict. This do-now exercise on the noun integrity serves well to open the lesson and hint at the meaning of the word root. Finally, this word root worksheet is the mainstay of the 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.
“Speaking about reviewers who seemed unable to render honest, objective critiques on the works of such writers as had won the Nobel Prize, Miss Ferber described them as ‘awestruck by the Nobelity.'”
Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.
Posted in English Language Arts, New York City, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, humor, literary oddities
Here are five worksheets on the homophones veracious and voracious, both of which are adjectives. Both of these words grow from Latin roots, to wit, respectively, ver (true) and vor (to eat). Let me put that another way: “I can verify that he ate voraciously.” Tomorrow morning, for this week’s Text, I’ll post a complete lesson plan on the Latin root ver; vor will appear eventually, but I haven’t finished fashioning it into a complete lesson plan.
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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