Tag Archives: diction/grammar/style/usage

Superstition (n)

Finally, on this Tuesday morning, here is a context clues worksheet on the noun superstition, which seems like a word students ought to understand clearly–particularly, I think, in these times, as an antonym to reason or science. There is a lot of Counter-Enlightenment sentiment, basically superstition, floating around at the moment. It’s up to educators to keep alive the values of reasoned inquiry.

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.

Accademia della Crusca

“(Ital, ‘Academy of the Chaff‘) Florentine literary academy founded in 1583 to purify Tuscan, the literary language of the Italian Renaissance. It was opposed to Tasso in the debate over the merits of his Gerusalemme Liberata. The first part of its official dictionary appeared in 1612, and the work is still in progress.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

Word Root Exercise: Rupt

If there is a better time, for obvious reasons, to post this worksheet on the Latin word root rupt, I can’t imagine it. It means “to break, burst,” and is at the basis of the English adjective, very much in the news of late, corrupt.

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: Vatican City-State

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Vatican as a city-state. I’ve used it, among other materials, to illustrate the concept of city-states in freshman global studies classes.

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.

Term of Art: Antecedent

“1. The words in a text, usually a noun phrase, to which a pronoun or other grammatical unit refers back. Cook is the antecedent of him in: ‘In 1772. Cook began his second voyage, which took him further south than he had ever been.’ Similarly, his second voyage is the antecedent of which. With impersonal itthisthatwhich, the antecedent may be a whole clause or paragraph, as in: ‘Might not the coast of New South Wales provide and armed haven? To some people this looked good on paper, but there is no hard evidence that it did so to William Pitt or his ministers.’ Despite the implications of the name, an antecedent can follow rather than precede: ‘For his first Pacific voyage, Cook had no chronometer.’ 2. In logic, the conditional element in a proposition. In If they did that, they deserve our respect, the antecedent is they did that.”

Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Cultural Literacy: Franz Kafka

Last fall, while unpacking some boxes of books for my classroom library, I learned with considerable pleasure that Peter Kuper has rendered Franz Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis as a graphic novel. Personally, I like what Mr. Kuper has done with that staple of Mad Magazine, Antonio Prohias’s Cold War allegory as comic strip, “Spy vs. Spy.” Mr. Prohias was a hard act to follow, and Mr. Kuper has done so respectably, indeed even admirably. Professionally, that the students I teach–who have neither particular nor general interest in reading for pleasure–all read The Metamorphosis amazed me. Needless to say, I recommend this book for your classroom.

To complement The Metamorphosis, should you come by a copy, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Franz Kafka.

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.

Alcohol

Moving right along: here are a reading on alcohol and its attendant vocabulary building and comprehension worksheet if your practice and students would benefit from them.

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: Sensation for Emotion

“Sensation for Emotion. ‘The play caused a great sensation.’ A sensation is a physical feeling; an emotion, a mental. Doubtless the one usually accompanies the other, but the good writer will name the one that he has in mind, not the other. There are few errors more common than the one here noted.”

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

Sullen (adj)

As sullenness can be a chronic condition among adolescents, perhaps this context clues worksheet on the adjective sullen might be of some use to you.

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: Extrapolation

Finally, on this Friday morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on extrapolation. I am hard pressed to imagine why high schoolers shouldn’t know this noun, and, indeed, its attendant verb, extrapolate.

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.