Tag Archives: diction/grammar/style/usage

Term of Art: Gerund

A nominal form of verbs in Latin: e.g. pugnando (“fight-gerund-abl.sg”) “by fighting.” Hence a term available for verb forms with a noun-like role in other languages: e.g. English fighting is traditionally a gerund in Fighting used to be fun, as opposed to the participle, also in –ing but with a different syntactic role, in people fighting.”

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

Cosmology (n)

Here, to accompany the quote below it, is a context clues worksheet on the noun cosmology. If memory serves, I wrote this to use with a lesson on Galileo. But it could serve a number of purposes.

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.

Ibn al-Nafis

Here is a reading on the Muslim physician Ibn al-Nafis who was the first doctor to map the human pulmonary system. This vocabulary-building and  comprehension worksheet 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.

Diffusion (n)

You might find this context clues worksheet on the noun diffusion useful, particularly if you teach science.

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, August 3, 2018: A Lesson Plan on the Latin Word Root Ver-

This week’s Text is a complete lesson plan on the Latin word root ver–it means true. You know, it turns up in words like veracity, verify, and verdict. This do-now exercise on the noun integrity serves well to open the lesson and hint at the meaning of the word root. Finally, this word root worksheet is the mainstay of the 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.

Veracious (adj) and Voracious (adj)

Here are five worksheets on the homophones veracious and voracious, both of which are adjectives. Both of these words grow from Latin roots, to wit, respectively, ver (true) and vor (to eat). Let me put that another way: “I can verify that he ate voraciously.” Tomorrow morning, for this week’s Text, I’ll post a complete lesson plan on the Latin root ver; vor will appear eventually, but I haven’t finished fashioning it into a complete lesson plan.

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: The Nobel Prize

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Nobel Prize. I wonder if he’d lived longer, if James Baldwin might have received it.

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: Orpheus and Eurydice

Have you ever seen the movie Black Orpheus? It’s something I would love to use in the classroom, but I fear it may be a tad too complicated (fast-moving subtitles, for one thing, might cause some challenges) and subtle for the students I serve. It’s a masterpiece by any standard and available from the excellent Criterion Collection with an array of edifying extras.

So, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Orpheus and Eurydice that would, I think, serve as a useful adjunct to a viewing of the truly great film.

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.

Parsing Sentences Worksheets: Adjectives

Over time, I have begun to wonder if parsing sentences, somewhere along the line. I think not, at least in my classroom, which is why I wrote, and now pass along to you, these four worksheets for parsing adjectives in basic declarative sentences.

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.

The Weekly Text, July 27, 2018: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on the Treaty of Versailles

Apropos of that founding, this week’s Text is a reading on the Treaty of Versailles along with the comprehension worksheet that accompanies it. This is, I would think, a staple of global studies classes.

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.