“survival skills: The term can mean more than one thing depending on the context in which it is used. Survival skills may refer to daily self-help skills necessary to survive in life, such as feeding, dressing, and communicating. In higher education, survival skills often refer to the study skills necessary to be a successful learner.”
Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.
“Convoy for Escort. ‘A man-of-war acted as the convoy to the flotilla.’ The flotilla is the convoy, the man-of-war the escort.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.
“John Humphrey Noyes: (1811-1886) U.S. social reformer. Born in Brattleboro, Vermont, he studied for the ministry at Yale and declared his belief in ‘perfectionism,’ announcing that he had achieved a state of sinlessness. In 1836 He organized a community of ‘Bible communists’ in Putney, Vermont, where he advocated free love and ‘complex’ marriage as opposed to ‘simple’ or monogamous marriage. Arrested for adultery in 1846, he fled to Oneida, New York, where he established the Oneida Community, which he led until 1879, when he fled to Canada to avoid legal action. He wrote several books on perfectionism and a history of U.S. utopian communities.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
“How long was Poor Richard’s Almanack published? Benjamin Franklin published it in Philadelphia from 1733 to 1758. After 1748, the almanac was called Poor Richard Improved. Franklin sold it in 1758, but it continued to be published until 1796.”
Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.
Here, on the Fourth of July 2022, is a reading on Benjamin Franklin along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. And that’s about it: a couple of Microsoft Word documents you can adapt to the needs of your students.
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.
“teaching to the test: The practice of devoting extra time and attention in the classroom to the skills and knowledge that will be assessed on the state or district test. Critics claim that it reduced education to a limited range of skills, ignores the importance of comprehension, and neglects subjects that are not tested, such as history, civics, geography, and the arts.”
Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.
“Government, n. A modern Chronos who devours his own children. The priesthood are charged with the duty of preparing them for his tooth.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged fiction/literature, humor, literary oddities
It’s Independence Day in the United States, so I can think of no better time to post this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the republic as a form of government. This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of four sentences–all of them compounds–and six comprehension questions. The reading, incidentally, does a nice job of differentiating republics and democracies.
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.
“New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.”
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding “Dedicatory Epistle” (1690)
Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
“visual motor skills: A subcategory of perceptual motor skills involving the ability to translate information received by sight into a physical response. In education, visual motor skills are often used when copying information from a blackboard or reproducing letters or numbers. Individuals with problems in this area often have poor handwriting, and may also have more subtle and pervasive difficulties in school performance.”
Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.
 | A Measurement Conver… on An Elegantly Simple Cooking Co… |
| A Measurement Conver… on The Weekly Text, October 25, 2… |
 | markstextterminal on Cree |
 | panzer046a139293db on Cree |
| markstextterminal on Cree |
Mark's Text Terminal 
You must be logged in to post a comment.