Tag Archives: diction/grammar/style/usage

The Weekly Text, January 4, 2019: A Lesson Plan on the Latin Word Root Bell

The first Text for the New Year is this complete lesson plan on the latin word root bell-. It means war. Here is the context clues worksheet on the noun conflict with which I begin this lesson. Finally, this vocabulary-building worksheet on this root is the mainstay 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.

A Learning Support on Using Semicolons in Sentences

Here, finally, on an unseasonably warm morning in early January, is a learning support on using semicolons in sentences.

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 Peace of Westphalia

While I’m not sure why I prepared it in the first place–this isn’t something even touched upon, let alone covered in depth, in the global studies classes I co-taught in New York City–here in any case are a reading on the Peace of Westphalia and the 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.

Garment (n)

It’s not a word one hears used much anymore–although New Yorkers still call part of Manhattan the Garment District–but here, nonetheless, is a context clues worksheet on the noun garment.

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.

George Orwell on Language

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.”

George Orwell

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

A Learning Support on the Parts of Speech

OK, here is a short glossary of the parts of speech adapted from The Elements of Style.

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.

Heart of Darkness

Here is a reading on Joseph Conrad’s masterpieceHeart of Darkness, with the comprehension worksheet that accompanies it. This novel was part of the curriculum in the school in which I served the longest, though it may in retrospect have been for Advanced Placement English.

In any case, this is both an introduction and an overview of the novel–and its critique of colonialism belongs in every classroom, I submit.

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.

Cultural Literacy: Beowulf

Happy New Year! Here, for the first blog post of the New Year, is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Beowulf.

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.

Sitting Bull

For the penultimate blog post of 2018, here is a reading on Sioux warrior and chieftain Sitting Bull along with the 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: Ovation

Ovation. In ancient Rome an ovation was an inferior triumph accorded to victors in minor wars or unimportant battle. Its character and limitations, like those of the triumph, were strictly defined by law and custom. An enthusiastic demonstration in honor of an American civilian is nothing like that, and should not be called by its name.”

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