Tag Archives: diction/grammar/style/usage

Write It Right: A for An

“A for An. ‘A hotel.’ ‘A heroic man.’ Before an unaccented aspirate use an. The contrary usage in this country come of too strongly pressing our aspirates.”

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

Cultural Literacy: Hippies

Even though it drives them crazy when I do it, I often address my students as “hippies.” Here, then, for all of them across the years, is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on hippies if you have any use for it.

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.

Historical Terms: Cabal

cabal: The name given to the ministry which took power in England in 1667 (when Charles II dismissed his chancellor, Clarendon), taken from the initials of its members: Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale. The term is also used to mean any close-knit group of persons, particularly those involved in intrigue.”

Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.

A Lesson Plan on Linking Verbs

Here is a complete lesson plan on linking verbs. Because sentences with predicate adjectives are one of the most commonly used structures in both English prose and speech, I teach them several times in the course of the parts of speech unit I wrote several years ago (and continue to revise).

Anyway, here is the Cultural Literacy worksheet on intransitive verbs with which I open this lesson after a class break. This scaffolded worksheet on linking verbs is at the center of this lesson. Finally, here is a learning support on the verb to be to help students conjugate this often confusing verb.

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.

Nikola Tesla

His name is now a corporate brand, so perhaps this reading on Nikola Tesla and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet will help students understand the significance of that fact–and learn something about the plot of the recent film The Current War.

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: Exposition

Exposition: Exposition, or expository writing, is traditionally understood as writing that aims to transmit information to presumably interested parties as distinguished from writing that aims to persuade the reader. As there will be elements of persuasive writing in expository, so also will there be elements of the expository in persuasive.

In the following discussion, however, the perspective is that of rhetorical analysis, which regards all written communication (including the note on the refrigerator door) as guided by a communicative/persuasive purpose. Exposition is, then, that type of prose writing that attempts to create, in its target audience, the attitude that the writer is objectively presenting the facts relative to a given subject. Exposition thus is not a division of prose discourse according to intent, but rather represents a tone that the writer wishes the reader to accept as ‘factual.’ The writer of exposition cultivates a tone designed to allow (encourage) the reader to think that the writer has no specific interest in, or position in regard to, the subject matter presented.

Excerpted from: Trail, George Y. Rhetorical Terms and Concepts: A Contemporary Glossary. New York: Harcourt Brace, 2000.

Frenzy (n)

Because it’s a word that well describes the snowfall here in Bennington, Vermont over the past forty hours or so. this context clues worksheet on the noun frenzy seems an appropriate choice to post this morning.

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.

A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Boy Scout”

Moving right along, here is a complete lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “Boy Scout.”

I open this lesson, after the relative chaos of a class change, with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the American English idiom bone to pick. This PDF of the illustration and questions of the case is the centerpiece of the lesson. Finally, here is the typescript of the answer key to finish the lesson by solving the case.

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.

Red Auerbach

Ok, teachers in Boston and environs, if not the entire state of Massachussetts, I’m hard-pressed to imagine that this reading on legendary Celtics coach Red Auerbach and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet wouldn’t be of high interest in you educational marketplace, so to speak. I conducted a brisk trade in these documents when I taught in Springfield, Massachusetts, last year.

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.

Forlorn (adj)

OK, it’s a snow day in my southwestern Vermont district, which is a perfect opportunity for me to feel useful by publishing some blog posts. Here is a context clues worksheet on the adjective forlorn.

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.