OK, very quickly, here is a glossary of terms for teaching phonics, if you can use 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.
[If you’d like this quote in Microsoft Word to use as a learning support, you’ll find that here.]
“Place a comma before a conjunction introducing an independent clause.
The early records of the city have disappeared, and the story of its first years can no longer be reconstructed.
The situation is perilous, but there is still one chance of escape.
Two part sentences of which the second member is introduced by as (in the sense of “because”), for, or , nor, or while (in the sense of “and at the same time”) likewise require a comma before the conjunction.
If a dependent clause, or an introductory phrase requiring to be set off with a comma, precedes the second independent clause, no comma is needed after the conjunction.
The situation is perilous, but if we are prepared to act promptly, there is still one chance of escape.
When the subject is the same for both clauses and is expressed only once, a comma is useful if the connective is but. When the connective is and, the comma should be omitted if the relation between the two statements is close or immediate.
I have heard the arguments, but I am still unconvinced.
He has several years experience and is thoroughly competent.”
Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.
OK, here is the flip side of the coin for the post two below this one, to wit, a worksheet on forming decimals from prose. If you want it, here is the answer key.
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.
On January 6, I published 56 documents for teaching Chinua Achebe’s masterpiece Things Fall Apart. In last week’s Text, I published a similar set of documents for teaching Elie Wiesel’s Night.
This week’s Text is a batch of documents for teaching William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. I wrote these materials, but never marshalled them into a coherent unit plan, over a two-year period beginning a little over 12 years ago; after that, I never used them again, so it has been about ten years since I laid eyes on this stuff. In any case, let’s get these documents uploaded into this post.
Because I was working in global studies and United States history classrooms at the the same time that I was co-teaching the English class dealing with this novel, I perceived instantly that Golding’s novel was Thomas Hobbes’s “state of nature” nightmare, where life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” For that reason, I asked the English teacher with whom I was teaching to make an explicit connection between Hobbes and Lord of the Flies. To that end, here is a reading on Hobbes and its (extended, you’ll notice, if you’ve previously picked up these things from Mark’s Text Terminal) accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I also wrote, to follow up on students’ understanding of the Hobbesian dystopia depicted in Lord of the Flies, this independent practice worksheet that I suspect I would have assigned at about the middle of the novel. The reading and worksheet above began the unit, I’m quite sure.
Next, here are 12 context clues worksheets–one for each chapter. I’m not sure why I compiled this complete vocabulary list for the novel, let alone kept it around. Perhaps I intended them as a learning support? I just don’t remember. I have learned the hard way not to throw away work, no matter how pointless or useless it appears at second glance, so that explains that document’s presence here.
These 12 comprehension worksheets drive a basic understanding of Lord of the Flies and its allegory.
Finally, here are three quizzes on the novel. You will note that these are numbered 2, 3, and 4. If there was ever a number 1, it is lost to time. Also, these aren’t exactly some of my best work, and may well reflect my contempt for my co-teacher’s (and the administrator under whom we served) insistence on quizzes as an assessment tool. I vastly prefer expository writing–i.e. papers–as a means of assessing understanding.
And that’s it. Every document in this post is in Microsoft Word, so these are documents you can manipulate for your own–and your students’–needs.
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.
If you’ve been teaching for ten years or more, you probably remember a time in your working life before smartphones became ubiquitous and turned your classroom into a battleground of wills over the presence of these devices in school. I have only one question for people who defend the presence of smartphones in classrooms: would you want your child–or any child–arriving in class every day with a smart television set and a cable modem and wireless router?
That is, of course, a rhetorical question (unless it’s not, which is very bad news indeed for this teacher). But the fact is this: we do allow smart televisions and cable modems/wifi routers when we allow smartphones in our schools. As I like to tell students, I have nothing, and I do mean nothing, that can compete with the constant stimulation, approbation, distraction, and amusement that these devices offer. What I have is material that requires prolonged attention, engagement, consideration, analysis, and, finally, deep thought. What I offer will more often than not challenge students’ views of the world–which I think is kind of the point of education, after all.
I’ve been waiting for a moment when I would have the stamina to write a lengthy essay to accompany this extended bibliography on the hazards of screens for child development and learning. I can’t summon the outrage–probably because where outrage is concerned, my well runneth dry–to add more than these few words of expository gloss to accompany this excellent document.
But I do want to thank the good people at Parents Across America for this document–and for all the excellent work they do.
[If you would like this learning support as a Word document, just click on that hyperlink.]
“Enclose parenthetic expressions between commas.
The best way to see a country, unless you are pressed for time, is to travel on foot.
This rule is difficult to apply; it is frequently hard to decide whether a single word, such as however, or a brief phrase is or is not parenthetic. If the interruption to the flow of the sentence is but slight, the commas may be safely omitted. But whether the interruption is slight or considerable, never omit one comma and leave the other. There is no defense of such punctuation as
Marjorie’s husband, Colonel Nelson paid us a visit yesterday.
or
My brother, you will be pleased to hear, is now in perfect health,
Dates usually contain parenthetic words of figures. Punctuation is as follows:
February to July, 1992
April 6, 1986
Wednesday, November 14, 1990
Note that it is customary to omit the comma in
6 April 1988
The last form is an excellent way to write a date; the figures are separated by a word and are, for that reason, quickly grasped.
