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: Brainwashing

Given the state of our news media, this Cultural Literacy worksheet on brainwashing strikes me as timely. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences and four comprehension questions. Nota bene, please, that the second two sentences are long compounds with lists separated by serial commas. In other words, this reading may require editing and adaptation for emergent readers and learners of English as a new language.

Where might you use something like this? All over the place, I would think: it would be useful as a do-now exercise for just about any study of twentieth-century political, religious, and social movements. It would also accompany nicely, I am confident, a viewing of The Manchurian Candidate–a perfect film, in my estimation. However, I speak here about the 1962 production, not the execrable, regrettable, 2004 remake from Jonathan Demme, who ought to have known better.

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.

Common English Verbs Followed by an Infinitive: Care

Here is a worksheet on the verb care followed by an infinitive. I  don’t care to write weak curricular materials.

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.

The Weekly Text, Friday 2 June 2023: History of Hip-Hop Lesson 13, Breaking into the Charts: Hip-Hop as Party Music

This week’s Text offers the thirteenth lesson plan of the History of Hip-Hop Unit. This lesson opens, after a class change, with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Nation of Islam. The principal work of this lesson are the lyrics to “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugarhill Gang and “The Breaks” by Kurtis Blow, and the comprehension and analytical questions about those lyrics. You can find both of these songs on YouTube–and in the case of “The Breaks” a live performance by Kurtis Blow on Soul Train. I’ve shown parts of both–and nota bene, please, that “Rapper’s Delight,” depending on which version you land on, can be a long song.

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.

The Weekly Text, 26 May 2023, Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month Week IV: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Kemal Ataturk

Alright, for the final Friday of Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month 2023, here is a reading on Kemal Ataturk along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

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.

Bhavabhuti

“Bhavabhuti: (8th century AD) Indian playwright. Bhavabhuti is praised for his subtle handling of poignant scenes and his mastery of Sanskrit as a poetic language. Two of his plays, Mahaviracarita (tr Portrait of a Hero, 1871) and Uttararamacarita (tr Rama’s Later Story, 1915), retell the Ramayana story in highly dramatic and sometimes sentimentalized form; a third, Malati-madhava (Fr tr 1885) deals with a legendary tale.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

Rabindranath Tagore at the Seashore

“On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. Tempest roams in the pathless sky, ships are wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad and children play. On the seashore of endless worlds is the great meeting of children.”

Rabindranath Tagore, “On the Seashore” 1.6 (1918)

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

Rabindranath Tagore

“Rabindranath Tagore: Bengali poet, writer, composer, and painter. The son of Debendranath Tagore, he published several books of poetry, including Manasi, in his twenties. His later religious poetry was introduced to the West in Gitanjali (1912). Through international travel and lecturing, he introduced aspects of Indian culture to the West and vice versa. He spoke ardently in favor of Indian independence; as a protest against the Massacre of Amritsar, he repudiated the knighthood he had received in 1915. He founded an experimental school in Bengal where he sought to blend Eastern and Western philosophies; it became Vishva-Bharati University (1921). He was awarded the 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

The Weekly Text, 19 May 2023, Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month Week III: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Iwo Jima

Here is a reading on Iwo Jima along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet in observance of Week III of Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month 2023. This is of course, a topic in United States history as well. The battle fought on the island of Iwo Jima produced one of the most iconic war photographs, that of the United States flag being raised there, of the Second World War–and perhaps ever. That photograph inspired the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C.

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.

Joruri

“Joruri: Originally a genre of popular song in Japan, accompanied first by the biwa (Japanese lute) and later by the samisen (Japanese banjo), it was adapted as the musical narrative for the Japanese puppet theater (Bunraku). The person who chants the joruri is known as the giddayu, Joruri is not a dramatic form, but rather is the chanted narration of tales often dramatic in nature.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

Matsuo Basho Just Cooling

“Cooling, so cooling,

With a wall against my feet,

Midday sleep—behold.”

Poem (translation by Bernard Lionel Einbond)

Matsuo Basho

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.