Here is a learning support on the conventions for writing numbers in prose. This document has a big open field, and is in Microsoft Word, so it is at your–and more importantly, your students’–disposal; you can modify or adapt it to your 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.
Here is an English usage worksheet on the adjectives unkept and unkempt. These are a couple of solid modifiers in sufficiently frequent use in the vernacular to teach them to students. This is an English usage worksheet, so one of its purposes besides introducing vocabulary students may not know is to familiarize students with the concept of proper usage. They’re sufficiently near in sound to each other that I’ve tagged this post as containing homophones.
You’ll find ten modified cloze exercises on this page. As always, this is a Microsoft Word document, so you can adapt it to your students’ 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.
Here is a reading on Edgar Allan Poe along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I believe he is taught at the secondary level. This is a good introduction to Poe’s biography and his bibliography.
Have you read Poe, beyond hearing James Earl Jones read “The Raven” on The Simpsons‘ first “Treehouse of Horror” episode? I confess my own reading of Poe doesn’t extend very far beyond that. He is a very influential figure in the history of American letters. His first editions are some of the most sought after in the antiquarian book trade; his very first book, Tamerlane, which doesn’t even bear his name (the author is given as “A Bostonian) is a high spot in book collecting–it is known as the “black tulip” of American literature. The last copy that came up at auction sold for $662,000. His influence abroad may be even more pronounced, especially in France.
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.
Here is a worksheet on the Greek word root anthrop/o. It means man and human; I always teach it as meaning simply human, just as I avoid locutions like “mankind” in the interest of avoiding sexism in language.
You can probably already perceive that this is very productive root in English. It gives us, of course, anthropology, anthropocentric, philanthropy, and misanthrope among a number of other commonly used words in the high school curriculum. And it you are interested in teaching students about global warming and environmental degradation in this, the Anthropocene Era, this is worksheet leads the way in building the necessary vocabulary for such an endeavor.
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 context clues worksheet on the noun annotation; I don’t know why I didn’t post it at the same time as this one on the verb annotate, which is used both intransitively and transitively.
I wrote these because I worked in a school in which students were assigned work compiling annotated bibliographies without ever learning what it means, as an act or academic practice, to annotate. I hope these help.
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 the concept of a mixed economy. It’s a full-page worksheet with four questions, but it can–and very easily, because it is a Microsoft Word Document–be expanded or contracted depending on how much you need students to know about the subject. It’s decent general introduction, but it does presuppose some knowledge of the difference between market and command economies, and private and public enterprises.
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 is a lesson plan on the degrees of angles in geometry. Here is the worksheet with a short reading and a series of comprehension questions.
The reading covers the five types of angles in geometry: acute (1-89 degrees); right (90 degrees); obtuse (91-179 degrees); straight (180 degrees); and reflex (180-359 degrees). This is an exercise designed to supply diverse learners with practice manipulating two symbolic systems–i.e. words and numbers–at the same time. It also, I would think (but also qualify this with something that is beyond dispute–I am not a teacher of mathematics), introduces students to the concept of angles in geometry.
For more on the material I developed from Barbara Anne Kipfer’s superb reference book,The Order of Things, see the About Posts & Texts page visible on the masthead of the home page of this blog.
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.
Here is a worksheet on using the verbs utilize and use. Utilize is used only transitively, so don’t forget your direct object. Use is also transitive, but has a two intransitive uses. The first is a very common locution in the English language: we call upon the verb use in the past tense, i.e. used, which we join with the preposition to so that we can “indicate a former fact or state,” as in “We used to go out more often” and “He didn’t use to smoke.” The second intransitive purpose for use is “to take illicit drugs regularly.” (Maybe you won’t want to point that out, however.)
Put another way, the first sense of the intransitive exercise of use can best be demonstrated by the title of the blues standard first recorded by Eddie Jones, aka Guitar Slim, “The Things That I Used to Do.” Did you know that the young Ray Charles produced and arranged the recording session that produced this great song? Neither did I until I sat down and wrote this post. For the record, (so to speak), the song was recorded at Cosimo Matassa’s J&M Recording Studio on Rampart Street in New Orleans. It was issued by the legendary Los Angeles R&B record label Specialty on October 16, 1953.
What we’re really talking about when the subjects of Cosimo Matassa, Ray Charles, Guitar Slim and Specialty Records arise are the beginnings of rock and roll. But that is another story.
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 reading on Salvador Dali along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.
It is a good general introduction to the artist’s life, containing both personal and professional biographical material. Of particular interest to students, perhaps (I saw Un Chien Andalou as a high school junior and found it both horrifying and compelling; in any case, it is a cultural product that is de rigueur if one is to count oneself among the a certain strand of the cognoscenti), are Dali’s collaborations with Luis Bunuel.
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 context clues worksheet on the noun insouciance. While it is an infrequently used word in the English language (it means “lighthearted unconcern,” incidentally), it does turn up occasionally, as does its adjective, insouciant, in common discourse from time to time. Both words have a rich etymology, originating, apparently, in the Latin verb sollicitare–“to agitate,” should you or your students be interested.
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.
 | A Measurement Conver… on An Elegantly Simple Cooking Co… |
| A Measurement Conver… on The Weekly Text, October 25, 2… |
 | markstextterminal on Cree |
 | panzer046a139293db on Cree |
| markstextterminal on Cree |
Mark's Text Terminal 
You must be logged in to post a comment.