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: Balkan Peninsula

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Balkan Peninsula. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three compound sentences and three comprehension questions. Nota bene, please, that the compounds in these sentences contain lists of geographical particularities and the many nations and nationalities that crowd this relatively small piece of real estate. If you’re looking for something to begin a lesson on this region–particularly just about anything on World War I, empires, colonialism, or the horrorshow that ensued in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union–this short worksheet might be a good place to start.

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.

Antonin Artaud with a Grim Assessment of Writing and Writers

“All writing is garbage. People who come out of nowhere to try to put into words any part of what goes on in their minds are pigs.”

Antonin Artaud

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

Glitch (n)

Here is a context clues worksheet on the noun glitch. It means “a usually minor malfunction,”  “a minor problem that causes a temporary setback,” and “a false or spurious electronic signal.” The context clues in this sentence point mostly to the first two definitions; the first sentence on the worksheet–“Arleny’s phone has developed a glitch that causes a delay in the delivery of text messages”–might, with some revision, supply context for the first definition.

Parenthetically, would you be surprised to hear this word comes to the English language from Yiddish? It does sound like it might; in Yiddish, glitsch means “a slippery place”; the verb glitshn means “to slide, glide.” Enough said.

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.

Douglas Sirk

“Douglas Sirk originally Hans Detlef Sierck: (1900-1987) German-U.S. film director. He was artistic director of several theaters in Bremen (1923-29) and Leipzig (1929-36) and made several films before fleeing Germany in 1937. He arrived in Hollywood in 1939 and received minor directing assignments until he joined Universal Pictures in 1950. There he directed comedy, western, and war movies but was best known for such popular melodramas as Magnificent Obsession (1954), There’s Always Tomorrow (1956), Written on the Wind (1956), and The Tarnished Angels (1957). After directing his greatest success, Imitation of Life (1959), he retired to Germany.”

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

The Weekly Text, 29 July 2022: A Lesson Plan on Correlative Conjunctions (Part 2)

This week’s Text is the second of two lessons on using correlative conjunctions. The first was published here last Friday. If you scroll down eight or so posts below this one, you’ll find it.

I open this lesson with this Everyday Edit worksheet on Charles R. Drew, the surgeon and researcher on blood transfusions. (And don’t forget that you can help yourself to a yearlong supply of Everyday Edit worksheets over at Education World.) If the lesson spills over into a second day, here is a second do-now worksheet on the homophones peace and piece.

This scaffolded worksheet is the center of this unit, and I expect that this teacher’s copy of the worksheet will make delivering the lesson a bit easier for you.

That’s it. I’ll post the final lesson in this unit–and the final lesson of all the Parts of Speech Units on this blog–next week.

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.

Buzzword

“Buzzword (noun): A vogue term with a catchy or seemingly impressive cachet, especially one form the jargon of technology, business, or government.

‘The phrase is everywhere…it is, in part, modish nonsense following a direct linguistic line from such buzzwords as ‘buzzword,’ ‘synergy,’ and ‘stonewall.’” Sam Vaughn, The New York Times

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

Common English Verbs Followed by Gerunds: Practice

If you can use it (and I remain skeptical of the utility of these materials, whose manufacture I nearly abandoned several times), here is a worksheet on the verb practice when used with a gerund. I  practice deprecating worksheets which are of dubious value.

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.

Jamb Figure

“Jamb Figure: Sculptured figure attached to the jamb (the vertical part) of a medieval church portal. Also called a called a column figure.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

Euclid

Here is a reading on Euclid along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. This is, as so many of the readings from the Intellectual Devotional series tend to be, a nice one-page conspectus on the author of The Elements, and the influences that led to the creation of this, essentially the world’s first first geometry textbook–which is, unsurprisingly, available across the internet in a variety of PDFs. The first one that pops up (under that hyperlink) is from a physicist named Richard Fitzpatrick at the University of Texas; it’s free of advertising clutter and, to the extent of my limited knowledge of the subject, well organized.

Also, in researching this post, I learned that the first of the five volumes in the Intellectual Devotional series is available as a free e-book under that hyperlink (at least at the time of this post’s publication), should you be interested.

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.

Term of Art: Task-Oriented Learning

“task-oriented learning: A learning approach in which students are expected to complete specific assigned jobs, or tasks, to gain mastery. Advocates of task-oriented instruction laud it because it is experiential and hands-on, as opposed to instruction that relies on books and lectures.”

Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.