Tag Archives: building vocabulary/conceptual knowledge

Perpetrate (vt)

Posted on August 4, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a context clues worksheet on the verb perpetrate. It means “to bring about or carry out (as a crime or deception),” “commit,” and “to produce, perform, or execute (something likened to a crime).”

You use this verb only transitively, so don’t forget your direct object: what did your perpetrator perpetrate? A crime? A pun? A fashion faux pas? Your call, but just be sure for the sake of good grammar and elegance of style that you make that call.

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: Ambi, Amphi

Posted on August 3, 2021 | Leave a comment

OK, last but not least today, here is a worksheet on the Latin word roots ambi and amphi. They mean both, on both sides, and around. 

These are extremely productive roots in English, yielding ambience, ambivalent, ambiguous, an amphibian, to name just four. These are all good words to help students to understand abstract nouns, adjectives, and substantives.

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 Unabomber

Posted on August 3, 2021 | Leave a comment

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

This is one of the better articles from the Intellectual Devotional series. The writer recites the facts of the case while keeping the whodunit angle front and center. I only developed these documents recently, so I’ve never used them in the classroom. Still, having used successfully many articles from these books, I think I can predict that this one will be of high interest to students, so I have tagged it as such.

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: Fiscal Policy

Posted on August 3, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on fiscal policy. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading comprising three long and fairly dense compound sentences, with three comprehension questions.

As I revised this document for posting, it occurred to me that it is probably inadequate to the task of assisting students in developing an understanding of fiscal policy. So this might be a seed document from which others could and probably should grow. Also, the reading might better serve English language learners and emergent readers if it were broken up, and two or three more comprehension questions added. As always, I would be very interested to hear what you have done with this.

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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Berate (vt)

Posted on August 3, 2021 | Leave a comment

It’s Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day today, so here is a context clues worksheet on the verb berate. It means “to scold or condemn vehemently and at length.” You only use this verb transitively, so don’t forget your direct object: you must berate someone or something–but really only someone.

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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A Learning Support on Writing the Interrogative Sentence

Posted on August 3, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a learning support on writing the interrogative sentence. This is something I assembled myself using a variety of sources; it’s lengthy–two full pages of text with a number of examples.

In my experience, students struggle to write interrogative sentences. This points to a much bigger problem (and perhaps a fundamental failing in our educational systems and pedagogy) that I seek on a daily basis to solve in my classroom: students don’t really know how to ask questions. Since all learning begins with a question, this troubles me greatly, which is why I worked assiduously to create a support that would answer all students’ questions about, well, asking questions. I know I ask for this at the bottom of every documents post, but I would be especially grateful to you for your comments on this document.

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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Write It Right: Can for May

Posted on August 3, 2021 | Leave a comment

Can for May. “’Can I go fishing?’ He can call on me if he wishes to.”

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

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Common Errors in English Usage: Explicitly (adv), Implicitly (adv)

Posted on August 3, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on differentiating the use of the adverbs explicitly and implicitly. This is a full-page worksheet with a short paragraph of text and ten modified cloze exercises. However, you may further modify this if you wish as it is formatted in Microsoft Word, therefore easily exported to a word processor of your choice, and otherwise adapted or differentiated for the needs of your students.

Like all of these materials on English usage, the basis of this worksheet is drawn from Paul Brians’ book Common Errors in English Usage, to which he allows unrestricted access on the Washington State University website. As usual, in a spare passage of text, Professor Brians carefully but economically distinguishes between the adjectives explicit and implicit, then guides the document’s user through a common mistake in using these words as adverbs, to wit, expressing the fact that one trusts one’s friends implicitly.

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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Luddites

Posted on August 2, 2021 | Leave a comment

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

The noun and adjective Luddite, as you surely know, is tossed around in American English, occasionally as a pejorative, to signify someone opposed to innovation and technological advances. I’ll hazard a guess that most people using this word aren’t aware of its origins in Ned Ludd, who destroyed a pair of stocking frames (an early technological advance in textile manufacturing) in 1779. The Luddites, who destroyed textile manufacturing equipment in England from 1811 to 1816 to protest the depredations of the Industrial Revolution, took him as their namesake. I’ve vastly simplified the story of the Luddites for this blog post, this reading is a good general introduction to the subject of the Luddites, and emphasizes how their name entered the political and social lexicon of our time.

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: Euthanasia

Posted on August 2, 2021 | Leave a comment

It’s not exactly the most pleasant topic, but here, nonetheless, is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on euthanasia. This is a half-page worksheet with a one sentence (a compound) reading with two questions.

One need look very carefully to see this is an obviously a word derived from ancient Greek (i.e. eu, “good, well,” than, “death,” etc.), so people have been thinking about this concept and act for a very long time. Nonetheless, this a high-school word, it seems to me, as it its verb form, euthanize.

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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