Tag Archives: building vocabulary/conceptual knowledge

Cultural Literacy: Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

Posted on September 1, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on gross domestic product (GDP). This is a half-page worksheet with three sentences and three comprehension questions. In spite of its brevity–or perhaps because of it, because the basic concept of GDP is simple–this is a good basic explanation of this broad measure of economic activity in a nation state, state, or province.

I would think this would be useful in just about any social studies class, but especially in the second half of high school.

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: Goal (n), Objective (n)

Posted on September 1, 2021 | Leave a comment

Once again, from Paul Brians’ book Common Errors in English Usage (to which he allows access at no charge at the Washington State University website), here is a worksheet on using and differentiating the nouns goal and objective. This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of two brief paragraphs and ten modified cloze exercises.

And, once again, Professor Brians supplies a clear and concise exposition of the use of these words–and makes room for a broader discussion about English usage and clear communication.

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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Stipulate (vi/vt), Stipulation (n)

Posted on September 1, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a context clues worksheet on the verb stipulate and another on the noun stipulation. This has always seemed to me a word students should know before they leave high school. If nothing else, it gives teachers the opportunity to say to students, “If anyone is looking down the road at law school, here are a couple of words useful to know.

For the record, stipulate is used both intransitively and transitively. Intransitively, it means “to make an agreement or covenant to do or forbear something,” “contract,” and “to demand an express term in an agreement — used with for.” Transitively, it means “to specify as a condition or requirement (as of an agreement or offer)” and “to give a guarantee of.” The noun stipulation means “an act of stipulating” and “something stipulated; especially a condition, requirement, or item specified in a legal instrument.”

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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Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted on August 31, 2021 | Leave a comment

Not that demand for it is likely to be great, but here, nonetheless, is a reading on Friedrich Nietzsche along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

I wrote this material for a student I worked with at the very beginning of my teaching career. After he used it, I don’t believe I ever printed another copy of it. I have some history with Nietzsche, so I can tell you that this is a workmanlike, mostly superficial account of his philosophy. But how, really, to deal with a thinker of Nietzsche’s range, depth, and insight in one page? Impossible, I say.

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: Clever for Obliging

Posted on August 31, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Clever for Obliging. In this sense the word was once in general use in the United States, but is now seldom heard and life here is less insupportable.”

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

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Word Root Exercise: Extra-, Extro

Posted on August 31, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the Latin word roots extra and extro. They mean outside and beyond. This two roots are at the base of a lot of high-frequency words in English, including two adjectives commonly used in your own school–extracurricular and extramural.

Or how about the strong expository verb extrapolate? Surely something we want students to be able to do. Then of course there is always the old standby, extraordinary, literally “beyond ordinary.” Enough said.

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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Cultural Literacy: The Great Gatsby

Posted on August 31, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on The Great Gatsby. This is a half-page worksheet with a two-sentence reading and three comprehension questions. In other words, the sparest of introduction what many people regard as the Great American Novel.

If you’re looking for something a bit longer on Gatsby, you’ll find it here. Likewise, if you need a reading on F. Scott Fitzgerald himself, you’ll find one here.

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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Desultory (adj)

Posted on August 31, 2021 | Leave a comment

It’s the Word of the Day at Merriam-Webster today, so here is context clues worksheet on the adjective desultory. It means, for the purposes of making meaning on this document, and in the vernacular as well, “marked by lack of definite plan, regularity, or purpose.”

However, it can also mean “not connected with the main subject” and “disappointing in progress, performance, or quality.” This is not a high-frequency word in English, and in any case, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen or heard it used to mean “not connected to the main subject.” On the other hand, “disappointing in progress, performance, or quality” is a close enough corollary to “marked by lack of definite plan, regularity, or purpose that one might say the first definition is the outcome of the second in this sentence.

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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Erasmus

Posted on August 30, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on Erasmus along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

I don’t know if anyone teaches Erasmus of Rotterdam, as he was and is known, at the secondary level. He is by any measure an exemplary Northern Renaissance humanist. Now that I have this set of documents, I might add it to my list of biographical research assignments for global studies–provided that I ever use those materials again. Whatever the case in your classroom, this document is–as is virtually everything on Mark’s Text Terminal–formatted in Microsoft Word. In other words, these are open-source documents for you to do with what you will.

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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Common Errors in English Usage: Genius (n), Brilliant (adj)

Posted on August 30, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on differentiating the use of genius and brilliant. This document, like all documents under the title above, are informed by Paul Brian’s book Common Errors in English Usage, to which he allows full access at no charge at the Washington State University website.

The simple usage point of this worksheet consists in this: genius is a noun, and brilliant is an adjective. In other words, you can say “He is a genius” (using genius as a predicate noun), but you cannot say “He does genius work,” because genius is not an adjective and cannot modify the noun work. You can also say something like “I think Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin is a work of genius.”

You can, however, say both “He is brilliant” (using brilliant as a predicate adjective), and you can say “He does brilliant work,” (using brilliant as an attributive adjective). You cannot say “He is a brilliant.” It doesn’t sound right in any case, though, does it? Brilliant, as above, is an adjective and should be used as one.

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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