Tag Archives: diction/grammar/style/usage

Cultural Literacy: Reparations

Posted on August 22, 2025 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on reparations. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of four sentences and three comprehension questions. If discussing reparations for the the horrors of chattel slavery in the United States is now forbidden as thought crime (have you seen the index of forbidden words in the Trump administration?), you’re safe with this document. It focuses on war reparations.

Which isn’t to say that one couldn’t dilate on the reading to include reparations for crimes against human rights or the sin and crime of enslavement, no matter how far in the past. I’m just saying.

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.

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The Weekly Text, 29 August 2025: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Charles Ponzi

Posted on August 22, 2025 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is a reading on Charles Ponzi accompanied but its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

In the fall of 2008, when the United States economy crashed and nearly took the rest of the world down with it, I had just accepted a job at an economics-and-finance-themed high school in the Financial District in Manhattan. I rode the 2 or the 5 train from the North Bronx to the Wall Street Station. My school was on Trinity Place, right across the street from Zuccotti Park. In other words, I worked right in the middle of the Financial District while the place was–metaphorically–going up in flames. It was a weird time: the streets were weirdly quiet, and the restaurants and bars, usually full of boisterous traders, were dead.

Then came Bernie Madoff. My students couldn’t understand what he’d done, but several of them sure were interested. These documents are some of the fruits of my labor that sought to educate these kids about, well, rip-off artists.

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.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, New York City, Social Sciences, The Weekly Text, Worksheets

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Common English Verbs Followed by an Object and a Gerund: See

Posted on August 22, 2025 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the verb see when used with an object and a gerund.

I see elephants walking down my block.

The teacher sees the student working on her essay.

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.

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Cultural Literacy: Run-On Sentence

Posted on August 22, 2025 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the run-on sentence. This is a half-page worksheet with a two-sentence reading and three comprehension questions.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. When I looked at this document in preparation for publishing it, it looked crowded to me. That may be on account of the two-sentence reading, which consists of a couple of whopper compound sentence. I’ll publish this today, but check back here in the future for better learning supports on run-on sentences. I’m actually in the process of finishing a unit on sentence writing, and the lesson on run-ons is one of the last things I have to do.

So, like I said, check back if you need something like this.

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.

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Crusade

Posted on August 22, 2025 | Leave a comment

“Crusade (noun): A journalistic focus on a cause or an abuse, such as a needed political corruption of governmental measure; purposive, editorialized, civic-minded reporting. Noun: crusader; verb: crusade.

‘The truth is that this crusading business is one of the worst curses of journalism, and perhaps the main enemy of that fairness and accuracy and intelligent purpose which should mark the self-respecting newspaper. It trades upon one of the sorriest weaknesses of man—the desire to see the other fellow jump. It is at the heart of that Puritanical frenzy, that obscene psychic sadism, which is our national vice. No newspaper, carrying on a crusade against a man, ever does it fairly and decently; not many of them even make the pretense.’ H.L. Mencken, A Gang of Pecksniffs”

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

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The Weekly Text, 22 August 2025: A Lesson on the Latin Word Root Pel

Posted on August 22, 2025 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is a lesson plan on the Latin word root pel. It means “drive” and can be found in such high-frequency English words as compel, dispel, expel, propel, and repel, all included, of course, on this scaffolded worksheet, which includes cognates from the Romance languages.

I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the verb animate. It’s used transitively, and in this document it means “to move to action.” I hope it points the way to the meaning of pel.

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.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Lesson Plans, The Weekly Text, Worksheets

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Common English Verbs Followed by an Object and a Gerund: Catch

Posted on August 14, 2025 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the verb catch when used with an object and a gerund.

He caught the train coming into Manhattan.

The principal caught the student skipping class.

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.

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Cultural Literacy: Taboo

Posted on August 14, 2025 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of taboo. This is half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences and three comprehension questions. At the risk of pontificating, I think students, by the time they are in high school, really ought to understand the concept of taboo.

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.

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The Weekly Text, 15 August 2025: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Alan Turing

Posted on August 14, 2025 | Leave a comment

If memory serves, I wrote the documents in this week’s Text, to wit a reading on Alan Turing and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet early on in my career for a computer-obsessed young fellow. Alan Turing certainly remains an fascinating figure. And if the 2014 motion picture The Imitation Game indicates anything, it is that there is still popular as well as historical interest in Turing.

It’s probably worth mentioning that the T in the acronym CAPTCHA stands for “Turing.” The full name is “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.”

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.

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Cultural Literacy: Realism

Posted on August 7, 2025 | Leave a comment

This Cultural Literacy worksheet on realism might be of some use in an English classroom, though I admit I’ve never heard the term uttered in any English class I’ve co-taught. In any event, this is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences, the second of which is longish, but not unwieldy, and three comprehension questions. A solid, but basic, introduction to this concept in the fine arts.

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.

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