Tag Archives: diction/grammar/style/usage

Cultural Literacy: Parody

OK, moving right along this morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on parody. This is a half-page worksheet with a one-sentence reading and one comprehension question. A spare, useful definition of this literary concept–and a word that might appear in reviews of a great deal of comedy.

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: Narrator

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the narrator in storytelling. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences and three comprehension questions. This is a relatively straightforward exercise, but I can’t help wonder if it doesn’t offer a possibility for instantiation: What is a movie, TV show, or story that you like? Who is the narrator?

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 Post, 25 July 2025: Lesson Five of a Unit on Writing Reviews

This week’s Text, as you probably expected if you are a regular user of this blog, is the fifth lesson plan of a seven-lesson unit on writing reviews. This lesson opens with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the fine arts. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of one simple sentence and two comprehension questions. As this lesson is a brainstorming activity, this reading as worksheet is designed to get students thinking about what they will include in their review, and how they would go about 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.

Cultural Literacy: Narration

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on narration. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of one sentence and one comprehension question. A very basic introduction to the concept of narration here, but useful here nonetheless, I submit.

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.

Epigram

“Epigram (noun): A wise, cleverly expressed saying, often with a memorably inverted or satiric twist; witty observation. Adjective: epigrammatic, epigrammatical; adverb: epigrammatically; noun: epigrammatism.

‘The classic epigram is not a mosquito bite, which smarts awhile and goes away; it is a bee sting with the stinger left in, and it smarts forever.’ Willard Espy, An Almanac of Words at Play”

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

Cultural Literacy: Montage

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on montage in cinematic form. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences and three comprehension questions. The sentences are longish, but sufficiently straightforward that I don’t think they need any modification. However, as I looked at this document this morning, I couldn’t help but think it might be better presented as a full-page document with a few prior knowledge questions on the order of “Can you think of a movie you’ve watched that used montage to advance the story?”

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, 18 July 2025: Lesson Four of a Unit on Writing Reviews

This week’s Text, as headlined above, is the fourth lesson plan of seven lessons and planning materials, for a total of eight consecutive Weekly Texts. This is a lesson on aesthetics and establishing aesthetic criteria for preparing reviews. So, unsurprisingly, the do-now exercise for this lesson is this Cultural worksheet on aesthetics. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences (the second one of which is a longish compound that might best be turned into two sentences for emerging readings and users of English as a second language) and three comprehension questions. It is a short but effective introduction to the concept of aesthetics.

This reading as worksheet is basically a summary of the procedures outlined in the lesson plan. This graphic organizer blank in landscape layout helps students organize their aesthetic criteria for reviews; you might find the teacher’s copy of same useful. Finally, here are six glossaries of aesthetic terms for movies, music, video games, books, graphic novels, and television shows.

And that’s it for another week. I hope you’re enjoying the 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.

Cultural Literacy: Lowbrow

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of the lowbrow in culture. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of one sentence (longish, separated by a colon, but easily readable) and two comprehension questions. It’s easy to see the usefulness of this word in the context of a cultural review.

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: Kitsch

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on kitsch. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences and two questions and nicely introduces this concept. It’s not hard to see how the words kitsch or kitschy would find their way into a review–especially of, say, a visual arts exhibition.

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, 11 July 2025: Lesson Three of a Unit on Writing Reviews

OK, moving right along, here is the third lesson plan of the Writing Reviews Unit, this one on gathering and judiciously using evidence in a piece of argumentative writing. The do-now exercise for this lesson is this Cultural Literacy worksheet on genre: This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of four simple sentences four questions. Finally, this structured note-taking and outlining worksheet is the primary work of this lesson.

The worksheet is longish by design, and can, as can all the documents in this post, can be easily edited. Like just about everything on this blog, these documents are formatted in Microsoft Word, so fully manipulable.

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.