Tag Archives: diction/grammar/style/usage

Precedence (n), Precedents (n/pl)

Here are five homophone worksheets on the nouns precedence and precedents. These actually started as a single English usage (Paul Brian’s book Common Error in English Usage) from a passage in  worksheet, but I decided I’d rather have them as homophone worksheets and so rewrote them as such. Precedents, of course, is the plural of precedent–and both are good words for students to know, as is, of course, precedence.

So there you go.

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.

Lucius Junius Brutus

This reading on Lucius Junius Brutus is actually a nice little summary of the founding of the Roman Republic, both in legendary and factual detail. Here is the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that goes with 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.

Ferret (vi/vt)

It’s Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day today, to here is a context clues worksheet on the verb ferret. It’s used both intransitively and transitively. You might note for students that in this sense of the verb’s use–i.e., “to find an bring to light by searching”–ferret always appears with the preposition out.

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: Chauvinism

As I get ready to sign off for the day, I cannot thing of a better or more timely document to depart by than this Cultural Literacy worksheet on chauvinism.

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: Direct Object

“Direct Object: A noun or pronoun that receives the action of a transitive verb. Pearson publishes books.”

Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.

Word Root Exercise: Poly

Here is a worksheet the Greek word root poly, which you may already know means many. This is a very productive root in English for vocabulary development across the common branch curriculum, including, in my own domain, polytheism.

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.

Schizophrenia

It’s a gorgeous August day in southwestern Vermont. Here, if you can use it (I did more than once, for students dealing with schizophrenia in their families), is a reading on schizophrenia along with its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. The reading is relatively straightforward, nonetheless it contains abstractions (e.g. “delusions of grandeur”) with which some learners may struggle. As with just about everything else at Mark’s Text Terminal, this document is formatted in Microsoft Word, so you can alter it to your student’s needs.

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.

Beholden (adj)

Here’s a context clues worksheet on the adjective beholden because it’s Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day today. It also happens to be a commonly used and sturdy adjective, so I submit–particularly because we live in a period of rising political corruption around the world–that this is a word high school students should know upon graduation.

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.

Nativism

If there is a better time to post this reading on nativism and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet, I can’t imagine when it would be.

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.

Ally (n), Ally (vi/vt)

Today’s Word of the Day from Merriam-Webster is “grubstake,” which I figured I could pass on. However, you might find that this context clues worksheet on ally as a noun and this one on the word as a verb–used, as above, both intransitively and transitively.

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.