“Mobile: A kinetic sculpture that consists of forms connected by wires or rods and wire. Because it hangs free, it is set in motion by air currents. Devised in 1932 by Alexander Calder.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
Here is a worksheet on the verb promise as used with an infinitive. I promise to stop thinking I am clever by devising dubious curricular material such as this.
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.
“Answers: A mechanism for avoiding questions.
This might be called obsessional avoidance or a manic syndrome. It is based on the belief that the possession of an education—particularly if it leads to professional or expert status, and, above all, if it involves some responsibility or power—carries with it an obligation to provide the answer to every question posed in your area of knowledge. This has become much more than the opiate of the rational elites. It may be the West’s most serious addiction.
Time is of the essence in this process. An inability to provide the answer immediately is a professional fault. The availability of unlimited facts can produce an equally unlimited number of absolute powers in most areas. Memory is not highly regarded. Right answers which turn out to be wrong are simply replaced by a new formula. The result of these sequential truths is an assertive or declarative society which admires neither reflection nor doubt and has difficulty with the idea that to most questions there are many answers, none of them absolute and few of them satisfactory except in a limited way.”
Excerpted from: Saul, John Ralston. The Doubter’s Companion. New York: The Free Press, 1994.
In this age of super-duper video games, I doubt there would be much call for this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Three Musketeers. In middle school, I loved the swashbucklers, but it doesn’t appear they are much read anymore. I suppose, if nothing else, this half-page document with its three-sentence reading and three comprehension question might play a role in some sort of instruction in literary history, especially where Dumas is concerned.
And it seems to me that most people in the world would benefit from dedicating some thought to the Three Musketeers’ motto: “All for one and one for all.”
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.
“Commonplace (noun): An obvious or trite comment or opinion; routine, unremarkable observation.
‘When he first noticed me, he tried to flummox me by addressing me in Latin, but I was equal to that dodge, and after a few commonplaces, we changed to English.’ Robertson Davies, Fifth Business”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
This week’s Text is a lesson plan on the Latin word roots quadr, quadri, quadru, and quadra. They mean, of course, four, and they are at the roots of high school words like quadratic (equation) and more general purpose English words like quadrangle and quadrant.
I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the verb quarter. I’m not sure why I chose the verb, as it has nothing to do with the meaning of the root on this worksheet, but rather means, in the context supplied, “to provide with lodging or shelter.” The verb also means “to cut or divide into four equal or nearly equal parts,” and I think this document would probably best be rewritten to furnish that context for inferring this word’s meaning.
Unless of course you’re teaching a lesson on the Third Amendment to the United States Constitution,, i.e. “No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.” In that case, the above-linked context clues worksheet may have some utility for you.
Finally, here is the scaffolded worksheet that is the primary work of 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.
“An ounce of hypocrisy is worth a pound of ambition.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.
Posted in Quotes, Social Sciences
Tagged fiction/literature, humor, literary oddities
Here is a worksheet on the verb pretend as used with an infinitive. I pretend to believe that this document has pedagogical merit or use.
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.
“Whom did novelist Henry Fielding summon to court for the murder of the English language? Poet laureate Colley Cibber in 1740. Fielding issued the summons under the pseudonym ‘Captain Hercules Vinegar.’”
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
Tagged fiction/literature, humor, literary oddities, poetry
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the adjective and preposition vis-a-vis. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of one sentence and two questions. One of the questions calls for the composition of a sentence using vis-a-vis, so it could be easily eliminated if you just to introduce the use of this term in the vernacular–that is, to mean “in relation to.” I will say that this worksheet does little more than that, which I discovered when I researched the word a bit at Merriam-Webster. This Gallicism literally means “face-to-face” and can be used that way as a noun, should you care to extend this worksheet further.
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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