Tag Archives: diction/grammar/style/usage

Cultural Literacy: Ellis Island

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Ellis Island. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences–and beware that two of them are long compounds separated by commas that might be best separated into independent clauses for emergent and struggling readers–and three comprehension question. A relatively short, but cogent, introduction to this important place in United States history.

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, 3 January 2025: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Robert Moses

Happy New Year! This week’s Text, after two weeks off for this blog for the holidays, is a reading on Robert Moses along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Moses, you may know, was the so-called “Master Builder” of New York City.

If you’re interested in a critical, nuanced and not to mention thorough account if Moses’ impact on the Five Boroughs, I recommend–highly–Robert Caro’s magisterial biography of Moses, The Power Broker. Should you happen to be in New York City for the next month, The New York Historical has an exhibition on “Robert Caro’s The Power Broker at 50” at its museum at 170 Central Park West (at 77th Street).

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.

Common English Verbs Followed by an Object and an Infinitive: Cause

Here is a worksheet on the verb cause when used with an object or an infinitive. A flea bite causes the dog to scratch his back constantly.

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.

Copywriting

“Copywriting (noun): The writing of promotional, public relations, or advertising copy. Noun: copywriter.

‘The narrator’s admission that he is using the language of the advertising copy-writer is a revealing one, and he resorts, later, to the same jargon: “The Aston-Martin started with a deep, healthy roar.”’ David Lodge, Language of Fiction”

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

Cultural Literacy: Entropy

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on entropy. This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of six sentences (of which, more below) and six comprehension questions.

Entropy  is a complex concept, and in six sentences, as usual, the editors of The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy acquit themselves competently and even elegantly with their explanation. However, should you use this material, it might be worth looking at a couple of the longer compound sentences in the reading. It won’t take much work to shorten them, and therefore simplify them without simplifying the ideas they convey.

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.

Leviathan

“Leviathan: A word from the Hebrew, meaning literally ‘that which gathers itself in folds,’ and given in the Bible to a mythical sea serpent (Job 41:1; . 27:1; Ps. 104:26). The name is also applied to the whale and the crocodile, and by extension it has come to mean something vast and formidable of its kind.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

The Weekly Text, 13 December 2024: A Lesson Plan on Boxing Weight Divisions from The Order of Things

This week’s Text, from Barbara Ann Kipfer’s excellent reference book The Order of Things, is a lesson plan on boxing weight divisions. And here is a list as reading and five comprehension questions that serves as the reading and writing work for this lesson. Keep in mind, as I mention each time I publish one of these lessons, that this work is designed for students who struggle with understanding information presented in two symbolic information systems–in this case numbers and letters. Think of students who struggle with word problems in math classes, and you’ll have a clear idea whose confidence this relatively simple work is meant to bolster.

As this material deals with boxing–specifically the amateur boxing weight divisions used in the Olympics–I believe it will be of high interest to students, so I have tagged it as such.

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.

Common English Verbs Followed by an Object and an Infinitive: Ask

Here is a worksheet on the verb ask when used with an object or an infinitive. The student asked her teacher to supply her with some more substantial and rigorous work.

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: Diamond in the Rough

Moving right along this morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom “diamond in the rough.” This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences (and beware the first one, which is a long compound separated by a colon) and three comprehension questions. A short, but thorough, introduction to this commonly used idiom–in English, at least.

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, 6 December 2024: A Lesson Plan on the Greek Word Roots Arch, Archi, Arche/o, and Archae/o

This week’s Text is a lesson plan on the Greek word roots arch, archi, arche/o, and archae/o. Collectively they mean rule, chief, first, and ancient. This complicated root, as you have probably already recognized, is very productive in English: It grows relatively high-frequency words (particularly in educated discourse) like archenemy, archaeology (obviously), anarchy, archetype, architect, hierarchy, and monarchy, all of which are included in this scaffolded worksheet, which is the principal work of this lesson.

I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the adjective ancient to point students in the right direction when analyzing these word roots.

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.