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.

John Wooden

Because the weekly mandated “professional development” sessions at my school are at bottom an intellectually vacant bureaucratic ritual, I’ve spend a fair amount of time over the years seeking inspiration to teach in my own, self-directed professional development. Any time I hear John Wooden’s mentioned I pay attention.

A legendary basketball coach, Mr. Wooden was every inch a teacher, and produced real results. He ought to be of interest to our students, it seems to me. To that end, here is a reading on John Wooden with a comprehension worksheet to accompany 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.

Cultural Literacy: Cyberspace

Here, on a Sunday morning, is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of cyberspace. Does anyone use that word anymore?

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.

Anecdote

“A brief, presumably interesting report of an experience or incident, especially a humorous account reflecting human foibles; confidential tale or piece of gossip, or an unknown biographical or historical particular; digressive episode. Adj. anecdotal; n anecdotist, anecdotalist.

‘He joked with Baitsell about the formalities, laughed at the red ribbons attached to the will, told a couple of anecdotes about old Newport and Harry Lehr’s will, and finally signed his name in a great, flourishing hand.’” Louis Auchincloss, Powers of Attorney

 Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

Naive (adj)

Over the years, I’ve developed a lot a material to aid struggling students As the documents pile up, I don’t always succeed at properly cataloging them. At least that is the best explanation I can produce to explain how I ended up with these two context clues worksheet for the adjective naive. I imagine this is a word that students know when they leave high school–but I like to make sure.

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.

Rotten Rejections: Ambrose Bierce

[After viewing the film “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” in middle school, I became fascinated with Ambrose Bierce, and have been ever since. Regular readers of this blog will know that I often excerpt from The Devil’s Dictionary. The squib below is from a rejection  of Bierce’s collection of short stories, Tales of Soldiers and Civilians, which the Grolier Club named “one of the 100 most influential books printed before 1900….”]

“…uniformly horrible and revolting. Told with some power, and now and then with strokes of wonderfully vivid description, with plots ingenious in their terror and photographic in their sickening details, we must pronounce the book too brutal to be either good art or good literature. It is the triumph of realism–realism without power or symbolism.”

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

Word Root Worksheet: Ortho

Here’s a worksheet on the Greek word root ortho. It means “straight,” “correct,” “vertical,” and “perpendicular.” You know, those things you hope your orthopedist can do for you posture–the first two at least, I guess.

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.

Ralph Waldo Emerson on Our Current Epistemological State

“Knowledge is the antidote to fear.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.

Quota (n)

Here is a context clues worksheet on the noun quota. By any measure, this is a key word for any vocabulary.

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.

Homer’s City of 100 Gates

“Homer’s chosen image for power was to describe Thebes, the capital of ancient Egypt, as a city of 100 gates; and from out of each one, at any moment, might pour 200 men riding chariots. Egyptian Thebes was known by its inhabitants as Waset. It should not be confused with Thebes in central Greece, a small but ancient Bronze Age city locked into an unprofitable rivalry with Athens and with its own numerical associations ever since Aeschylus wrote the play Seven Against Thebes.”

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.

Which (adj/pron) and Witch (n)

Here are five worksheets on the homophones which and witch. In my classrooms, over the years, these two are very commonly confused, most often with the latter standing in where the former belongs.

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.