“…the men are all fatuous and self-centered creatures. This is then a woman’s novel in a narrow and constricting way.”
Saturday Review
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
Tagged fiction/literature, humor, literary oddities
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of a friend of the court. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences (the second of which is a compound–two clauses separated by a semicolon) and two comprehension questions. In other words, this is a basic introduction to an important concept in jurisprudence, particularly at the level of the Supreme Court. Right now, given the sleaze we’re seeing from at least two associate justices, i.e. taking lavish trips funded by individuals with business before the court, the Supreme Court needs all the friends it can get.
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.
“Definitely for Definitively. ‘It was definitely decided.’ Definitely means precisely, with exactness; definitively means finally, conclusively.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.
It was the Word of the Day yesterday at Merriam-Webster, so here is a context clues worksheet on the noun bon vivant. It means “a sociable person who has cultivated and refined tastes especially with respect to food and drink.”
I’d given myself a semi-firm promise that I wouldn’t indiscriminately prepare these documents every time a flashy word came over the transom–or in this case the Merriam-Webster app on my phone. But I cannot resist Gallicisms, so here you are. Besides, I think educated people use bon vivant on the right occasion. So shouldn’t our students be able to work with this useful and euphonious noun?
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.
“Cognate (adjective): Related or common ancestry, as two words having the same derivation; descended from the same verbal root; intrinsically similar. Noun: cognate, cognateness.
‘The vulgarity of a lot of writing about food is cognate with the vulgarity of a lot of writing about sex.’ Anthony Burgess, The New York Times”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
Here, on an oppressively humid Monday morning in Brooklyn, is a reading on Robert De Niro along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. This has tended to be high-interest material, especially among young men, so I have so tagged it.
Nota bene, please, that the reading cites “eight collaborations” between Mr. De Niro and Martin Scorsese. In fact, at least two more collaborations–The Irishman and the forthcoming Killers of the Flower Moon between these towering figures in American cinema have occurred since this reading was published. In other words, as film history continues to unfold where it concerns Scorsese and De Niro, this reading will need revision.
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.
“A fool who, not content with having bored those who lived with him, insists on tormenting the generations to come.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes
Tagged humor, literary oddities, philosophy/religion
Last and quite possibly least this morning, here is a worksheet on the verb deserve when used with an infinitive. Users of Mark’s Text Terminal deserve to find better material than this on the site.
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.
On an already, at 5:10 a.m., hot and muggy morning in northeastern Massachusetts, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on disenfranchisement. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of one sentence–to wit, “Removal of the franchise, or right to vote”–and one comprehension question. A concise explanation of a relatively simple concept with big consequences for a democracy like ours in the United States.
And given what has happened in some of our state legislatures in the past several years, something that it is important, indeed vitally important, I would argue, that our students understand.
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.
“sight word approach: A method of teaching reading and spelling in which small numbers of instantly recognizable sight words are presented while the child masters them.
While many early readers naturally learn to read words through frequent exposure to them in stories, sight words often should be explicitly taught to individuals with a learning disability. Sight words can be hard to learn for these children because they frequently have trouble following common spelling and pronunciation patterns, such as are, were, been, and some, and require a strong visual memory for words.
To avoid such confusions when using the sight-word approach to teach reading and spelling, words should be carefully selected initially to follow consistent spelling patterns.”
Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.
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