Danielle McLeod is a highly qualified secondary English Language Arts Instructor who brings a diverse educational background to her classroom. With degrees in science, English, and literacy, she has worked to create cross-curricular materials to bridge learning gaps and help students focus on effective writing and speech techniques. Currently working as a dual credit technical writing instructor at a Career and Technical Education Center, her curriculum development surrounds student focus on effective communication for future career choices.
The decidedly lighthearted British phrase, Bob’s your uncle, is commonly seen at the end of sentences that provide simple instructions, but what does it mean? The English use it quite often as an exclamatory term, but it’s gained recognition in the United States through international sports broadcasting. Despite its rise …
Is it weather or whether or not? And what is a whether? If you struggle with the spelling and use of these homonyms, you aren’t alone. All three, despite having the same pronunciation, mean very different things. Let’s look at their definitions and meanings so you better understand how to …
Is it one S or two? When it comes to the words desert and dessert, most people struggle with the spelling, not the definition. It’s easy to know if you want to order a slice of cake for dessert versus whether you want to learn more about desert animals, but …
The ampersand used to be part of the alphabet and has been used since the Roman Empire. It is a symbol that replaces the word “and” and is often used as part of an official name or in various forms of informal writing. Despite its longevity in the written language, …
The English language is full of grammar rules designed to help your writing and speech make sense to your audience. However, these rules often confuse anyone new to the language. “A” and “an” are indefinite articles and work to modify the noun they precede. They are important to use to …
The subtle differences between the words angle and angle make them confusing to use in writing and speech. They may look alike, but their pronunciation and meanings are very different. Let’s take a closer look at the differences between these two words, how to use them, and what tricks you …
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Misspell means to spell a word incorrectly, but it also happens to be a word that is commonly misspelled. How ironic. Proper spelling and use of any word are important to ensure your readers fully understand your writing. Misspellings are common with new writers and English language learners. So what …
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There are many terms used in English that are recognized worldwide due to being borrowed from other languages. These are usually words or phrases that are very specific to what they are referencing and lose their unique meaning when translated. Prima donna is one such word. Originally used to describe …
To say the idiom cannot see the forest for the trees means that a person or organization cannot see the big picture because the focus is too much on the details. It would be like someone needing to paint an entire house in one day, but spending half the day on picking …
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Google has become a commonplace term used in everyday speech to indicate the need to search for an answer. To google something is synonymous with “looking up” information or getting a lead on specific research materials despite the word indicating a specific search engine. Because it is part of our …