Tag Archives: diction/grammar/style/usage

Foil (n)

Ok, before I leave to for a stroll around a new city, here is a context clues worksheet on the noun foil. This word, meaning not the stuff you use in the kitchen, but rather, as Merriam-Webster’s has it, someone or something that serves as a contrast to another. Students using this word, I’ll bet, are doing some advanced writing on literature and literary topics.

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.

Imperialism

Happy Veterans Day, particularly to those who have served in this country’s defense. Given that it’s the Centenary of Armistice Day, it seems like an appropriate time to post this reading on imperialism and the comprehension worksheet to accompany 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.

Cultural Literacy: Carry a Torch for…

Here’s a Cultural Literacy worksheet on carrying a torch for another person. It’s an old-fashioned expression to be sure, but not one without its charms.

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 1966 NCAA Basketball Championship

Here is a reading on the 1966 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship with its attending comprehension worksheet. This is a story of ending an injustice in American collegiate sports, and the undermining of racial prejudice. As such, I suspect that for the right students, this material would be of compelling high interest; in most of the classrooms I’ve overseen as a teacher, I taught a lot of such students, so I have used these documents heavily.

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: Phoneme

The smallest distinct sound unit in a given language: e.g. tip in English realizes three successive phonemes realized in spelling by the letters t, i, and p.

Detailed definitions have varied from one theory to another, But, in general, two words are composed of different phonemes only if they differ phonetically in ways that are found to make a difference in meaning. Thus in English i and a  are difference phonemes since, for example, tip does not mean the same as tap, nor pit the same as pat. The individual phonemes are then the smallest units in each word that distinguish meanings and, in addition, are realized over distinct time spans. By the same criterion, i and a are single phonemes since they cannot be analyzed into smaller units meeting the criterion, each with its own time span.

Thence phonemic; e.g. a phonemic transcription of a word, etc. is its representation as a sequence or other combination of phonemes.”

Excerpted from: Matthews, P.H. The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

The Weekly Text, November 9, 2018: A Literacy Lesson on the Polysemous Word Bond

This week’s Text (after missing last week) is something I whipped up pretty much on the fly about three years ago when I was assigned an eight-meeting class conducted over eight weeks on math and science literacy. This literacy lesson on the polysemous word bond is, as I look at it now, an odd melange of stuff. Depending on what it is you want kids to understand, there are materials here for one extended lesson–I wrote this for a sixty-one-minute long period–or a couple of different short exercises.

The first document, because I worked in economics and finance-themed high school, is this Cultural Literacy worksheet on bond as a financial instrument. These two context clues worksheets on the verb and noun bond in the sense of attaching or joining follow; logically, I guess, this short reading and comprehension exercise on chemical bonds rounds out this deck. I also, for some reason, made up this learning support with three definitions of bond from Merriam-Webster’s 11th Edition.

Now that I think about it, Bronx County summoned me to jury duty before I had a chance to use this material. The coverage teacher who used it did say students received it relatively well.

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: Geo

Day four of a new job today. Here is a worksheet on the Greek root geo. It means, as your students probably won’t take long to figure out, earth. This is another of those very productive roots in English, and it shows up in words used across the common domain in the high school curriculum, particularly in the physical sciences.

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.

Buffoon (n)

I’m hard pressed to find a better day than today–election day–to post this context clues worksheet on the noun buffoon. This is a relatively commonly used noun in English, and certainly should be part of the inventory of anyone interested in talking about politicians and their ilk.

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 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments

On Election Day, 2018 it is a rainy day in Springfield, Massachusetts. Don’t let that prevent you from getting to your polling place! This is one of the most consequential elections cycles in my life time. I’m an old guy now, so you know that’s really saying something.

Today seems like as good a time as any (I’d actually been saving these for a Black History Month post) to post this reading on the 13th, 14th and 15th. Amendments and its accompanying comprehension worksheet. Also, this Everyday Edit on the Voting Rights Act is an timely document to post this morning, especially in light of the attempts around the country to suppress universal suffrage. Incidentally, if you like that Everyday Edit exercise, I’ll remind you once again that the good people at Education World give away a year’s supply of them at no cost to you.

Please vote!

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: Gnos, Gnom, Gnomon

One last thing this afternoon, to wit a worksheet on the Greek roots gnos, gnom, and gnomon. They mean knowledge, and they show up in words like diagnosis and prognosis, which makes this another one of those roots to produce a lot of words in the health professions.

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.