Tag Archives: diction/grammar/style/usage

Word Root Exercise: Hem/o, Hemat/o, Hema, -Emia, -Aemia

Health teachers, nursing students, and others pursuing careers in the medical professions might find this worksheet on the Greek roots hemo, hemato, hema, emia, and aemia useful; they mean blood and blood condition.

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.

Everyday Edit: Columbus Sets Sail

OK, here is an Everyday Edit worksheet, “Columbus Sets Sail,” which serves, I think, as a pretty good introduction to how Hispanic History begins.

Incidentally, if you, or more importantly, your students, like this kind of exercise, the good people at Education World give away a year-long supply of them at no charge. Just click on the hyperlink in the previous sentence to get to them.

If you find typos in this document…well, that’s the point of it. Ask your students to correct them.

The Weekly Text, September 20, 2019, Hispanic Heritage Month 2019 Week I: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on the Bay of Pigs Affair

Last Monday, September 15, marked the beginning of Hispanic Heritage Month 2019. Last year at this time I knew I was running out of materials to properly observe the Month Over the summer I struggled to assemble materials to publish. Unfortunately, finding a new job, moving, and the typical vagaries of life intervened; the section of the warehouse at Mark’s Text Terminal where the appropriate materials are stored is nearly bereft of goods. So I begin the month belatedly and with a regrettable deficit, which embarrasses me.

In any case, to kick off Hispanic Heritage Month for 2109, here is a reading on the Bay of Pigs invasion and the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that attends it. These cover both Hispanic history and United States history. These documents have served, along with others, in my classroom, to start students thinking critically about the wages of imperialism.

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.

Born (adj) and Borne (adj)

While I sit her waiting for a Time Machine backup to finish, here is a set of five homophone worksheets on the adjectives born and borne. These are useful words that students should know.

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.

Birthmarks

Health teacher, here is a reading on birthmarks and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. These documents have been of surprisingly high interest to most of the kids I’ve had the privilege to teach over all these 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.

Term of Art: Double Negative

“Double Negative: The use of two negatives in a sentence where one will suffice, e..g., ‘It doesn’t mean nothing’; reiterated denial that is tantamount to an affirmative of positive statement.

In substandard speech, however, double negatives often reinforce a strongly negative color in an assertion. ‘I don’t want nothing from nobody is a threefold declaration of independence, not a logical seesaw.” G.W. Turner, Stylistics“

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

The Weekly Text, September 13, 2019: A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Dropout”

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere on this blog, the lessons I prepared to attend the Crime and Puzzlement books are quite frequently downloaded. Because I am exhausted from trying to get the school year started, and therefore bereft of imagination and initiative, I offer, as this week’s Text, a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “Dropout.”

I use this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the expression “Sword of Damocles” to open the lesson after a class change. You’ll need this PDF of the illustration and questions that drive this lesson to teach it. Finally, here is the answer key typescript; it’s in word if you need to differentiate it for your students.

And that makes ten posts for this week, so I’m done here for the moment. I hope your school year is off to a good start.

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.

Tobacco

Moving right along, here is a reading on tobacco and the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that attends it. The reading is only one page, but don’t let that mislead you: it’s a cogent summary of the role this plant played in the colonization of North America and the development of capitalism and international trade.

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: Mega, Megal/o, Megaly

Here is a worksheet on the Greek word roots mega, megal/o, and megaly. They mean large, great, and million. Once again, this is a very productive root in English, yielding words like megaton, megalomaniac, and megabyte.

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.

Cultural Literacy: Destructive Competition

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on destructive competition for you business and economics teachers out there.

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.