Tag Archives: diction/grammar/style/usage

Mark Spitz

Posted on January 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

Before I walk out the door on this gray Monday afternoon, here is a reading on Mark Spitz and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Only one student–for whom I produced it–asked for it in 18 years of teaching. Still, Mr. Spitz remains a swimming and Olympic legend, and I suspect somewhere there is still demand for these materials. For my needs, at the moment, supply exceeds demand.

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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Word Root Exercise: Phobia

Posted on January 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

Even though I’ve posted it elsewhere on this website, I’ve not put it up as a standalone document, so here is a worksheet on the Greek root phobia. It means, of course, fear. This root is amazingly productive in the English language, which suggests that there is a very well-endowed fund of anxiety in the Western world.

As I probably say too often, this is another of those Greek roots students interested in working in healthcare–especially the professions related to mental health care–will need to know this root.

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.

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Aver (vt)

Posted on January 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

For reasons I cannot quite explain, I’ve always found its use pretentious, but here, nonetheless, because it occasionally turns up in English, particularly in academic prose, is a context clues worksheet on the verb aver. It means “to verify or prove to be true in pleading a cause”; “to allege or assert in pleading” and “to declare positively.” It is only used transitively.

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.

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Cultural Literacy: Ultimatum

Posted on January 10, 2020 | Leave a comment

OK, finally on this busy day of housecleaning, here is Cultural Literacy worksheet on the noun ultimatum and the concept it relates. I’m hard pressed to imagine why this isn’t a word high school students should know.

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.

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Common Errors in English Usage: Adverse (adj) and Averse (adj)

Posted on January 10, 2020 | Leave a comment

Some time ago, I posted another of these worksheets, and there are more to come. After a year or so of preparing the templates and typing up the text, I am beginning work on a series of English usage in the interest of developing adapted material that meets the Common Core Standards, specifically:

“Standard (L.11-12.1b)-Resolve issues of complex or contested usage, consulting references, (e.g., Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage, Garner’s Modern American Usage) as needed.”

You can find the rationale for these worksheets toward the bottom of the “About Posts & Texts” page. Whether or not you care about the rationale, here is a worksheet on differentiating the adjectives adverse and averse.

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.

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Tycho Brahe

Posted on January 10, 2020 | Leave a comment

This reading on Tycho Brahe and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet have turned out, to my surprise, to be surprisingly high-interest materials for a certain kind of student I have served over the years. If you can persuade students that Brahe, like Galileo and Johannes Kepler, was in rebellion against the established authorities (church, but also, where they were closely aligned, state as well) of his time, well, what adolescent isn’t interested in acts of rebellion?

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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Auxiliary (n/adj)

Posted on January 10, 2020 | Leave a comment

Here are two context clues context clues worksheets on auxiliary as both a noun and an adjective. I’ll assume I don’t need to defend the teaching of this word in whatever part of speech it is used.

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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The Weekly Text, January 10, 2020: A Lesson Plan on the Latin Word Roots Bi and Bin

Posted on January 10, 2020 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is a complete lesson plan on the Latin word roots bi and bin, which mean, of course, two and twice. In the hope that it will hint to students the meaning of these roots, I open this lesson plan with this context clues worksheet on the noun adjective dual. Finally, here is the word root worksheet that is the substance 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.

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Cultural Literacy: Trojan War

Posted on January 8, 2020 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Trojan War. This is an important event in world history, the progenitor of mythology (maybe even mythological itself), and the origin of a number of idiomatic and metaphorical expressions in English.

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.

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Term of Art: Synecdoche

Posted on January 8, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Synecdoche: (Greek ‘taking up together’) A figure of speech in which the part stands for the whole, and thus something else is understood within the thing mentioned. For example: in ‘Give us this day our daily bread’, ‘bread’ stands for the meals taken each day. In these lines from Thomas Campbell’s Ye Mariners of England, ‘oak’ represents the warships as well as the material from which they are made:

‘With thunders from her native oak,

She quells the flood below.’

Synecdoche is common in everyday speech. In “Chelsea won the match”, Chelsea stands for the Chelsea football team. See also ANTONOMASIA; METALEPSIS; METONYMY.”

Excerpted from: Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New York: Penguin, 1992.

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