Here is a short exercise on the Greek word root erythr/o; it means red. This is another of those roots that grows a lot of words used in the health professions.
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.
I’m old enough to remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in life and in death. Indeed, I remember vividly that April day in 1968–I was in third grade–when a career criminal named James Earl Ray assassinated Dr. King while he was in Memphis assisting sanitation workers in their quest to be treated with basic human dignity by that municipal government. As confused and conflicted as my parents’ political principles were, they respected Dr. King, and admired the work he was doing. My father, as I recall (remember: I was eight years old, so some of this stuff was a little over my head), was particularly demoralized by Dr. King’s murder, and saw it as a sign, along with the horrors of the Vietnam War, of encroaching barbarism.
Today, we observe the anniversary of Dr. King’s work. Here is a reading on the practice of nonviolent resistance, which was the cornerstone of Dr. King’s strategy in his fight for civil rights for Americans of African descent. You might want to use this comprehension worksheet to accompany it. Finally, here is a piece of work I consider timely–especially considering this report on inequality in schools in the United States that came over the transom yesterday–to wit, this Cultural literacy worksheet on de facto segregation.
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.
“Privative: Indicating lack of loss of, absence of, or negation, e.g., the prefixes ‘un-, ‘a-,’ ‘non-,’ and the suffix ‘-less.'”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
Springfield, Massachusetts, is the home of The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. I lived in Northern New England on and off for years, and I went to college in Amherst, Massachusetts, so I passed through Springfield many times in my travels. Each time, I noticed the Basketball Hall of Fame and wondered how it ended up in Springfield–of all places–and not in one of the bigger cities on the East Coast.
As it happens, the game was invented in Springfield by a man named James Naismith. Most of the young men I teach are interested in basketball, so your students may be as well. In any case, this week’s Text is a reading on James Naismith along with this comprehension worksheet to complement it. You might also find useful this Everday Edit worksheet on Basketball’s Beginnings (courtesy of the good people at Education World). Finally, and to risk making this whole post ephemeral by its tangents, here is a Culture Literacy exercise on the noun expletive, because it is used in the third Additional Fact in the reading.
Incidentally (and as the reading will explain to you and your students), the game of basketball in its original form prescribed 13 rules. A couple of years ago, I noticed that Sotheby’s had auctioned off James Naismith’s holograph manuscript of those original 13 rules for $4.3 million.
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.
“March 1st—To the Opera and there saw Romeo and Juliet, the first time it was ever acted; but it is a play of itself the worst that ever I heard in my life, and the worst acted that ever I saw these people do….”
Samuel Pepys, Diary
Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Here is a a short context clues worksheet on the verb shirk. It’s used both transitively and intransitively by teachers who are frustrated with students who refuse to engage in their schoolwork. Since this verb is often used with the noun responsibility, I submit to you it is a vital word for students.
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.
“Academe, n. An ancient school where were morality and philosophy were taught.
Academy, n (from academe) [1.] A modern school where football is taught. [2.] Originally a grove in which philosophers sought a meaning in nature; now a school in which naturals seek a meaning in philosophy.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged humor, literary oddities, philosophy/religion
On this Wednesday morning, you might find useful this context clues worksheet on the verb hinder, which can be used both transitively and intransitively. It is, I think, a word high school students ought to know.
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.
“Education is the art of making man ethical.”
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in Elements of the Philosophy of Right (1821)
Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.
While I work in Lower Manhattan, I live way up in the the North Bronx. So, I have a long commute every day. Whether I take the 2 or the 5 train, I pass by 149th Street and the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. The post office at that intersection has a Ben Shahn Mural in it; across the street is Hostos Community College, named after legendary Puerto Rican educator Eugenia Maria de Hostos and a part of our City’s respected engine of social mobility, The City University of New York, or CUNY.
Often, I will see Hostos students on the train, and I am aware that many of them are nursing students by virtue of the fact that they are wearing scrubs. The other thing that gives them away is their attention to their Greek word root flashcards, or by the fact that pairs of young people are drilling each other on those same Greek word roots. Ever since Hippocrates, and certainly before that, given that ancient Greece is the birthplace of science, philosophy, and the language in which those disciplines are expressed, the language of medicine has been Greek.
So for those of you pursuing careers in health care or the allied professions, here is a list of Greek word roots that form the basis of many words you will use in your professional lives. I hope you find it useful.
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.
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