Tag Archives: idioms

As students head off to college, teachers probably should explain to them the cognitive science research on “cramming” as a method of studying, i.e. that it is basically useless and mostly exhausting. Perhaps this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom burn the midnight oil would serve as an elegant way to kill two birds with one stone: teach students a new idiomatic expression, and urge them to pace themselves when studying.

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.

On a very chilly morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom “You can’t have your cake and eat it too.” This expression remains in sufficiently common usage that students probably ought to learn it somewhere along the way–if they don’t hear it in social contexts, didactic teaching may be called for. This document might help.

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.

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom “Have an ax to grind.” This seems like a term that users of social media ought to have at their disposal–you know? But this is also a term used often in educated and even scholarly discourse to describe tendentiousness in inquiry.

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 expression “crossing the Rubicon” is a commonplace in educated discourse, in the sense that one has arrived at a point of no return. This is of course its figurative meaning, and here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Rubicon River that will help your students understand the literal meaning of this expression–you know, Julius Caesar and all that.

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.