A name of title in direct address in parenthetic.
If, Sir, you refuse, I cannot predict what will happen.
Well, Susan, this is a fine mess your are in.
The abbreviations etc., i.e., and e.g., the abbreviations of academic degrees, and titles that follow a name are parenthetic and should be punctuated accordingly.
Letters, packages, etc., should go here.
Horace Fulsome, Ph.D., presided.
Rachel Simonds, Attorney
The Reverend Harry Lang, S.J.
No comma, however, should separate a noun from a restrictive term of identification.
Billy the Kid
The novelist Jane Austen
William the Conquerer
The poet Sappho
Although Junior, with its abbreviation Jr., has commonly been regarded as parenthetic, logic suggests that it is, in fact, restrictive and therefore not in need of a comma.
James Wright Jr.
Nonrestrictive relative clauses are parenthetic, as are similar clauses introduced by conjunctions indicating time or place. Commas are therefore needed. A nonrestrictive clause is one that does not serve to identify or define the antecedent noun.
The audience, which had at first been indifferent, became more and more interested.
In 1769, when Napoleon was born, Corsica had but recently been acquired by France.
Nether Stowey, where Coleridge wrote The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, is a few miles from Bridgewater.
In these sentences, the clauses introduced by which, when, and where are nonrestrictive; they do not limit or define, they merely add something. In the first example, the clause introduced by which does not serve to tell which of several possible audiences is meant; the reader presumably knows that already. The clause adds, parenthetically, a statement supplementing that in the main clause. Each of the three sentences is a combination of two statements that might have been made independently.
The audience was at first indifferent. Later it became more and more interested.
Napoleon was born in 1769. At that time Corsica had but recently been acquired by France.
Coleridge wrote The Rime of the Ancient Mariner at Nether Stowey. Nether Stowey is a few miles from Bridgewater.
Restrictive clauses, by contrast, are not parenthetic and are not set off by commas. Thus,
People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
Here the clause introduced by who does serve to tell which people are meant; the sentence, unlike the sentence above, cannot be split into two independent statements. The same principle of comma use applies to participial phrased and to appositives.
People sitting in the rear couldn’t hear. (restrictive)
Uncle Burt, being slightly deaf, moved forward, (non-restrictive)
My cousin Bob is a talented harpist. (restrictive).
Our oldest daughter, Mary, sings. (non-restrictive)
When a the main clause of a sentence is preceded by a phrase or a subordinate clause, us a comma to set off these elements.
Partly by hard fighting, partly by diplomatic skill, they enlarged their dominions to the east and rose to royal rank with the possession of Sicily.”
Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.
[The Oxford Comma is a fairly contentious issue among writers, and this squib doesn’t address that issue in punctuation usage. If you want this material in typescript form click on that hyperlink.]
In a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comma after each term except the last.
Thus write,
Red, white and blue
Gold, silver, of copper
He opened the letter, read it, and made a note of its contents.
This comma is often referred to as the “serial” comma.
In the names of business firms the last comma is usually omitted. Follow the usage of the individual firm.
Little, Brown and Company
Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette
Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.
“indirect object: An object whose semantic role is characteristically that of a recipient, e.g. to your sister in He blew a kiss to your sister; also, in most accounts, your sister in He blew your sister a kiss. Distinguished as an element in a ditransitive construction from a direct object.
The relation between sentences such as these has been described in terms of dative movement. It is in part because that relation is possible that to your sister can be distinguished, as an object, from directional phrases such as to the seaside as in He sent his family to the seaside.”
Excerpted from: Matthews, P.H., ed. The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
“Form the possessive singular of nouns by adding ‘s.
Follow this rule whatever the final consonant. Thus write,
Charles’s friend
Burns’s Poems
The witch’s malice
Exceptions are the possessives of ancient proper names ending in –es and ‘is, the possessive Jesus’, and such forms as for conscience’ sake, for righteousness sake. But such forms as Moses’ Laws, Isis’ temple are commonly replaced by
The laws of Moses
The temple of Isis
The pronominal possessives hers, its, theirs, yours and ours have no apostrophe. Indefinite pronouns, however, use the apostrophe to show possession.
One’s rights
Somebody else’s umbrella
A common error is to write it’s for its, or vice versa. The second is possessive.
It’s a wise dog that scratches its own fleas.”
Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Here’s another teaching support as a table of scripted activities structures I grabbed a couple of years ago from R. Keith Sawyer’s (ed.) book The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006). Before you blow this off like I probably would after reading the adjective “scripted”, let me point out that this isn’t scripted curriculum like the crap that various educational “innovators” or “entrepreneurs” all too frequently shill in our schools, but rather structured methods of inquiry that are, in fact, scholarly in structure.
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