“Who coined the term ‘willing suspension of disbelief’? Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his critical treatise Biographia Literaria (1817). Coleridge used the term to refer to the ‘poetic faith’ of a reader in accepting imaginary elements in a literary work.”
Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.
“Vorticism: An English movement, founded by Wyndham Lewis in 1912 and named by Ezra Pound, which reacted against Cubism and Futurism (while owing much of its outlook and style to them). The compositions were abstract geometric forms organized in arcs around a focal point (vortex). The chief aim seems to have been to make the British aware of advanced movements in modern art on the continent and elsewhere.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
“expository writing: A term that refers to informational writing typically given during the first year of college to prepare first-year students for academic writing. Generally, entering first-year students will take at least one semester of expository writing. Some colleges require a two-semester sequence of expository writing courses.
In some cases, students with writing problems may be required to complete developmental or basic writing courses before they can enter the expository writing course.
Expository writing includes description, comparison/contrast, definition, classification, argument, process analysis, and cause-and-effect. These types of writing or rhetorical strategies may be taught using models and examples, and as ends in themselves, or as strategies to use within informational essays that include a number of different patterns.
In general, the goal of teaching these types of writing patterns is to provide a foundation for the kinds of text-based writing required in specific academic disciplines.
Expository writing may be contrasted with expressive writing or the personal essay, in which students are allowed to focus on their own experience, perceptions, and memories. Much more than expressive writing, expository writing may pose problems for individuals with learning disability who may find it difficult to organize ideas, support main ideas with details, or apply paragraph and essay structures.”
Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.
This week’s Text is a lesson plan on container sizes from The Order of Things. This is a straightforward literacy and numeracy exercise designed to build procedural ability and confidence. You’ll need this list-as-reading and comprehension worksheet for the primary work of this lesson.
Supporting materials for this lesson may be found on the About Posts & Texts page.
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 noblest aspect of the American liberal tradition is its respect for diversity.”
Theodore R. Sizer (1932-2009)
Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
“Geometric Art: A term associated with a style of early Greek art (ca. 1000-700 B.C.) in which decoration is formed of angular lines and shapes. Vase painting is the chief expression of Greek geometric style art. Also used to describe the style of art produced by a variety of prehistoric and primitive cultures.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged art/architecture/design
“There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged humor, literary oddities, philosophy/religion
“White Line Engraving: Engraving in which the design is carved into the surface, not raised from it, and which consequently appears as a white design on a black field. A Renaissance invention, but a specialty of the 19th-century wood engraver Thomas Bewick.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged art/architecture/design
This week’s Text is a lesson plan on using the compound adjective. I open this lesson with this parsing sentences for adjectives worksheet. In the event the lesson continues into a second day, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the oxymoron as a rhetorical device.
Moving on to the work, here is the scaffolded worksheet that is at the center of the lesson. To assist students in understanding and completing this work, I have a couple of learning supports–actually, two versions of the same learning support: the first is this word bank of adjectives to use when working to fill in the cloze blank; the second is the same document structured into columns. I wrote the second one because I found I needed to be able to direct kids’ attention to the column where the best word for the cloze blanks resides.
Finally, here is the teacher’s copy (or the parents’ copy, if you like) of the worksheet for ease of teaching this lesson.
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.
“Bogus for Counterfeit, or False. The word is slang; keep it out.”
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
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