Tag Archives: building vocabulary/conceptual knowledge

Figurative

Posted on April 1, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Figurative (adjective): Characterized by or using figures of speech, and hence having meaning beyond the explicit or literal; rhetorical or metaphorical; imaginative or ornate in language; elaborately expressed. Adverb: figuratively; noun: figurativeness.

‘The metonymy red tape for the routine of bureaucracy, synecdoche mercury for thermometer, the antithesis Man proposes and God disposes, the famous Dickens syllepsis (used preferably for humor only) Miss Bolo went home in a flood of tears and a sedan chair…, the allusion He is the Croesus of the community, the analogy Chemical elements are to compounds as letters are to words, and the editor’s innuendo Flames, James, written to an assistant named James, on the margin of a contribution with the request that it be printed entire or consigned to the flames—all are illustrative of the possibilities of figurative language in the cause of economy.’ John B. Opdyke, Say What You Mean”

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

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Age (n)

Posted on April 1, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a context clues worksheet on the noun age. These sentences provide clues to the meaning of this noun as “a period of time dominated by a central figure or prominent feature.” This use of age is similar to the nouns era (“a period identified by some prominent figure or characteristic feature”) and epoch (“an extended period of time usually characterized by a distinctive development or by a memorable series of events”).

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 Weekly Text, 1 April 2022: A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Spelling Bee”

Posted on April 1, 2022 | Leave a comment

On this April Fool’s Day, this week’s Text is a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “Spelling Bee.”

I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the rhetorical question (it’s a reading of one compound sentence that nonetheless yields three comprehension questions). You’ll need this PDF of the illustration of the crime scene with its attendant investigatory questions. Finally, you’ll want this typescript of the answer key to arrest the offender and bring him or her to the bar of justice.

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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The Weekly Text, 25 March 2022, Women’s History Month 2022 Week IV: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Julia Child

Posted on March 25, 2022 | Leave a comment

For the final Friday of Women’s History Month 2022, here is a reading on Julia Child along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Whatever one thinks of French cooking, which Ms. Child brought to American cuisine, she was by any measure an accomplished woman.

I confess ignorance where both French cooking and Ms. Child are concerned–my own palate, alas, is undeniably plebeian. In researching this post, I learned that she stood six feet, two inches tall; her height disqualified her from World War II service in the Women’s Army Corps (WACs) or the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Services). She joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to today’s Central Intelligence Agency, where she worked directly with OSS founder General William J. (“Wild Bill”) Donovan. According to Ms. Child’s Wikipedia page, in her service to the OSS, she took on the task of solving the problem of curious sharks setting off underwater explosives placed by the OSS. She experimented with recipes that would serve as shark repellent; her method is still in use today.

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: Victorian Period

Posted on March 16, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Victorian Period. The era is named, of course, for Queen Victoria and her outsized influence on British mores during her reign. This full-page worksheet leads with a four-sentence reading which includes two long compounds, and six comprehension questions. In other words, a decent summary of an important social, economic, diplomatic, and political period in Great Britain,

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 Weekly Text, 18 March 2022, Women’s History Month 2022 Week III: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Queen Elizabeth I

Posted on March 16, 2022 | Leave a comment

For the third week of Women’s History Month 2022, here is a reading on Queen Elizabeth I with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Her reign was long–44 years. Queen Elizabeth II currently reigning, has held her throne for 70 years and 33 days as of this writing.

Elizabeth I was a powerful monarch, and the achievements of her age earned her the honorific of her era’s name, the Elizabethan Age. Like Elizabeth II, who had dealt with her share of family dysfunction: she was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn; after Henry executed Anne (and I didn’t know this until I prepared the material above), Elizabeth I was declared “retroactively illegitimate.”

In my experience, and speaking generally, the salacious details of upper class idiocy, shame, and hypocrisy tends to interest secondary school students. After all, as the great Los Angeles punk band X (featuring Exene Cervenka) so elegantly put it, that’s “Sex and Dying in High Society.”

