Tag Archives: building vocabulary/conceptual knowledge

Perspiration

Posted on July 8, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on perspiration along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. If you live anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere as of the publication date of this post, you understand why it is timely.

Other than that, there is not much to be said about these documents other than you can modify them, as you can modify almost anything else on this blog, to your needs because they are formatted in Microsoft Word.

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: Empathy and Sympathy

Posted on July 8, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on distinguishing empathy from sympathy when using these words in English prose. This is a full-page worksheet with ten modified cloze exercises. But if you want to do something else with this document, it is, like almost everything else on this blog, formatted in Microsoft Word for ease of adaptation to your classroom’s needs. The reading is short, but gives a clear sense of the use of these abstract nouns, including a caveat against confusing emphasize with empathize.

Also, in keep with the policy at Mark’s Text Terminal of giving credit where it is due, let me just mention that the text for this worksheet is drawn from Paul Brians’ excellent book Common Errors in English Usage, which is available at the Washington State University website.

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: Bio

Posted on July 8, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the Greek word root bio. It means, simply, life.

There is no need to belabor the productivity of this root–it forms the basis of a lot of basic words in English: biography, biology, and biodegradable, to name just three.

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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Mediate (vi/vt)

Posted on July 7, 2021 | Leave a comment

OK, folks, I’m taking the the rest of the day off from computing in all forms. But before I do, here is a context clues worksheet on the verb mediate. It is used both intransitively and transitively. You surely see the noun media inside this verb. Moreover, you may see the Latin word root medi, meaning middle.

So, unsurprisingly, in its transitive form, this verb means “to bring accord out of by action as an intermediary,” “to effect by action as an intermediary,” “and to act as intermediary agent in bringing, effecting, or communicating,” and “to transmit as intermediate mechanism or agency .” In the third and fourth definitions, teachers will see the work they do: to mediate between instructional content and students to create a situation where the most deep, broad, and therefore effective learning occurs.

Intransitively, mediate means “to interpose between parties in order to reconcile them.” In other words, mediate here describes what goes on, say, in a divorce mediation, or in a negotiation for a labor contract.

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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-Onym

Posted on July 7, 2021 | Leave a comment

“-Onym: [Through Latin from Greek onuma/onoma name]. A word base or combining form that stands either for a word (as in synonym) or a name (as in pseudonym). Words containing -onym have two kinds of adjective: with –ous as in synonymous (having the nature or quality of a synonym: synonymous words) or with –ic, as in synonymic (concerning synonyms: synonymic relationships). The form –onymy indicates type, as with synonymy (the type sense relation in which words have the same or similar meaning) and eponymy (the category of word-formation that concerns words derived with people’s names). Because –onym begins with o (the commonest Greek thematic vowel, as in biography), the base form is sometimes taken to be -nym, an assumption reinforced by the initial n of the equivalent terms nomen in Latin and name in English. As a result, some recent technical terms have been formed on –nym: for example, characternym and paranym. See acronym, antonym, eponym, heteronym, homonym, hyponym, retronym.”

Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

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A Learning Support on Using Hyphens and Dashes

Posted on July 7, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a learning support on using hyphens and dashes. If you scroll down about 17 posts below this one, you’ll find another learning support simply on hyphenation. As always, Paul Brians does a nice job of presenting the key issues on these forms of punctuation.

Incidentally, if you like Paul Brians’ work, stay tuned here for more of it; I drafted a little over one hundred worksheets using text from his book Common Errors in English Usage–which Professor Brians, amazingly, has made available in its entirety on the Washington State University website. Just punch that hyperlink–and you’re there!

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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Robotic Surgery

Posted on July 6, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on robotic surgery along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. This is an Intellectual Devotional reading, so the worksheet is a two-pager with the standard (for Mark’s Text Terminal) eight vocabulary words, eight comprehension questions, and three “Additional Facts” questions.

If memory serves, I wrote this for a colleague who was running an after-school robotics program at a school in which I served in the North Bronx. I’m fairly certain I’ve never used it.

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: Carbon

Posted on July 6, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on carbon. This is a half-page worksheet with three questions. In other words, the barest of introductions to the topic. I believe I wrote this to accompany a lesson on carbon dating for a co-taught freshman global studies class in New York City.

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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Litmus Test (n)

Posted on July 6, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a context clues worksheet on the noun litmus test. It means, as we use in daily discourse, “a test in which a single factor (as an attitude, event, or fact) is decisive.”

As I prepare this post, it occurs to me that I may have never used this document in a class. I prepared it to have it ready–I think this is a noun phrase students ought to know, because of the commonness of its use in even conversational English. But it is also, in its literal sense, a term of art in the physical sciences as a pH indicator when testing materials for acidityterm.

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: Us and We

Posted on July 5, 2021 | Leave a comment

Last but not least today, here is a worksheet on differentiating us and we when writing sentences with these two first-person plural pronouns. As you can see, the work here involves, basically, understanding the difference between the nominative and objective cases when using personal pronouns. Like any of the documents that you find on this blog under the header Common Errors in English Usage, the supporting text for this worksheet is derived from Paul Brians’ book of the same name, which he has generously made available at no cost at the Washington State University website.

This worksheet contains Professor Brians’ text with ten modified cloze exercises to give students a chance to try their hand at using these pronouns. As always, or almost always, this document is formatted in Microsoft Word, so you can alter it to your class’s needs.

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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