Category Archives: Reference

These are materials for teachers and parents, and you’ll find, in this category, teachers copies and answer keys for worksheets, quotes related to domain-specific knowledge in English Language Arts and social studies, and quotes on issues of professional concern. See the Taxonomies page for more about this category.

Write It Right: Curious for Odd or Singular

Posted on July 7, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Curious for Odd, or Singular. To be curious is to have an inquiring mind or mood—curiosity.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.

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Isaac Asimov on Problems, Knowledge, and Ignorance

Posted on July 7, 2022 | Leave a comment

“If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.”

Isaac Asimov (1920-1922)

Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.

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Common English Verbs Followed by Gerunds: Justify

Posted on July 7, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the verb justify when used with a gerund. I cannot justify spending this much time on developing a series of materials that have no 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.

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Term of Art: Tenure

Posted on July 7, 2022 | Leave a comment

“tenure: A legal guarantee that a teacher cannot be removed from his or her position without cause and that any removal will be done in accordance with due process. Teaches in public schools usually gain tenure if they have served satisfactorily for three to five years. Tenure was created to protect teachers from capricious administrators and to preserve their academic freedom.”

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

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Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi

Posted on July 7, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi: (1746-1827) Swiss educational reformer. Between 1805 and 1825 he directed the Yverdon Institute (near Neuchatel), which drew pupils and educators (including Friedrich Froebel) from all over Europe. His teaching method emphasized group rather than individual recitation and focused on such participatory activities as drawing, writing, singing, physical exercise, model making, collecting, mapmaking, and field trips. Among his ideas, considered radically innovative at the time, were making allowances for individual differences, grouping students by ability rather than age, and encouraging formal teacher training.”

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

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Lunette

Posted on July 7, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Lunette: A window or painting of semicircular shape.”

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

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Write It Right: Cunning for Amusing

Posted on July 7, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Cunning for Amusing. Usually said of a child, or pet. This is pure Americanese, as is its synonym, ‘cute.’”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.

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Bon Mot

Posted on July 6, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Bon Mot  A clever, well-phrased observation or remark; witticism. Pl. bons mots, bon mots.

‘The literary Jews also sprinkled their prose with Yiddish bon mots in lieu of the Latin that the Southerners favored.’ Richard Kostalanetz, Literary Politics in America”

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

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Jean-Baptiste Lamarck on the Evolution of the Giraffe

Posted on July 6, 2022 | Leave a comment

“It is interesting to observe the result of habit in the peculiar shape and size of the giraffe (Camelo-pardalis): this animal, the largest of mammals, is known to live in the interior of Africa in places where the soil is nearly always arid and barren, so that it is obliged to browse on the leaves of trees and make a constant effort to reach them. From this habit long maintained in all its race, it has resulted that the animal’s fore-legs have become longer than its hind legs, and that its neck is lengthened to such a degree that the giraffe, without standing on its hind legs, attains a height of six metres.”

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Philosophie Zoologique pt. 1 ch. 7 (1809)

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

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7 Colours of the Visible Spectrum

Posted on July 6, 2022 | Leave a comment

“These seven colours can be remembered through the mnemonic ‘Richard of York Gave Battle In Vain.’”

Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.

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