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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Nawal El Saadawi

Posted on March 10, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Nawal El Saadawi: (1931-2021) Egyptian writer. The foremost woman writer of Egypt and the Middle East, el Saadawi has published nearly thirty books of fiction and sociology. She is also an influential activist for woman’s rights and a medical doctor. About half of her work has been translated from Arabic into English, including several novels. Woman at Point Zero (1983) is about a young village girl forced into prostitution and condemned to die for murder. The novel, which has been translated into twenty-two languages, chronicles the sexual exploitation of women in Egypt and examine the narrow range of options available to women in a conformist society. Other novels include God Dies by the Nile (1987), The Fall of the Imam (1988), and The Innocence of the Devil (1992). El Saadawi’s fiction draws on indigenous Arabic narratives, and thus her prose often seems highly stylized and poetic. Death of an Ex-Minister and Other Stories (tr 1987) reveals her experiments with diction, with the various narrative voices usually speaking in a monologue. The Hidden Face of Eve (1980), a sociological work, was the first book to document the horrors of clitoridectomy in northeastern Africa. El Saadawi has also written a travel account and political tracts devoted to women’s causes.

As Health Minister under the Anwar Sadat regime, el Saadawi was imprisoned for her outspoken opposition to that government’s social policies, which produced Memoirs from a Women’s Prison (tr 1986). In 1982 she formed the Arab Women’s Solidarity Association (AWSA), and international women’s organization which has a consultative status with the United Nations and combats state repression and censorship, The Cairo chapter of AWSA was forcibly closed in 1991, though it continues to operate without headquarters.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

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Cultural Literacy: Diana

Posted on March 10, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Diana, who is the Roman version of Artemis, the goddess of the hunt and the moon. This is a half-page worksheet with a one-sentence reading and two comprehension questions. In other words, just the basics.

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 Weekly Text, 11 March 2022, Women’s History Month 2022 Week II: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Sylvia Plath

Posted on March 10, 2022 | Leave a comment

The Weekly Text from Mark’s Text Terminal for the second Friday of Women’s History Month 2022 is this reading on Sylvia Plath and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

I cannot think of Sylvia Plath, or hear her name for that matter, without thinking of the scene in Annie Hall  in which Woody Allen (and yes, I am well aware that Woody Allen is for good reason in bad odour these days, which, alas, does not change my assessment of Annie Hall as one of the great American films), playing comedy writer Alvy Singer and visiting Annie Hall’s apartment (Diane Keaton, whose real name is Diane Hall–probably not a coincidence–plays Annie). Alvy (Allen) picks up a copy of Ms. Plath’s Ariel and remarks, “Interesting poetess, whose tragic suicide was misinterpreted as romantic by the college-girl mentality.”

I’ve not read Ariel, published in 1965 two years after Ms. Plath’s death, which I’d wrongly assumed was her sole volume of verse. In researching this post, however, I learned that she published in 1960 The Colossus and Other Poems. Many years ago, while still possessed of callow literary sensibilities, I did read The Bell Jar, which I recall as at once humane, bitter, and mordant. Did you know Ms. Plath originally published this roman a clef under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas? I didn’t until I did the preliminary work for this post. In any event, if you happen to stumble across a first edition of the book with a dust jacket, it is worth relatively serious money, as the article under the foregoing link explains.

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: Rachel Carson

Posted on March 4, 2022 | Leave a comment

As we begin to see the effects of global warming on our biosphere, it might be time to reacquaint ourselves, by way of this Cultural Literacy worksheet on Rachel Carson, with one of the founders of the environmental movement. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences and three comprehension questions.

Incidentally, the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) at the United Nations reported this week that some changes to the earth’s climate are “irreversible.” But, as National Public Radio opined, there is still hope. For the sake of the students we presently teach, let’s, uh, hope so.

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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