Tag Archives: building vocabulary/conceptual knowledge

Cultural Literacy: Limerick

Here’s a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the limerick as a poetic form. This might be something to use with English language learners.

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.

Star Wars

OK, let’s get started this morning with this relatively high-interest reading on Star Wars and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Nota bene, please, that this reading is about the original 1977 film. That said, there is a lot of room here to expand this material: conceptually, for example, there is an opening for students to explore the business of Hollywood productions by looking at franchise films, as well as the merchandise they create and market.

Furthermore, the Star Wars series can be used as a way of exploring Manichean allegories in books, art, and film. If the Star Wars films aren’t fundamentally about the conflict between good and evil, then I apparently missed the point of the exhausting number of them I watched.

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.

A Lesson Plan on the Possessive Case of Nouns

Last but not least this morning, here is a lesson plan on the possessive case of nouns. I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the grim reaper, a subject which rarely fails to elicit student interest right at the beginning of a class period. Here is a learning support on this area of grammar and punctuation. This scaffolded worksheet is the centerpiece of this lesson; finally, here is the teacher’s copy of the worksheet.

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.

Independent Practice: Shinto

Here is an independent practice worksheet on Shinto. Incidentally, if you are a fan of Marie Kondo, you may find in this worksheet the basis of her approach to simplifying life by exercising some discipline over the accumulation of possessions. I actually read her book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, which I found helpful. I recognized immediately its underlying Shinto principles; so I wasn’t terrible surprised when Ms. Kondo mentioned her time as a Shinto shrine maiden.

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.

Word Root Exercise: Ped/o

Yesterday, I posted a worksheet on the Latin roots ped, pedi, and -pede; if you scroll down–it’s 12 posts below this one–you’ll find it. As that post relays, in Latin these roots mean foot and feet.

Now here’s a worksheet on the Greek word root ped-o. In Greek this root means, simply, child. As with its Latin counterpart, this is a very productive root in English, forming the basis of words like pediatrics and pedagogue.

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.

Democracy (n)

Again, if this context clues worksheet on the noun democracy isn’t timely, particularly in light of the president’s latest craziness, than I guess I don’t, after all, understand the use of timely as an adjective. For the record, I learned, after consulting my dictionary, that timely means, in one sense “appropriate or adapted to the times or occasion.”

So yeah, I stand by this document as timely at this moment in history.

And as long I as I am presuming to write things into the record, please remember that United States presidents do not have absolute power–in fact, no one in the government does. That’s why we have a separation of powers in our Constitution. At the risk of belaboring the point, let’s not forget that the founders of this country fought a revolutionary war against a British sovereign who liked to think of himself as possessing absolute power.

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.

Cultural Literacy: Jargon

If there is a better moment to post this Cultural Literacy worksheet on jargon, I don’t know when it would be. And thanks (!) to all the medical and health sciences professionals who have familiarized the public on the jargon it uses to discuss viruses and their spread; you’ve made this pandemic, to the greatest extent possible, less abstruse and frightening to this member of the public.

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.

Sugar

Here is a reading on sugar, certainly a cornerstone of my own nutrition-free diet, and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

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.

Word Root Exercise: Ped, Pedi and -Pede

Here is a worksheet on the Latin word roots ped pedi and pede. These roots in Latin mean simply foot and feet and give use words in English like pedestrian and pedicure. Needless to say, this is a very productive root in English

Please take care not to confuse these Latin roots with the Greek root ped: in Greek, this root, also very productive in English gives us words like pediatrics and pedagogy. I have a worksheet on the Greek root as well, and will publish it in the next couple of days.

Aside: is there a lesson in comparative linguistics here? If the foot is the base of the human body, can childhood be the base of human life? This is a thought I’ve gotten stuck on a time or two. What do you think?

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.

Deport (vt)

While I regret posting this at a particularly toxic political moment for vulnerable people on the move across the globe, here nonetheless is a context clues worksheet on the verb deport. It is only used transitively as, alas, people seeking a better life have so harshly learned.

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.