Tag Archives: building vocabulary/conceptual knowledge

The Sopranos

Posted on October 22, 2021 | Leave a comment

OK, continuing with items from the I-don’t-know-why-or-when-I wrote-this shelf in the warehouse at Mark’s Text Terminal, here is a reading on The Sopranos (which I loved, so that may figure into this) along with its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I expect that this will have, more than 14 years after the final episode of the show aired, very little relevance to students–if ever it did. I must have put this together for a student who asked for it, but I cannot for the life of me remember who that would have been.

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.

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Cultural Literacy: Conscientious Objector

Posted on October 22, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of a conscientious objector to war. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three compound sentences and three comprehension questions. The first question is in three parts, and it may be necessary to break it up for emergent or struggling readers. Once again, this is  Microsoft Word document, so you are free to do with it what you want or need.

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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Common Errors in English Usage: Graffiti (n)

Posted on October 22, 2021 | Leave a comment

From Paul Brians’ book Common Errors in English Usage (to which he allows no-cost access on the Washington State University website), here is an English usage worksheet on the noun graffiti. The mild irony here, of course, is that graffiti is an Italian noun, and a plural at that; the singular is graffito. In any case, the worksheet consists of a relatively short (four sentences) reading passage with ten modified cloze exercises.

This is not a vital area of usage, but the worksheet does supply students with an opportunity to do usage analysis, which is more or less the point of these worksheets–and the meet the standard (see “English Usage” in the About Posts & Texts page on this blog, which you can reach by clicking on that title on the masthead of the site) that animated them in the first place.

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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Word Root Exercise: Flori

Posted on October 22, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the Latin root flori. As you probably know, because you have probably visited a florist at least once in your life, this productive root in English (it gives us, in addition to florist, flora, efflorescence and its verb effloresce, as well as the relatively commonly used adjective florid) means flower.

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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Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts

Posted on October 22, 2021 | Leave a comment

While I concede that this reading on Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet may not have compelling utility in our mostly arts-free schools, here they are nonetheless.

I’m old enough to remember the broadcasts of Maestro Bernstein–who was an eminent figure in the American Culture of my youth–and his Young People’s Concerts. The New York Philharmonic, then as now, stood as one of the world’s great orchestras. I can’t say these television shows inculcated a lifelong love of classical music in me, but they did introduce me to it and help me understand it. Fortunately, Wynton Marsalis, a figure as vital to American culture as Leonard Bernstein, continues the tradition of introducing young people to a genuinely American art form with his “Jazz for Young People” concerts. Mr. Marsalis leads the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, perhaps the greatest large ensemble playing jazz these days.

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.

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Write It Right: Idea for Thought, Purpose, Expectation, etc

Posted on October 22, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Idea for Thought, Purpose, Expectation, etc. ‘I had no idea that it was so cold.’ ‘When he went abroad it was with no idea of remaining.'”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.

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Scavenger (n)

Posted on October 22, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a context clues worksheet on the noun scavenger. I can’t remember why I wrote this, but it may have been because I had students who were hearing and seeing the words used in a biology class of some sort and couldn’t quite get their minds around it. I dimly recall debating whether or not to write for the noun or the verb–scavenge. If that’s the word better suited to the needs of your classroom, this Microsoft Word document is easy enough to convert to the verb.

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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The Weekly Text, 22 October 2021: A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Water Bed”

Posted on October 22, 2021 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is a on the Crime and Puzzlement case “Water Bed.” I begin this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Latinism caveat emptor. As you probably know, this locution means “let the buyer beware.” However, in everyday discourse one will often hear someone say “there is a caveat” or “there are several caveats” in any given situation. Caveat by itself means (by  Merriam-Webster’s reckoning) “a warning enjoining one from certain acts or practices.” All of this is a roundabout way of saying that caveat emptor in particular, and caveat in general, are arguable words high school students should know by their graduation.

Anyway, you’ll need this PDF scan of the illustration and questions related to the evidence in this case to investigate it. And here is the answer key to solve the case and bring your culprit to the bar of justice.

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.

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Slur

Posted on October 19, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Slur (noun): A disparaging remark or insinuation; insult, aspersion, or sleight; derogation or stigma; a sliding over without due consideration or attention; in utterance, a blurring or omitting or sounds, thereby running syllables or words together. Verb: slur.

‘This slurring of words into a refined cadence until they cease to be words at all is due partly to the Englishman’s disinclination to move his lips. Evidently the lips and teeth are held stationary for the most part, open just wide enough to let in air for breathing )many Englishmen must breathe through their mouths, otherwise they would not breathe at all) with an occasional sharp pursing of the lips on a syllable which does not call for pursing the lips.’

Robert Benchley, ‘The King’s English: Not Murder but Suicide.’”

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

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Temperance (n), Temperate (adj)

Posted on October 19, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a context clues worksheet on the noun temperance. I’m fairly confident I wrote this for a United States history class to help students understand the word as an adjective in the historical term Temperance Movement. You will note in these sentences that I tried to write context that also defines temperance to mean “habitual moderation in the indulgence of the appetites or passions.”

And here also is another context clues worksheet on the adjective temperate. This is a moderately complicated word whose essential meaning is “marked by moderation, “keeping or held within limits,” and “not extreme or excessive.” It’s worth remembering that this adjective attaches to nouns dealing with everything from drinking alcohol (as above), to climates, to one’s habits.

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.

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