Tag Archives: diction/grammar/style/usage

Cultural Literacy: Marcus Garvey

Posted on February 1, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Marcus Garvey. This is a full-page worksheet with a four-sentence reading–all compounds–and seven comprehension questions. This is a good general introduction to this important–if controversial in some quarters–leader. I can tell you that the reading honestly states that the United States government deported Mr. Garvey to Jamaica because it feared his influence over Black people in the United States.

So there’s that, at least. Here is a connection worth exploring: are you aware that Malcolm X’s parents were Garveyites? There remains some reason to believe that Malcolm’s father, Earl Little, was murdered because of his involvement with Marcus Garvey’s United Negro Improvement Association.

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, 28 January 2022: A Lesson Plan on Using Prepositions with Pronouns in the Objective Case

Posted on January 28, 2022 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is a lesson plan on using prepositions with pronouns in the objective case. I open this unit with this Everyday Edit worksheet on Charles R. Drew, the African-American physician who was a pioneer in blood storage and transfusion. Should the lesson require a second day of instruction, here is another on Gwendolyn Brooks, the great American poet. Incidentally, if you and your students enjoy using Everyday Edits (a number of students I have served over the years have found them both fun and satisfying), the good people at Education World give away at no charge a yearlong supply of them.

You might find this learning support on pronouns in the nominative and objective cases useful in executing this lesson. This scaffolded worksheet is the centerpiece of student work for this lesson, therefore de rigueur. Finally, here is the teachers copy of same.

That’s it for January. February is Black History Month 2022. As always, Mark’s Text Terminal will observe the month with a myriad of posts on topics related to the history of global citizens of the African diaspora. I hope to see you here.

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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Cultural Literacy: Straw Man

Posted on January 21, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of a straw man in argumentation. This is a half-page worksheet with a two-sentence reading (the second of them a long compound) and two comprehension questions. This is a cogent introduction to the topic of the straw man. However, it presupposes an prior understanding of argumentation (and its rules) that some students may not possess. But in our current discursive culture, understanding the straw man, a favorite tool of demagogues, strikes me as vital for the development of critical awareness in students.

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, 21 January 2022: Two Context Clues Worksheets on the Verbs Coerce and Coax

Posted on January 21, 2022 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is a pair of context clues worksheets, one on the verb coax and another on the verb coerce. Both of these verbs are used only transitively, so don’t forget your direct object; you must coax or coerce someone or something. These words are near antonyms. However, I wrote them as a pair to help students develop an understanding of the continuum of connotative meanings in English words. A key question for interrogating these two words is quite simple: When does coaxing turn into coercion?

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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Cultural Literacy: Progressive Education

Posted on January 17, 2022 | Leave a comment

Should you be using progressive methods in your teaching practice, you might find this Cultural Literacy worksheet on progressive education useful. If nothing else, it will help your students understand the way their class operates.

This is a full-page worksheet with a six-sentence (a full paragraph) reading and six comprehension questions. Once again, the editors of The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy have done an admirable job of summarizing a series of concepts, complicated when taken together, into a short but thoroughly informative reading.

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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Write It Right: Commencement for Termination

Posted on January 17, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Commencement for Termination. A contribution to our noble tongue by its scholastic conservators, ‘commencement day’ being their name for the last day of the collegiate year. It is ingeniously defended on the ground that on that day those on whom degrees are bestowed commence to hold them. Lovely!”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.

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Meticulous (adj)

Posted on January 17, 2022 | Leave a comment

Because it is a very useful word–indeed, when it’s needed, few others will suffice–here is a context clues worksheet on the adjective meticulous. It means “marked by extreme or excessive care in the consideration or treatment of details.” I submit that this is a word students should know and be able to use before they graduate high school.

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.

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Lexicon

Posted on January 17, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Lexicon (noun): An alphabetical list or book of defined words; wordbook; glossary or dictionary; the vocabulary of a particular language, class, group, or individual; word-hoard; compete record or domain, as of a particular field. Plural: lexicons, lexica; verb: lexiconize.

‘Among several reasons why the Women’s Liberation Movement (and interesting metaphor in itself) runs into resistance is that both men and women have internalized a rich lexicon of metaphors, about the subjects of sex, love, and domesticity.’ Neil Postman, Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk”

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

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Word Root Exercise: Lex

Posted on January 17, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the Latin word root lex. It means “word,” “law,” and “reading.” This is a very productive root in English–n.b. that it morphs to leg for most legal terms–and yields a number of academic words, many of which you already know, like lexicon, lexical, and, of course, dyslexia. This root, when it morphs, gives us high-frequency words such as legal and illegal.

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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Spanish Civil War

Posted on January 17, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on the Spanish Civil War along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. While the reading does mention that this conflict became a “cause celebre among communists and left-leaning Western intellectuals,” it does not mention the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, an oversight in my estimation. This lapse, if you too think it one, can be remedied with this material from the Zinn Education Project.

Incidentally, The Brigade’s members were dismissed as “premature antifascists” in their time. In ours, I suppose, they would be ridiculed as the “woke left” by the halfwits on Fox News. They were right then and remain so about the menace of fascism.

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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