Tag Archives: diction/grammar/style/usage

Cultural Literacy: The Communist Manifesto

Posted on October 20, 2021 | Leave a comment

As long as I have my computer on this afternoon, let me offer readers this Cultural Literacy worksheet on The Communist Manifesto. This is a half-page worksheet with a two-sentence reading and two comprehension questions. In other words, the most basic of introductions to this world-changing book.

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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Temperance (n), Temperate (adj)

Posted on October 19, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a context clues worksheet on the noun temperance. I’m fairly confident I wrote this for a United States history class to help students understand the word as an adjective in the historical term Temperance Movement. You will note in these sentences that I tried to write context that also defines temperance to mean “habitual moderation in the indulgence of the appetites or passions.”

And here also is another context clues worksheet on the adjective temperate. This is a moderately complicated word whose essential meaning is “marked by moderation, “keeping or held within limits,” and “not extreme or excessive.” It’s worth remembering that this adjective attaches to nouns dealing with everything from drinking alcohol (as above), to climates, to one’s habits.

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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Common Errors in English Usage: Gone, Went (v)

Posted on October 17, 2021 | Leave a comment

OK, last but not least on this cool Sunday morning, here is an English usage worksheet on understanding the difference between gone and went and how to use, respectively, this past participle and simple past tense of the verb go. This is a full-page worksheet with a short reading and ten modified cloze exercises. But, as it is formatted in Microsoft Word, it is yours to modify as you wish.

Like all the documents under the above header, this one is based on text from Paul Brians’ excellent book Common Errors in English Usage, which he has posted on the Washington State University website for free.

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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Summary (n)

Posted on October 17, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here are two context clues worksheets on the noun summary. Why I produced two of them, I can’t say. I need not belabor the importance of this noun in the vocabulary of high school students, so I won’t. Incidentally, since I haven’t mentioned it lately, these documents, like almost everything on Mark’s Text Terminal, are formatted in Microsoft Word. Thus they are easily exportable into a word processor of your preference, and you may edit them for the needs of your 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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Write It Right: Coat for Coating

Posted on October 17, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Coat for Coating. ‘A coat of paint, or varnish.’ If we coat something we produce a coating, not a coat.”

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

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Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference

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Word Root Exercise: Crypt/o

Posted on October 17, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the Greek word root crypt-o. It means, as you probably already know, “secret” and “hidden.” In fact, given the need for the encryption on the digital devices that are now ubiquitous and even omnipresent in the lives of most people, this is a word root very much in common parlance in English.

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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Leave It to Beaver

Posted on October 15, 2021 | Leave a comment

OK, for some reason, here is a reading on “Leave It to Beaver” along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I haven’t the faintest idea why I produced these documents on this late-1950s and early 1960s television show. A friend of mine extolled its virtues in the past; the one episode I saw nauseated me–a sitcom vision of a placid, indeed complacent, ultra-White America produced during the depths of Jim Crow–and I never watched another episode.

So again, I can’t imagine why I wrote this worksheet other than, perhaps, to help students understand how often popular media, particularly fictional narratives, are at variance with reality.

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, 15 October 2021, Hispanic Heritage Month 2021 Week V: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Cesar Chavez

Posted on October 15, 2021 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text, for the final Friday of Hispanic Heritage Month 2021, is a reading on Cesar Chavez along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. The reading comes from one of the Intellectual Devotional books; there is another reading and comprehension worksheet from one of those volumes. Entries on him appeared in two of them–Biographies and American History–and both are now available on this blog.

In fact, to use the boilerplate for this circumstance on Mark’s Text Terminal, these documents join a growing body of material on Mr. Chavez, one of the heroes of my youth.

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: Che Guevara

Posted on October 8, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Che Guevara. This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of five sentences and six comprehension questions. With this worksheet, I can say that the document joins a growing body of materials on Che Guevara on this blog.

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: Gringo

Posted on October 8, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the term “gringo.” This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of single compound sentence and two comprehension worksheets.

The reading offers no background on this term. Some years ago, for some reason, I read some on the origins of the word. While this Wikipedia page describes “gringo” as a slur. I never heard it or took it that way when I traveled through South America. Often, I thought, it was said in jest.

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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