Tag Archives: diction/grammar/style/usage

Common English Verbs Followed by Gerunds: Mention

Last and quite likely least this morning, here is a worksheet on the verb mention when used with a gerund. Did I mention seeing Seven Samurai at the Anthology Film Archives?

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.

Nuclear Fission

Moving along, here is a reading on nuclear fission with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Science teachers take note (I guess): This is a good general introduction to a complicated topic.

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: Vor

Here is a worksheet on the Latin word root vor, which means to eat. You’ll find this productive root, unsurprisingly, at the base of words like carnivore, herbivore, and insectivore and voracious (all included in this document) as well as omnivore, not included here but a nice example of a pair of Latin roots–omni means all–combining to give us a useful word–someone or something that eats everything.

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: Attila the Hun

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Attila the Hun. This is a half-page worksheet with a three-sentence reading and three comprehension questions. This is a good general introduction to Attila, but to appreciate fully the wide swath he cut through history, and the consequences of it, you will probably need to dig a little deeper than this document does.

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.

Envisage (vt)

Here is a context clues worksheet on the verb envisage, which is only used transitively–so don’t forget your direct object. The word itself means “to view or regard in a certain way,” and  “to have a mental picture of especially in advance of realization,” which are the definitions this worksheet’s context clues aim to elicit from students.

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.

Common English Verbs Followed by Gerunds: Keep

Here is a worksheet on the verb keep as it is used with a gerund. I keep denigrating these documents; should I?

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.

Placebo Effect

Here is a reading on placebo effect along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I don’t know if this is something high school students need to know; it is something that pops up (e.g. in an episode of Family Guy that I watched late last night) in common discourse often enough that we should at least consider its relevance to everyday life.

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: Prot, Proto

Moving right along on a cool and cloudy Thursday morning in Brooklyn, here is a worksheet on the Greek word roots prot– and proto. It means primitive and first, which helps me understand how we end up, in English, with prototype. Protagonist, however, mystifies me a bit; I suppose because the protagonist is the primary (i.e. first) actor in a situation, the word sensibly springs from prot.

Anyway, this document includes several other words that spring from this productive root, including such scientific words as protoplast, protozoan, proton, and protozoology.

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: Atlantis

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Atlantis, the mythological city swallowed by the ocean. This is a half-page worksheet with a two-sentence reading, on a longish compound, and three comprehension questions. Just the facts, as Joe Friday liked to say.

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.

Write It Right: Curious for Odd or Singular

“Curious for Odd, or Singular. To be curious is to have an inquiring mind or mood—curiosity.”

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