Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on one of the most commonly used Latinisms in the English language, Caveat Emptor. It means, of course, “let the buyer beware.”
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.
“Anachronism (noun): A chronological error; a person, thing, word, or idiom inappropriate to the time of a literary work, especially something placed or assumed too early; specific temporal or historical error. Adj. anachronistic, anachronic, anachronous, anachronical; adv. Anachronistically, anachronically, anachronously. Also: METACHRONISM.
‘Of course, the deep south holds on by main strength to it regional expressions, just as it holds and treasures some other anachronisms, but no region can hold out for long against the highway, the high-tension line, and the national television.” John Steinbeck Travels with Charley'”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
Before I walk out the door this morning, here is an independent practice worksheet on the Phoenicians, those consistently amazing (there’s evidence now that Phoenician ships circumnavigated Africa) explorers and traders. I’ve used this with freshman global studies classes here in New York City.
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.
“We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. This is clearly a prescription for disaster.”
Excerpted from: Grothe, Dr. Marty. Metaphors Be with You. New York: Harper, 2016.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged readings/research, science literacy
As Mark’s Text Terminal prepares its move away from New York City, things have gotten a bit hectic around the warehouse. More news on this will follow (not that it’s especially interesting).
In the meantime, this week’s Text is five worksheets on the homophones rein, rain, and reign.
Over the years, I have noticed students struggling with the intransitive verb reign. This verb, which doesn’t morph at all in its transition to a noun, comes from the Latin regnum, which means kingdom. Keen observers will detect regnum as the basis of all kinds of words relating to ruling, not the least of which is regent. At the root of these words is the Latin reg, which means rule. This root shows up all around the Romance languages, and it shouldn’t be hard for native Spanish speakers–I work with many and pull this parlor trick all the time with them–to recognize their word Rey in this, i.e. king. Long story short? This little Latin root–reg–is at the core of a startling number of words across the Romance languages and English and can therefore be used profitably at some length for building vocabulary and developing understanding of the concepts the words represent.
Homophone worksheets as I conceive them are simply a slightly different approach to vocabulary building that a simple context clues worksheet with a focus on a single word. Also, it seems to me that kids in high school ought to know the use of the word rein, particularly as a transitive verb.
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.
“Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing.”
Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.
Posted in English Language Arts, New York City, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged humor, literary oddities
If you teach United States History, I’ll venture that somewhere along the line this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Suffragists might find a place in your practice.
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.
FINAL THOUGHTS: LIMITATIONS OF RESEARCH
“The scope of what researchers can accomplish is limited in many ways…. Though ideally researchers would assess the learning and cognition of a representative sample of people, meaning one that best captures the breadth and diversity of humanity, in practice this is hardly ever the case. Furthermore, most if not all brain and cognitive researchers conduct their analyses in laboratory settings, where as many variables are identified and controlled as possible. Compared to the control of a laboratory, a classroom is filthy with variables of many types.
Why should the distinction between the control of variables and other factors in laboratories and classrooms matter? Put simply, it matters because ‘evidence-based’ is often mistakenly interpreted as meaning the same thing as ‘field-tested.’ To say that a particular teaching strategy or curricular initiative is ‘evidence-based’ can indicate many things. It certainly may mean, as most assume, that the phenomenon has been studied in classroom settings by educational researchers and teachers and has been found to work. And it this latter situation is the case, great! However, more often than not this label means that a particular educational strategy or initiative is based on evidence that has emerged from research studies conducted in laboratories, or it is based in evidence.
There is certainly nothing wrong with this other definition and I also do not believe that it is intentionally used to deceive. Indeed, many of the strategies proposed in this text represent exactly this type of research-based practice, namely those that have yet to be tested in classroom settings. However, any time you come across something that is research-based rather than research-validated (or field-tested), remember that the minimum threshold for this label is that the strategy is based on a review of the existing literature. Thus it is ‘field-tested’ or ‘research-validated’ and not ‘evidence-based” that should be seen as the educational equivalent of the ‘Good Housekeeping’ stamp of approval.”
Excerpted from: Rekart, Jerome L. The Cognitive Classroom: Using Brain and Cognitive Science to Optimize Student Success. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2013.
Here, on an autumnal Thursday afternoon, is a reading on Colonial Boston with a comprehension worksheet to use with it. I suppose there is no need to belabor the usefulness of these documents in a class on United States history.
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.
Here’s one more thing on this Tuesday afternoon, to wit a Cultural Literacy worksheet on amortization. Nota bene the Latin root mort in this word: it means death and also shows up in words like mortal and mortuary. This noun, coming from the verb amortize, which Merriam-Webster’s defines as meaning both to pay off (as a mortgage) gradually usu. by periodic payments of principal and interest or by payments to a sinking fund and to gradually reduce or write off the cost or value of (as an asset) can mean, given the presence of mort in it, to kill off a debt. Students might find that interesting. In any case, amortize does show up in the word root worksheet I have for mort, which I will post at some point.
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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