At the end of Week II of Black History Month 2020, here is a short reading on Oprah Winfrey along with its 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.
The lasts time the Catholic Church swapped out popes (when Benedict XVI resigned), I wrote this context clues worksheet on the noun conclave to help students understand this concept and what was happening at that moment in the Church.
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.
[If you’d like a copy of this material to use as a teaching and learning support, click that hyperlink; like almost everything at Mark’s Text Terminal, it’s a Word document, so you may manipulate it freely.]
“Do not join independent clauses with a comma.
If two or more clauses grammatically complete and not joined by a conjunction are to form a single compound sentence, the proper mark of punctuation is a semicolon.
Mary Shelley’s works are entertaining; they are full of engaging ideas.
It is nearly half past five; we cannot reach town before dark.
It is, of course, equally correct to write each of these as two sentence, replacing the semicolons with periods.
Mary Shelley’s works are entertaining. They are full of engaging ideas.
It is nearly half past five. We cannot reach town before dark.
If a conjunction is inserted, the proper mark is a comma. (Rule 4).
Mary Shelley’s works are entertaining, for they are full of engaging ideas.
It is nearly half past five, and we cannot reach town before dark.
A comparison of the three forms given above will show clearly the advantage of the first. It is, at least in the examples given, better than the second form because it suggests the close relationship between the two statements in a way that the second does not attempt, and better than the third because it is briefer and therefore more forcible. Indeed, this simple method of indicating relationships between statements is one of the most useful devices of composition. The relationship, as above, is commonly one of cause and consequence.
Note that if the second clause is preceded by an adverb, such as accordingly, besides, then, therefore or thus, and not by a conjunction, the semicolon is still required.
I never had been in the place before; besides, it was dark as a tomb.
An exception to the semicolon is worth noting here. A comma is preferable when the clauses are very short and alike in form, or when the tone of the sentence is easy and conversational.
Man proposes, God disposes.
The gates swung apart, the bridge fell, the portcullis was drawn up.
I hardly knew him, he was so changed.
Here today, gone tomorrow.”
Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
OK, as I wait for the last backup of the day to run itself to completion, here is a lesson plan on politics and leaders as a cause of history. I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the noun civilization. This worksheet and note-taking blank demonstrates, I think, the extent to which I use this and other of my “Causes of History” (apologies to the ILS professors at Amherst College) as brainstorming activities, driven by Socratic questioning and activated by taking notes.
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.
Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, so this seems like a good time to publish this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of the “significant other.”
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.
“Affectation (noun): Mannered or unnatural speech or writing, or adoption of a style unsuitable to the style or occasion; a stylistic artifice or mannerism.
‘…nor is there in the hall any affectation of language, nor that worn-out rhetoric which reminds you of a broken-winded barrel-organ playing a che la morte, bad enough in prose, but when set up in blank verse awful and shocking in its more than natural deformity….’ George Moore, Confessions of a Young Man”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Here’s a worksheet on the Latin word root pel. It means, simply, to drive. You’ll find it at the base of such commonly used English words as compel and expel.
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.
Here is an Everyday Edit worksheet on African-American music. This is the last Everyday Edit worksheet I have that’s appropriate to post for Black History Month. However, if you’d like more of these worksheets, you can find them at Education World, where the generous proprietors of that site give away a yearlong supply of them.
If you find typos in this document, your students should fix them! That’s the point of this exercise….
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass in furtherance of Black History Month 2020. As you probably know, of have inferred, this is Mr. Douglass’s autobiography.
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.
I recently started a new job at a middle school (which I already regret, but that’s another story), where I teach a couple of students interested in photography. It happens that both of them have a natural gift for composing shots. I wrote these eleven worksheets on famous photographers for English and study skills instruction for these kids.
These documents are simple research templates to be used with the internet. I suspect I will never use these again, but I also suspect that someone, somewhere, might also get some use out of them. Most of the major American photographers are represented, and I did the best I could to distribute evenly between men and women. You’ll find a worksheet on the legendary Robert Capa, as well as Vivian Maier, the subject of a fascinating documentary which I have watched four times because I can’t get over the richness of Ms. Maier’s story.
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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