“Deadwood (noun): Useless or expendable words that add nothing to clarity or meaning; verbiage; redundancy. See also VERBALISM.
‘Overly specific’ is inferior to “over specific,” as “inside of her” is to “inside her”; deadwood is always undesirable. John Simon. Paradigms Lost'”
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 Greek word roots gen/o, -gene, and -genesis. These, as you have probably inferred, carry several meanings: “production,” “formation,” “generation,” “origin,” “cause,” “birth,” “kind,” and “race.” These roots grow into such high-frequency English words as carcinogen, congenital, and genocide, all of which are included in this scaffolded worksheet.
I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the adjective prenatal, which I hoped, perhaps vainly and foolishly, would point the way toward the meanings of these word roots.
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.
“Jorge Amado: (1912-2001) Brazilian novelist. Born and reared on a cacao plantation, he published his first novel at 20. His early works, including The Violent Land (1942), explore the exploitation of suffering of plantation workers. Despite imprisonment and exile for leftist activities, he continued to produce novels, many of which have been banned in Brazil and Portugal. Later works such as Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon (1958), Dona Flor and her Two Husbands (1966), and The War of the Saints (1993) preserve Amado’s political attitude in their more subtle satire.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Fidel Castro. This is a half-page worksheet with a four-sentence reading and four comprehension questions. Just the basics on the late Cuban leader.
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.
“Gustavo Alvarez Gardeazabal: (1945-) Colombian writer and political figure. Growing up during La Violencia, the civil strife that took over 300,000 lives between 1946 and 1959, he developed a black sense of humor. His early novel, Condores no entierran todos los dias (1971) is the riveting story of a conservative who becomes a death squad leader. El bazar de los idiotas (1974; tr. Bazaar of the Idiots, 1991), a vicious satire on intolerance and religious gullibility, is one of Colombia’s most read novels. Pepe Botellas (1984) is a hilarious political fable about a Cuban exile who tries to become President of Colombia. Alvarez Gardeazabal’s recent fiction has dealt with the corrosive effects of the drug trade on Colombian society.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on El Salvador, another Latin American nation that has been in the news quite often lately. This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of four sentences and eight comprehension questions.
A couple of things: the third of the four sentences in the reading is very long; for emergent and struggling readers, it would probably be best edited into smaller clauses. Like most of the Cultural Literacy worksheets I’ve posted during this Hispanic Heritage Month 2025, this one is a literacy exercise designed to help struggling readers understand relatively complex–but short–passages of text. These particularly call upon students to keep straight the cardinal directions of nations bordering on the subject of the document–in this case, El Salvador.
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.
“Octavio Paz: (1914-1998) Mexican poet, writer, and diplomat. Educated at the University of Mexico, Paz published his first book of poetry, Luna Silvestre (“Savage Moon”) in 1933. He later founded and edited several important literary reviews. Influenced in turn by Marxism, surrealism, existentialism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, his poetry uses rich imagery in dealing with metaphysical questions, and his most prominent theme is the human ability to overcome existential solitude through erotic love and artistic creativity. His prose works include The Labyrinth of Solitude (1950), an influential essay on Mexican history and culture. He was Mexico’s ambassador to India 1962-68. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1990.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
This week’s Text, for social studies teachers in general and business education teachers in particular, is this context clues worksheet on the noun deficit, another on the noun surplus, and a lexicon to clarify their meanings and use.
Jeez, there really isn’t much more to say about these. I think they explain themselves. If they don’t, you might want to grab a copy of the Context Clues Worksheets Users’ Manuals.
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.
“Pancho Villa originally Doroteo Arango (1878-1923) Mexican guerilla leader. Orphaned at a young age, he spent his adolescence as a fugitive, having murdered a landowner in revenge for an assault on his sister. An advocate of radical land reform, he joined Francisco Madero’s uprising against Porfirio Diaz. His Division del Norte joined forces with Venustiano Carranza to overthrow Victoriano Huerta and in 1914 was forced to leave with Emiliano Zapata. In 1916, to demonstrate the Carranza did not control the north, he raided a town in New Mexico. A U.S. force led by General John Pershing was sent against him, but his popularity and knowledge of his home territory made him impossible to capture. He was granted a pardon after Carranza’s overthrow (1920) but was assassinated three years later. See also Mexican Revolution, Alvaro Obregon.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Spanish-American War. This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of seven sentences (the sixth of which is a long compound, and probably ought to be edited into smaller pieces for emergent and struggling readers) and seven comprehension questions. As usual, the editors of The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy do an admirable job of condensing complicated events into a cogent snippet of text.
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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