“A derived noun whose formation has the general meaning of ‘act or process of…’: e.g. construction (from construct + ion), with the basic meaning ‘process of constructing.’ Compare agent noun.
Excerpted from: Marshall, P.H., ed. The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
“An individual’s ability to learn, without reference to specific instruction or prior knowledge. Aptitude is most often measured by standardized tests (for example the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children [WISC]) or cognitive batteries of tests that also include achievement components (such as the Woodcock-Johnson). Other important aptitude tests include the Scholastic Aptitude Test and the American College Test, each of which plays a prominent role in college admissions.
Determining whether someone has a learning disability is generally based on a discrepancy between achievement and aptitude, as measured by standardized tests. Consequently, tests of aptitude such as the WISC and the Woodcock-Johnson play a central role in determining who is eligible to receive special education services.”
Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.
“Small or moderate-size painting executed at an easel. Renaissance artists began painting easel pictures to meet the demand of collectors, and they were often displayed on easels. They became immensely popular when the middle class in 17th-century France and Holland began to collect art. Also called cabinet picture.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
“Adopt. ‘He adopted a disguise.’ One may adopt a child, or an opinion, but a disguise is assumed.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged diction/grammar/style/usage
“What is the name of the stockyard district where main character Jurgis Rudkis lives and works in The Jungle? It is known as Packingtown, in Chicago. The 1906 book led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act.”
Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
“The name of Plato’s school near Athens. It was named after a legendary hero, Hecademus or Academus. The school had a long history, continuing until Justinian suppressed the philosophical school in AD 529.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged philosophy/religion, readings/research
“Instructional approaches that incorporate thinking processes and real-life activities in the classroom, make use of visual and auditory stimuli in addition to written materials, and engage higher-order thinking skills. Critics say there is no scientific basis to such strategies and that they simply reflect the pedagogical preferences of advocates.”
Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.
“There is a thorough-going vulgarity in this book, characteristic of its class, which is a symptom of a lack of knowledge of the novelist’s real art…I mean an insufferable vulgarity, which has crept into so many of our supposedly advanced novels that someone not squeamish, not unread in earlier literatures, must protest against what is cheapening American fiction…what has happened to these young Americans? Do they think that living in a county the most vigorous, the most complex, the most problematical, the most interesting bar none in the world, we are going to be content with sour pap like this? And the tragedy is that they are clever; if they could see, they could write.”
H.S. Canby, Saturday Review of Literature
Excerpted from: Bernard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, literary oddities
“It’s better to be quotable than to be honest.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged drama/theater, humor, literary oddities
As I have repeated ad nauseam in these pages, Mark’s Text Terminal is not a political or educational policy blog. Any number of reasons suffice to explain this, but I always return to the most salient of them: there are quite a few smart and well-informed people, many of whose websites can be found in the right margin of this site under the heading Blogs Followed at Mark’s Text Terminal, covering those topics. That said, I intend in the coming months to highlight several of these blogs.
The assault on public education has now reached a stage where I can no long remain completely silent. Fortunately, as I say, there are plenty of people speaking and perceptively, and buttressing their arguments with evidence, something that happens less and less in public discourse, about educational policy.
Starting out, I want to highlight the work of Bob Shepherd, who blogs under the heading Praxis. Bob is, as Diane Ravitch noted recently, a polymath. I originally made his acquaintance in the comments forum of Dr. Ravitch’s blog, where I occasionally presume to comment on topics of the day. Bob is an acutely perspicacious and wide-ranging commentator on educational policy, particularly where privatization of public schools and the scandals that often ensue are concerned.
That said, Bob covers a lot of other ground in Praxis. He recently posted a lengthy discourse on the physical and philosophical nature of time, a topic I find abstruse (I dropped Lester Mazor’s “Perspectives on Time” seminar at Hampshire College in the fall of 1994 because I didn’t have the intellectual stamina to keep up with it and plan my honors thesis) and fascinating at the same time. I guess I like to imagine that in another life, Bob and I would be an Intellectual History department of two at some small, lively, and innovative liberal arts college.
If you’re at all interested in issues and problems in educational policy—or to quote briefly from his “About” page, “curriculum design…,linguistics…, hermeneutics…, philosophy…, classical and jazz guitar…, history of ideas…, heuristics for innovation,” (and I’ve enumerated only about one-quarter of this list), then you should by all means point your browser at Praxis.
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