Tag Archives: diction/grammar/style/usage

The Weekly Text, 16 August 2024: A Lesson on Anniversary Gifts from The Order of Things

This week’s Text is this lesson plan on anniversary gifts along with its attendant reading worksheet with comprehension questions. The reading (as is the case with all readings under the current header) is a list from Barbara Ann Kipfer’s magisterial reference book The Order of Things. I’ve said it before, but it bears saying again: the lesson plans I have thus far developed based on entries from The Order of Things are aimed at struggling or emergent readers.

This particular lesson might be useful in a broader unit about folkways and customs. In my experience, social studies classes tend to regularly deal with folkways and customs–i.e. culture–without explicitly addressing the concepts these words represent. That baffles me, as the broad culture has such rich possibilities for transfer into other learning domains.

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.

Common English Verbs Followed by an Infinitive or a Gerund: Prefer

Here is a worksheet on the verb prefer when used with an infinitive or a gerund.

He prefers to drink coffee.

He prefers drinking coffee.

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.

Connotation

“Connotation (noun): The conveying of verbal meaning with or apart from a word’s more evident, denotative meaning; implicit, associative sense of a word beyond its primary or literal meaning; affective or emotional purport of a term or expression; implication. Adjective: connotational, connotative; Adverb: Connotatively; Verb: connote.

‘Of course, the mere name of my mother has no special connotation, no significance, but the woman herself was the vague consoling spirit the terrible seasons of life when unlikely accidents, tabloid adventures, shocking episodes, surrounded a solitary and wistful heart.’ John Hawkes, Second Skin”

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

Cultural Literacy: Nota Bene

The first time I saw “N.B.” on a piece of academic work, I was a thirty-two-year-old “non-traditional student” studying the Russian language at Amherst College through the Five College Exchange (I was matriculated at Hampshire College). Once I figured out that it stood for nota bene, and then figured out what nota bene means–“note well,” just how it looks–I began using it regularly myself. If you’ve perused this blog at all, you’ve no doubt seen it in a post.

So here, without further ado, is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Latinism nota bene. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two simple sentences and three comprehension questions. Just the basics.

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.

The Weekly Text, 9 August 2024: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on the Atom

The Weekly Text from Mark’s Text Terminal for Friday, 9 August 2024 is this reading on the atom along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. This reading is from the Intellectual Devotional series; it serves as a good general introduction to the basic concept and configuration of the atom, but not a great deal more. As I am not a science teacher, I really cannot speak to the effectiveness or utility of these documents.

If you can, please speak up in the comments forum.

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.

Common English Verbs Followed by an Infinitive or a Gerund: Love

Here is a a worksheet on the verb love when used with an infinitive or a gerund.

She loves to walk on the beach.

She loves walking on the beach.

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: Story Seeds

“story seeds: Ideas around which a student might build a story. Every story, for example, involves a conflict, so a teacher should provide a student with a conflict as a story seed and have the student create the setting, the characters, the incident that starts the conflict, and so on.”

Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.

Cultural Literacy: Pogrom

Because it turns up in various social studies textbooks, I whipped up this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the pogrom as a form of civil strife to provide context for, well, for the history of Europe from 1850 to 1950. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences and two comprehension questions.

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.

The Weekly Text, 2 August 2024: A Lesson on the Latin Word Root Trans

This week’s Text is a lesson on the Latin word root trans. It means “across,” “through,” “change,” and “beyond.” This is an extremely productive root in English, yielding such high frequency words as transact, transcript, transit, transform, and transfer. In fact, all of those words are on the scaffolded worksheet that is the principle work of this lesson, and which includes, as all the Latin word root worksheets on this blog do, a list of cognates from the Romance languages.

I use this context clues worksheet on the transitive verb ford to open this lesson. It means “to cross (a body of water) by wading.” Needless to say, it is meant to point students toward the meaning of across in this word root.

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.

Common English Verbs Followed by an Infinitive or a Gerund: Like

Here is a worksheet on the verb like when used with an infinitive or a gerund.

I like to publish blog posts–even with documents as dubious in quality as this one.

I like publishing blog posts–even posts with sketch material, in hopes that someone will comment.

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.