Tag Archives: diction/grammar/style/usage

Henchman (n)

Despite the fact that it remains a piece of the American vernacular, I don’t know how important it is that student know this word. Nonetheless, here is a context clues worksheet on the noun henchman. I will say this, as I consider this document: when I taught in New York City, the vanishingly few upperclassmen I taught, almost to a one, tended to refer to their youngest peers in the institution as “freshmans.” This worksheet might be best, I suppose, paired with the plural “henchmen” somehow to make sure students understand that the noun “man” declines, in the plural, to “men,” not matter where in a word it is found.

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.

Carbohydrates

Snow day! And it is coming down at a pretty good clip out there. For health teachers, if this is something you cover, here is a reading on carbohydrates and the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that accompanies it.

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.

Write It Right: Admission for Admittance

“Admission for Admittance. ‘The price of admission is one dollar.’”

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

Cultural Literacy; Rip Van Winkle

Monday morning again, and here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Rip Van Winkle. This character, from the pen of Washington Irving, is an essential piece of American mythology.

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.

Imbroglio (n)

While it’s probably not a word students need to know before they leave high school, this context clues worksheet on the noun imbroglio might nonetheless be of some use. If nothing else, the word possesses a nice onomatopoeic quality.

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 “An 8-Cent Story”

This lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “An 8-Cent Story” is the penultimate lesson in the first of the three Crime and Puzzlement units I wrote a couple of years ago.

This lesson opens with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the American idiom “Curiosity Killed the Cat.” Here is the PDF of the reading and questions that drive the lesson; finally, here is the typescript of the answer key.

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: Aporia

“Aporia: An aporia is a puzzling condition or situation. The rhetorical application of aporia is to pretend to an inability or confess to an actual inability to resolve a problem or answer a question. One might say of a political figure whom one was attacking, ‘I don’t know what he lost first, his ability to tell the truth from a lie or his ability to behave morally.’ The device is often used when the question is being begged. A homely version of it is the often-heard comment ‘How can people be so stupid’ uttered when something the speaker disapproves of has just happened.”

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

Atom Bomb

Moving right along on this warm and oddly muggy December afternoon, here is a reading on the atom bomb 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.

Heresy (n), Heretic (n), and Heretical (adj)

Because they came up frequently in various social studies classes I co-taught in New York City, I wrote these two context clues worksheets on the noun heretic and the adjective heretical. I was going to comment that I probably should have written another one on the noun heresy, but a glance in the folder that holds all these documents reveals I already did–it’s under that link.

It’s hard to imagine students understanding religious history, and particularly the history of the Roman Catholic Church.

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.

Word Root Exercise: Terr, Terra, and Terri

Here is a word root worksheet on the Latin word roots terr, terra, and terri. These three roots, which mean both earth and land, are very productive in English–you may even have a terrarium in your home or classroom.

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.