Tag Archives: diction/grammar/style/usage

A Lesson Plan on War, Revolution, and Peace

Here is a lesson plan on war, revolution, and peace as causes of history. I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the noun agriculture. This is a discussion, brainstorming, and writing lesson, so here is a structured brainstorming and note-taking blank to use in the execution of this lesson.

And yes, for those in the know, I did crib the title of this lesson from the Hampshire College course (taught by Michael Klare when I took it in the fall of 1991) of the same name, part of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program at that fine institution.

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.

Term of Art: Digression

Digression (noun): A turning aside or straying from the main discourse or topic; departure from the theme; excursive passage. Adjective: digressive, digressional; adverb: digressively; verb: digress.

‘He got a D plus because they kept yelling “Digression!” at him all the time. For instance, he made this speech about this farm his father bought in Vermont. They kept yelling “Digression!” at him the whole time he was making it, and his teacher, Mr. Vinson, gave him an F on it because he hadn’t told what kind of animals and vegetables and stuff grew on the farm and all.’” J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

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

Pray (vi/vt), Prey (n/vi)

Here are five worksheets on the homophones pray and prey. They are used, respectively, as a transitive and intransitive verb, and a noun and intransitive verb. These are two commonly used, and equally commonly confused words, in the English language.

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.

Kurt Godel

Here is a reading on Kurt Godel along with its attendant vocabulary building and comprehension worksheet. There is room in the document–and the latitude, as, like most other things on Mark’s Text Terminal, these are Word documents that can be edited for your students’ needs–to deal with some of the abstractions Godel’s work deals with.

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: J.R.R. Tolkien

On my way out the door on this pleasant afternoon, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on J.R.R. Tolkien if you have students interested in The Lord of the Rings trilogy in print or onscreen.

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.

Everyday Edit: Martha Washington

Here is an Everyday Edit worksheet on Martha Washington for Women’s History Month 2020. And if you want more of these, to give credit where it is always and abundantly due, the good people at Education World will supply you with a year’s worth of these documents.

And if you find typos on this document, they are there because they need to be fixed….

A Short Comprehension Worksheet on Gravity

OK, on my way out the door this afternoon, here is a short comprehension worksheet on gravity I wrote this morning. As its instructions indicate, it follows the “What Is Gravity ” page at the NASA Space Place Site.

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.

Plato

Finally this morning, here is a reading on Plato and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet if you teach him in the context of global studies, English language arts, or even a philosophy class. This is a short but solid general introduction to ancient Greek thought in general and Plato in particular.

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.

Despot (n)

At this moment in the political history of the world, I think it’s important that students get a look at this context clues worksheet on the noun despot.

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.

Write It Right: But

“But. By many writers this word (in the sense of except) is regarded as a preposition, to be followed by the objective case: ‘All went but him.’ It is not a preposition and may take either the nominative or objective case, to agree with the subject of the object of a verb. ‘All went but he.’ ‘The natives killed all but him.'”

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