Tag Archives: diction/grammar/style/usage

Cultural Literacy: Loch Ness Monster

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Loch Ness Monster, a subject of no small fascination for me when I was a child in school (which is why I have tagged it as high-interest material, which I suspect it will still be for a certain type of elementary school student). This is a half-page worksheet with a two-sentence reading, both longish compounds, so you may want to take a look at them if you have emergent readers or English language learners on your hands, and three comprehension questions.

Somewhere along the line, I gathered the impression that Nessie, as the monster is affectionately known, was definitively disproved as a hoax. The reading in this document does not mention it, nor, particularly, does the Wikipedia page for the Loch Ness Monster. (The page, at its bottom, however, does warn that the article “…may lend undue weight to fringe sources and hypotheses.” For my part, I remain–mostly–agnostic.)

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, 27 October 2023: Styling Sentences Lesson 14, Using the Serial Comma

Believe it or not, after all these weeks, we’re down to the penultimate lesson in the Styling Sentences Unit: ergo, this week’s Text is the fourteenth lesson plan in the series, this one on what strikes me as an important area of English usage and punctuation, using the serial comma.

This lesson opens with this worksheet on parsing sentences to find adjectives. Here is the scaffolded and supported worksheet that is the centerpiece of the lesson. Finally, here is a learning support on using the serial comma.

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: Manage

Alright, last but not least this morning, here is a worksheet on the verb manage as followed by an infinitive. It will take some time, but eventually I will manage to publish all the worksheets on gerunds and infinitives that I made the mistake of developing.

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: Janus

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Janus, the “Roman god of doors and gateways and hence of beginnings,” as the four-sentence reading on this document explains. There are three comprehension questions accompanying the reading. I remember puzzling over Janus, the two-faced god, mostly because of the multiplicity and complexity of his myth and interpretation. As you probably know, Janus is represented with two faces, one young and one old, looking in opposite directions.

But did you know that the month of January is named for him? Or that to be Janus-faced is to be duplicitous, or two-faced? While I understand the image of Janus (if nothing else from watching films from the production company bearing his name), I have struggled for some reason with some of the abstractions that appear with his name on them.

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.

Colloquialism

“Colloquialism (noun): Spoken of conversational expression; familiar or informal English that falls between standard English and slang; everyday speech; an informal word or expression, or (loosely) a local or dialectical usage.

‘I had to learn American just like a foreign language. To learn it, I had to study and analyze it. As a result, when I use slang, colloquialisms, snide talk or any kind of off-beat language I do it deliberately.’ Raymond Chandler, Raymond Chandler Speaking.

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

The Weekly Text, 20 October 2023: Styling Sentences Lesson 13, The Compound Sentence with an Explanatory Statement

This week’s Text is the thirteenth lesson plan in the Styling Sentences Unit. This lesson deals with the compound sentence with an explanatory statement, with the two clauses separated by a colon. Like all of the lessons in this unit, about which, as I have prepared them for publication, I have unfortunately had many of my misgivings reinforced, this one aims to assist students in developing their own understanding of compound sentences, how to build them, and how to punctuate them.

This lesson opens with this worksheet on parsing sentences to find verbs. Here is the explanatory text with a learning support on the use of colons, the latter excerpted from Grant Barrett’s excellent manual Perfect English Grammar: The Indispensable Guide to Excellent Writing and Speaking (Berkeley: Zephyros Press, 2016). Finally, here is the scaffolded and supported worksheet that is the principal work of this lesson. There are mentor texts along with explanatory texts, so while the documents are relatively complete for this lesson, I still sense something is missing. Or is it that this lesson is just too much for the average high school student? I like to think not, but what do you think?

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: Don Quixote

OK, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Don Quixote for the final documents post of this blog’s observation of Hispanic Heritage Month 2023. This is a full-page worksheet with a four-sentence reading and six comprehension questions. Perhaps it’s length does not befit this landmark in world literature (confession: I am always reading this book–I keep it by my bedside and read a few pages each week; when I finish, I open the front cover and start again. It really is that good), but it is a solid introduction to this truly great book.

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: Central America

OK, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Central America. This is a full-page worksheet with a four-sentence reading and six comprehension questions. Beware the first sentence in this reading, which is a relatively complicated compound separated by a semicolon. The second clause is a list of all the Central American nations. This sentence may need a bit of revision for emergent readers and English language learners. Fortunately, this document, like most of what you will find on Mark’s Text Terminal, is formatted in Microsoft Word. Essentially, then, it is an open-source document which you may revise for your students’s needs.

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, 13 October 2023: Styling Sentences Lesson 12, The Compound Sentence with a Semicolon and No Conjunction

OK, your Weekly Text for today is the twelfth lesson plan of the Styling Sentences Unit, this one, as the headline reports, on writing a compound sentence separated with semicolon and no conjunction.

This lesson opens with this worksheet on parsing sentences to find prepositions. The principal work of this lesson for students, either independently or–preferably–in groups, is this scaffolded and supported worksheet. Unlike the work for every lesson from this unit posted so far, this worksheet straddles a line between highly supported work, i.e. sentence stems and cloze exercises, and the considerably less supported worksheets in this unit that call upon students to emulate often complicated mentor texts. Finally, here is a learning support on semicolons and their use in compound 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.

Cultural Literacy: Diego Rivera

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Diego Rivera. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two short sentences and two comprehension questions. The basic facts of Diego Rivera’s life in a short, symmetrical exercise probably best used as a do-now exercise at the beginning of a period.

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.