“Dirt for Earth, Soil, or Gravel. A most disagreeable Americanism, discredited by general (and Presidential) use. ‘Make the dirt fly.’ Dirt means filth.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.
Here is a worksheet on the use of the adjective moral and the noun morale. This is a full-page document with a reading of two longish sentences and ten modified cloze exercises. Professor Paul Brians, from whose book Common Errors in English Usage this material is adapted (and to which he allows free access at his Washington State University web page), also nicely points out the pronunciation stresses in these words.
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.
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on diction. This is a half-page worksheet with a three sentence reading and three comprehension questions. This is a good general introduction to the concept of diction, that is, word choice.
However, the third sentence comes with this warning: for struggling and emergent readers, this sentence will almost certainly need to be rewritten. If you look at the way the clauses are punctuated, breaking up this monster and making it comprehensible mostly does itself. As I prepared this post, I looked at this document and found, like some of these half-page worksheets, it looked a bit crowded. A revision might knock this into a full-page document, which would allow for some critical, brainstorming questions about diction.
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.
“bathos: [M17th] This is a Greek word and was first recorded in English in the literal Greek sense ‘depth.’ The literary sense was introduced by Alexander Pope in the early 18th century. He published the Bathos in Miscellanies (third volume) in 1728, which was a lively satire giving descriptions of bad authors. Bathysphere [1930] for a spherical chamber that can be lowered into the depths of the sea, comes from the same source.”
Excerpted from: Creswell, Julia. Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Let’s continue this website’s slog through the Introduction to Writing Sentences unit with the thirteenth lesson plan, this one on writing sentences with relative clauses. This lesson opens with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the regular verb. This is a half-page document with a two sentence reading and three comprehension questions. If I am not mistaken, I recently published this document in a standalone post.
Here is the scaffolded worksheet on relative clauses and their use–and punctuation–in declarative sentences. Students will probably benefit, while working on this material, from the presence of this learning support on the use of that and which when working with relative clauses, and this one on restrictive and non-restrictive clauses which offers a broad overview of these kinds of clauses and their role in a declarative sentences.
Finally, here is the teacher’s copy of the worksheet to ease your cognitive load while executing 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.
Once more, adapted from Paul Brians’ book Common Errors in English Usage (to which he allows no-cost access at his Washington State University web page), here is a worksheet on the use of the noun misnomer. This is a full-page document with a reading of two sentences which define the word misnomer and instruct on its relatively simple use. The document continues with a list of ten obvious misnomers (e.g. “healthful cigarettes”) and calls upon students to build sentences around them.
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.
“Disparagement (noun): The expression of low opinion; regarding or portraying unfavorably so as to lower in esteem; discredit or belittlement of one’s dignity. Adjective: disparaging; adverb: disparagingly; verb: disparage.
‘Some years ago Edna Ferber worte a book about a very tiny group of very rich Texans. Her description was accurate, so far as my knowledge extends, but her emphasis was one of disparagement.’ John Steinbeck, Travels with Charly”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
When I set off for college at an advanced age, I confess that I had little understanding of what the term liberal arts education actually meant. This Cultural Literacy worksheet on the liberal arts does a quick but thorough job of explaining the concept of liberal arts, and even enough about their history to provoke some thought about education and social class.
This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three relatively straightforward–albeit longish–sentences and three comprehension questions. Graphically, the document looks to me a bit crowded. If one wanted to add a couple of questions to arouse critical thinking about the liberal arts (e.g. “Why would a student pursue a liberal arts education?”), this could easily become a full page of questions for students to ponder.
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.
This week’s Text, you won’t be surprised to hear if you’re a regular user of this blog, is the twelfth lesson plan of the Introduction to Writing Sentences unit. This is a second lesson on using parenthetical element, in the case of this lesson, the aside. Here is the worksheet on parsing sentences to find adverbs that opens this lesson. And, finally, here is the scaffolded worksheet on writing asides into sentences that constitutes the primary work of this lesson–writing parenthetical asides into declarative sentences.
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.
Adapted from the pages of Paul Brians’ superlative manual Common Errors in English Usage (which, as I like to remind readers of this blog, he allows free and unfettered access to at his Washington State University web page), here is use of the verb mislead and its past tense, misled. This is a full-page document with a four-sentence reading and ten modified cloze exercises. The principal usage problem this worksheet addresses (as you can see, you have both the present tense and the past tense of the verb mislead here) is making sure one is using properly the present tense (mislead), the past tense (misled) and the past participle (also misled).
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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