Tag Archives: building vocabulary/conceptual knowledge

Aver (vt)

For reasons I cannot quite explain, I’ve always found its use pretentious, but here, nonetheless, because it occasionally turns up in English, particularly in academic prose, is a context clues worksheet on the verb aver. It means “to verify or prove to be true in pleading a cause”; “to allege or assert in pleading” and “to declare positively.” It is only used transitively.

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: Ultimatum

OK, finally on this busy day of housecleaning, here is Cultural Literacy worksheet on the noun ultimatum and the concept it relates. I’m hard pressed to imagine why this isn’t a word high school students should know.

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.

Common Errors in English Usage: Adverse (adj) and Averse (adj)

Some time ago, I posted another of these worksheets, and there are more to come. After a year or so of preparing the templates and typing up the text, I am beginning work on a series of English usage in the interest of developing adapted material that meets the Common Core Standards, specifically:

Standard (L.11-12.1b)-Resolve issues of complex or contested usage, consulting references, (e.g., Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage, Garner’s Modern American Usage) as needed.”

You can find the rationale for these worksheets toward the bottom of the “About Posts & Texts” page. Whether or not you care about the rationale, here is a worksheet on differentiating the adjectives adverse and averse.

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.

Tycho Brahe

This reading on Tycho Brahe and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet have turned out, to my surprise, to be surprisingly high-interest materials for a certain kind of student I have served over the years. If you can persuade students that Brahe, like Galileo and Johannes Kepler, was in rebellion against the established authorities (church, but also, where they were closely aligned, state as well) of his time, well, what adolescent isn’t interested in acts of rebellion?

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.

Auxiliary (n/adj)

Here are two context clues context clues worksheets on auxiliary as both a noun and an adjective. I’ll assume I don’t need to defend the teaching of this word in whatever part of speech it is used.

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.

The Weekly Text, January 10, 2020: A Lesson Plan on the Latin Word Roots Bi and Bin

This week’s Text is a complete lesson plan on the Latin word roots bi and bin, which mean, of course, two and twice. In the hope that it will hint to students the meaning of these roots, I open this lesson plan with this context clues worksheet on the noun adjective dual. Finally, here is the word root worksheet that is the substance of this lesson.

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.

Avarice (n), Avaricious (adj)

OK, here are two context clues worksheets on the noun avarice and the adjective avaricious. These are words high school student probably ought to know, because the concepts they represent are, well, let me be as charitable as possible about this, rife in these here United States.

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 Function as a Science Word

If it looks to you like I’m cleaning house at Mark’s Text Terminal, you’re right, I am. To that end, here is a lesson plan on function as a science word. You might find these definitions of function as as a verb and a noun helpful. Here is the the first worksheet for this lesson, and here is the second.

This work, as I’ve mentioned in the four other posts in which I’ve posted other lessons from this unit, was something I was tasked with producing several years ago to help struggling students build vocabulary in math and science. It was part of a very busy semester; I did not finish writing the final three lessons of this eight-lesson unit (it was for an eight-week, one meeting weekly seminar class), so this is the fifth of five lessons. As I review the material, it’s fairly obvious that I produced it on the fly, then never returned to improve 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.

James Bond

Now is a good time for posting this reading on James Bond along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. In general, this has been relatively high-interest material for the students I’ve served over the years.

Roll theme, eh?

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.

Faint (adj, vi, n), Feint (n, vi/vt)

Here are five worksheets on the homophones faint and feint. These are relatively complicated words: faint is, as above, an adjective, a verb used only intransitively, and a noun (only the first two parts of speech, the adjective and the verb, are dealt with on these worksheets). Feint is a noun and a verb used both intransitively and transitively, and is only dealt with as a verb on these worksheets. Students probably ought to know both of these words; in any case, this worksheet presents an opportunity to deal with the parts of speech and using words properly in speech and prose.

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.