Tag Archives: context clues

Macabre (adj)

Here is a context clues worksheet on the adjective macabre. If you teach Poe, or anyone like him (Stephen King definitely comes to mind here), or gothic novels, it’s hard to imagine that students wouldn’t need to know this 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.

Largesse (n)

On a rainy summer morning in Western Massachusetts, here is a context clues worksheet on the noun largesse. It seems like a word high school students should know by the time they graduate.

But 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.

Kinetic (adj)

Here is a context clues worksheet on the adjective kinetic. While I’ve only just developed it, I can think of a myriad of uses for it in the classroom. If you have students bound for a physics class, this is a good word for them to know as they near that destination.

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, July 12, 2019: Two Context Clues on Propaganda (n) and Propagandize (vi/vt)

Because I find myself in an advanced, and badly needed, state of relaxation, and eager to sustain this state, these two context clues worksheets on the noun propaganda and the verb propagandize must suffice for this week’s Text. For the record, propagandize is used both transitively and intransitively.

Mark’s Text Terminal hopes you are enjoying your summer.

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.

Attention Deficit Disorder

Monday morning seems like a pretty good time to draw teachers’ attention to this reading on attention deficit disorder and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I’ve tagged this reading as high-interest material, because it there is one thing I’ve frequently found among kids who struggle to sustain attention in the classroom, or who have been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, it is they want to know more about the affliction that has made school so difficult for them. Over the years, kids under my instruction have asked repeatedly for these materials.

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.

Churlish (adj)

It’s Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day today, so here is a context clues worksheet on the adjective churlish. Not a particularly common word, and one with plenty of synonyms, so maybe not a word students need 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.

Zeal (n), Zealot (n), and Zealous (adj)

Here are three context clues worksheets on the nouns zeal and zealot, and the adjective zealous. These are words that have appeared in a number of settings in the English and social studies classes I have taught over the years, and they usually passed without students ever really grasping their full meaning. If nothing else, these words will turn up in readings about, say, the Reformation or the French Revolution; in any case, they are frequently used words in the English language. In our hyper-politicized word, I would argue, these are words students ought to know and be able to use by the time they leave high school.

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, June 28, 2019: A Lesson Plan on Argumentation

If there is anything better than Vermont in the summer, I guess I don’t know what it is. I’ve lived in this state on and off in my life; I’m now looking for a job here, and hope to stay here for the rest of my working life.

This week’s Text is a complete lesson plan on argumentation; more specifically (and as with the other lesson plans on argumentation I’ve posted, this one relies on Cathy Birkenstein and Gerald Graff’s excellent They Say/I Say: The Move That Matter in Academic Writing), this lesson involves students in the use of rhetorical figures in argumentation to enter an ongoing debate. I begin this lesson, right after a class change, with this context clues worksheet on the Latinism nota bene, generally abbreviated as n.b. Users of other context clues worksheets from Mark’s Text Terminal will note that this document is a very slight departure from the usual format. Finally, here is the worksheet that is at the center 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.

Anathema (n)

When I wrote this context clues worksheet on the noun anathema, I meant to write one on the verb anathemize, which kept turning up on some curriculum on medieval history that turned up in a social studies class I co-taught some years ago. This worksheet, I guess, would be easy enough to convert to the verb if one were so inclined.

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.

Alienate (vt)

Here is a context clues worksheet on the verb alienate, which is used only transitively. Don’t forget your direct object–you need to alienate someone or something to complete this word’s meaning. This seems like a particularly important word for everyone in the world to know right now.

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.