Tag Archives: building vocabulary/conceptual knowledge

Vex (vt)

While it isn’t much used anymore, this context clues worksheet on the verb vex goes some distance, I’d like to think, on demonstrating why this verb, used transitively only, apparently, remains a solid and useful word.

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: Curiosity Killed the Cat

Finally, on this cool but rosy Thursday morning, here is a Culture Literacy worksheet on the idiom “curiosity killed the cat.” The expression remains current in American English and therefore its discourse, and is probably something students ought to 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.

Vestige (n)

Moving right along this morning (light now appears at about 5:30 am, which suits me just fine!), here is a context clues worksheet on the noun vestige. There are a number of uses for this across common branch domains; in any case, it is almost inarguably a word students should know, so that they can master the concept of vestiges.

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.

The Clash

A couple of hundred years ago, when I was in my late teens and early twenties, The Clash liked to call themselves “the only band that matters“: indeed, it was emblazoned across the front of their towering record “London Calling.” Last week while on spring break, I listened to a podcast series on The Clash, hosted by Chuck D of pioneering Hip-Hop group Public Enemy (an inspired choice, by the way) on the streaming music service to which I subscribe. It brought back great memories of a very different time in this world of ours.

Here is a reading on The Clash and the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that accompanies it. When I’ve given this to alienated students to read, it has aroused, almost to a one, their interest. Whatever you think of punk rock and The Clash, there is no doubt that their music carries a message of rebellion and its concomitant, hope and action to create a better, more just world.

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: Cracy and Crat

Here is a worksheet on the Greek roots cracy and crat. Unsurprisingly, they mean government, rule, and power–you know, like democracy, physiocrat, and kakistocracy.

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.

Yahoo (n)

Unless you’re teaching Jonathan Swift (to wit, Gulliver’s Travels), or think that you might be able to persuade students to use the word as a softer, more benign insult than students typically use with one another, I suspect this context clues worksheet on the noun yahoo won’t be of much use to you. But there it is if you need or want it.

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.

The Sun and Nuclear Fusion

A few minutes remain to me before I must leave for work, so I’ll use them to post this just-typed reading on the sun and nuclear fusion and the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that attends 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.

Trajectory (n)

Finally, on this rainy Tuesday morning, here is a context clues worksheet on the noun trajectory. I suppose there is not much to say about this word other than it might pay to be aware both its denotative meaning, “the curve that a body (as a planet or comet in its orbit or a rocket) describes in space,” and its more connotative meaning, to wit “a path, progression, or line of development resembling a physical trajectory” as in “an upward career trajectory.”

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.

Developmental Delay

In response to student demand, I’ve been producing a lot of new reading and comprehension worksheets on health-related topics. In the course of this work, I typed up this reading on developmental delay and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I haven’t had any specific requests for the topic. However, once I write one of these, a student, to my persistent surprise, will ask to read the text and complete the worksheet. Indeed, it never ceases to amaze me that kids will take an interest in the very last thing I expect them to.

In any case, this is also a potential topic for a professional development roundtable of some sort, so I tagged it accordingly.

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 Worksheet and Learning Support on Forming the Plurals of Nouns

This combination worksheet and learning support on forming the plurals of nouns is something I’ve very nearly dumped several times. Instead, I reformatted it and cleaned up various design errors. I think it could very easily be converted into a simple learning support by supplying students with the declined plurals.

In fact, there are a number of ways this document could be rearranged for classroom use. I’m confident readers of this blog will figure them out.

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.