Tag Archives: diction/grammar/style/usage

Cultural Literacy: Shylock and The Merchant of Venice

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Shakespearean character Shylock, from The Merchant of Venice. This is a Shakespearean character, like many, who has been the subject of a great deal of critical inquiry and discourse.

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.

Garry Kasparov

OK, homebound chess club members, here is a reading on Garry Kasparov and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

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.

Convene (vi/vt), Convention (n)

Here are two context clues worksheets on the verb convene (used both intransitively and transitively) and the noun convention. I’ve used these and others like them (which are forthcoming here) to help students understand the relationships between words as they are distributed across the parts of speech.

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.

A Lesson Plan on Nouns as the Direct Objects of Verbs

Here is a lesson plan on nouns as direct objects of verbs in clauses and sentences. I open this lesson with this worksheet on the homophones compliment and complement as both nouns and verbs. Nota bene that many grammar manuals use complement as a noun to designate the direct object of a verb, so I want students to recognize it if they encounter it in such a book. Finally, here is the scaffolded worksheet that is at the center of this lesson.

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.

Aesop’s Fables: “The Bats and The Weasel”

OK, here is a lesson plan on the Aesop’s fable “The Bats and The Weasel” along with the fable itself with comprehension questions. I prepared this material in haste, so there is plenty of room to expand it. As always, these are Microsoft Word documents, so you can alter them for your 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.

The Weekly Text, March 20, 2020, Women’s History Month 2020 Week III: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on the Flappers

Alright, I do want to remember that March is Women’s History Month. This week’s Text, in observation of the month, is a reading on flappers along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. The reading is short, but it allows for the possibility of asking a critical question about them: were they avatars of female agency, and thus an early paradigm of feminism?

This post on the cartoon character Betty Boop, which I posted almost exactly a year ago, might complement today’s Text, depending on how far you want to go with this. I can tell you that the Betty Boop material has been of relatively high interest to the students I’ve served over the years.

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: Tour de Force

Alright, I’ve run out of steam for today. I’ll return here tomorrow with another raft of documents that will, I fervently hope, keep young, homebound minds engaged in something other than anxiety about our current dystopian state. So here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept tour de force.

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: Argot

“Argot (noun): The special idiom used by a particular class or group, especially an underworld jargon; distinctive parlance.

‘She smoked cigarettes one right after the other, and did not care who knew it; and she was never more than five minutes out of the office before she was talking in newspaper argot, not all of it quite accurate.’ John O’Hara, Appointment in Samarra“

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

Word Root Exercise: Mar, Mari

Here is a worksheet on the Latin word roots mar and mari. They mean sea. These are very productive roots in English that yield commonly used words like maritime and mariner, to name just two. If you live near water of any kind, chances are good you have a marina offering its goods and services in your community.

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.

Sandy Koufax

By now, as most people who care surely–and sadly–know, the opening day of Major League Baseball has been pushed out to mid-May at least. Sniff. Team owners hope for a full schedule, but that seems optimistic at best.

In the meantime, for kids at home as the COVID19 pandemic runs its course, here is a reading on Sandy Koufax and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

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.