Tag Archives: cognition/learning/understanding

David Hume

Like most of the material on philosophy you’ll find on this website, I wrote this reading on David Hume and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet for one of three students I served over the years who took a keen interest in philosophy. Hume is an important figure in the history of philosophy, which was the primary criterion as I labored to produce material that would keep said student or students engaged.

These documents, however, may be useful for professional development. Hume did, after all, write on issues of importance to educators, particularly in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. And for our own purposes, and perhaps for students with an interest in it, Hume’s work on skepticism is not only important to an understanding of teaching and learning, but also a cornerstone of the Enlightenment.

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.

Term of Art: Expository Writing

“expository writing: A term that refers to informational writing typically given during the first year of college to prepare first-year students for academic writing. Generally, entering first-year students will take at least one semester of expository writing. Some colleges require a two-semester sequence of expository writing courses.

In some cases, students with writing problems may be required to complete developmental or basic writing courses before they can enter the expository writing course.

Expository writing includes description, comparison/contrast, definition, classification, argument, process analysis, and cause-and-effect. These types of writing or rhetorical strategies may be taught using models and examples, and as ends in themselves, or as strategies to use within informational essays that include a number of different patterns.

In general, the goal of teaching these types of writing patterns is to provide a foundation for the kinds of text-based writing required in specific academic disciplines.

Expository writing may be contrasted with expressive writing or the personal essay, in which students are allowed to focus on their own experience, perceptions, and memories. Much more than expressive writing, expository writing may pose problems for individuals with learning disability who may find it difficult to organize ideas, support main ideas with details, or apply paragraph and essay structures.”

Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.

Term of Art: Academic Freedom

“academic freedom: The freedom of educators to teach and to conduct research without fear of political reprisal, as well as the freedom of students to learn without fear of indoctrination or intimidation. Academic freedom for scholars involves both rights and responsibilities. Professors who assert their rights and freedoms have a responsibility to base their conclusions on competent scholarship and to present them in a dignified manner. Although they may express their own opinions, they are duty-bound to set forth the contrasting opinions of other scholars and to introduce their students to the best published sources on the topics at issue. In other words, professors may express their own views, but they must do so in a spirit of impartial scholarly inquiry, without imposing them on their students. Correlatively, students have the right to study under the guidance of qualified and unbiased faculty and to express their views without fear of any form of retribution.”

Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.

Term of Art: Accent

“accent: A variety of speech differing phonetically from other varieties: thus, as in ordinary usage, ‘a Southern accent.’ ‘Scottish accent,’ ‘Scottish accents.’ Normally restricted by linguists to cases where the differences are at most in phonology: further differences, e.g. in syntax, are said to be between dialects.”

Excerpted from: Matthews, P.H., ed. The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Alexander Pope on Education

“Tis education forms the common mind/Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.”

Alexander Pope, Moral Essays: Epistle to Richard Boyle, Earl of Burlington

Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.

Word Root Exercise: -Ics

Alright: here is a worksheet on the Greek root ics, which is enormously productive in English. It means study of, science, skill, practice,  and knowledge. You’ll find it in words like physics, phonics, and analytics among many, many other English words used across the domains of the common branch curriculum.

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 Weekly Text, November 6, 2020: A Lesson Plan on Areas and Surfaces from The Order of Things

Okay, folks, it’s Friday again. This week’s Text is this lesson plan on areas or surfaces, contrived from Barbara Ann Kipfer’s excellent reference book The Order of Things. You’ll need this list as reading and its comprehension questions to deliver this lesson.

Incidentally, this is one of fifty of these I’ve written since this pandemic began last March. For years I’d perused Ms. Kipfer’s book, recognizing in it the potential for a wide variety of lessons to build literacy and procedural knowledge in working with a variety of symbolic systems. I’ve also worked up a unit plan and users’ manual (both of which I’ll post on the “About Posts & Texts” page) to explain and rationalize the use of these lessons.

So be on the lookout for those materials. About half of the unit is already posted on this site–just search “The Order of Things.”

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.

Erudite (adj)

Here is a context clues worksheet on the adjective erudite. This is the state in which I would prefer to leave my students.

And on the day after election day, 2020? I’ll belabor the obvious and argue that overall in the United States, we could use some more erudition.

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.

Term of Art: Homonymy

“homonymy: The relation between words whose forms are the same but whose meanings are different and cannot be connected: e.g. between pen ‘writing instrument’ and pen ‘enclosure.’ Homonyms are words related in this way.

Distinguished from polysemy in that the meaning of one homonym is not seen as deriving from that of the other: in that light, the words are different lexical units. Homonymy can also be distinguished from cases of conversion: e.g. that of either of the nouns ‘pen’ into a corresponding verb. Also from syncretism, which is between inflections of the same lexical unit. The term may be restricted further to homonymy, as in this example, both in the sounds of words and in their spelling: hence the more specific homograph, homophone.”

Excerpted from: Matthews, P.H., ed. The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Term of Art: Bond

bond: Binding agreement, used as a means of compulsion as well as security; for example, to enforce a commercial contract or to ensure good behavior. Bonds generally have two sections: the bond proper and the condition which, if ignored, cause a sum of money, specified in the bond proper, to be paid as forfeit.”

Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.