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.

Cultural Literacy: Carson McCullers

I don’t know if anyone teaches her anymore, but in my high school in the 1970s, there was interest in Carson McCullers. In fact, if memory serves, some of our teachers at City School, which is now called Malcolm Shabazz City High School, used the stage adaptation of The Member of the Wedding for one of our school plays. I saw the film adaptation of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter just after high school, and later read the novel, both of which I found quite moving.

All of this is a long way around to offering this Cultural Literacy worksheet on Carson McCullers, whom I hope has not been forgotten.

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.

Rotten Reviews: Middlemarch

“Middlemarch is a treasure house of details, but it is an indifferent whole.”

Henry James, Galaxy

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

Robert Frost on Why that Administrative Certification Might Not Be as Good as it Sounds

“By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be a boss and work twelve hours a day.”

Robert Frost

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

Cultural Literacy: Alienation

Because I think it’s a concept high school students ought to understand, I offer this Cultural Literacy worksheet on alienation this morning.

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.

Rotten Reviews: Ralph Waldo Emerson

“A hoary-headed and toothless baboon.”

Thomas Carlyle, Collected Works 1871

“Belongs to a class of gentlemen with whom we have no patience whatever–the mystics for mysticism’s sake. The best answer to his twaddle is cui bono?–a very little Latin phrase very generally mistranslated and misunderstood–cui bono? to whom is it a benefit. If not to Mr. Emerson generally, then surely to no man.

Edgar Allan Poe, in a chapter of autobiography 1842

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

The Weekly Text, June 9, 2017: Five Homophone Worksheet on the Verbs Accept and Except

If you deal with student writing, I’ll hazard a guess that you’ve seen in it more than once confusion between the transitive (mostly) and intransitive (so used in some instances) verb accept and the multi-purpose–it serves as both a transitive and intransitive verb, as well as a preposition and a conjunction–word except.

So, for this week’s Text, I offer these five homophone worksheets on accept and except. The first three of them are ten cloze blanks each, then the final two each contain five cloze blanks. If one wanted to make more of these, it wouldn’t be hard, via the miracle of copy and paste, to turn the first three worksheets into six.

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 Reviews: Euripides

“A cliche anthologist…and maker of ragamuffin manikins.”

Aristophanes, The Thesmophoriazausae 411 B.C.

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

Cultural Literacy: Je Ne Sais Quoi

Occasionally, if a few minutes remain in a period after a lesson, I’ll pull out a short exercise to keep students busy. Often, these are things like this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the french noun je ne sais quoi. I tell kids that while this isn’t something they will be tested on–and what a dismal standard for assessing the importance of knowledge that is!–but rather something they will need for cocktail party chatter when they become successful professionals.

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.

George Bernard Shaw on Youth

“Youth is a wonderful thing. What a shame to waste it on children.”

George Bernard Shaw

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

Cultural Literacy: Checks and Balances

It’s as good a time as any, I guess, to post this Cultural Literacy worksheet on checks and balances. I do so in hope of the survival of our republic from those who would subvert it.

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.