Yearly Archives: 2020

Term of Art: Metacognition

“The awareness and knowledge of an individual’s own mental processes; the ability to think about thinking, Metacognition refers to one’s understanding of what strategies are available for learning and what strategies are best used in which situations, It involves the ability to select and manage cognitive strategies effectively. Ordinarily these abilities develop in childhood; children learn that mental activities go along with decision making. They know when they know something and when they do not.

Metacognition skills are directly related to reading, writing, problem solving, and any process that requires error monitoring. Students must be able to examine how they learn best and what resources they can draw upon in order to set and achieve academic goals.

One of the reasons individuals with learning disabilities tend to have academic difficulties is a lack of skills in selecting and managing task-appropriate strategies. Many theorists and educators believe these skills can be intentionally taught and developed.”

Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.

Eleven Worksheets on Famous Photographers

I recently started a new job at a middle school (which I already regret, but that’s another story), where I teach a couple of students interested in photography. It happens that both of them have a natural gift for composing shots. I wrote these eleven worksheets on famous photographers for English and study skills instruction for these kids.

These documents are simple research templates to be used with the internet. I suspect I will never use these again, but I also suspect that someone, somewhere, might also get some use out of them. Most of the major American photographers are represented, and I did the best I could to distribute evenly between men and women. You’ll find a worksheet on the legendary Robert Capa, as well as Vivian Maier, the subject of a fascinating documentary which I have watched four times because I can’t get over the richness of Ms. Maier’s story.

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.

Rotten Rejections: Jerzy Kosinski

“In 1969 Steps, a novel by Jerzy Kosinski, won the National Book Award. Six years later a freelance writer named Chuck Ross, to test the old theory that a novel by an unknown author doesn’t have a chance, typed the first twenty-one pages of Steps and sent them out to four publishers as the work of “Erik Demos.” All four rejected the manuscript. Two years after that he typed out the whole book an sent it, again credited to Erik Demos, to more publishers, including the original publisher of the Kosinski book, Random House. Again, all rejected it with unhelpful comments–Random House used a form letter. Altogether, fourteen publishers (and thirteen literary agents) failed to recognize a book that had already been published and had won an important prize.”

Excerpted from: Bernard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.

Discreet (adj), Discrete (adj)

Here are five homophones worksheets on the adjectives discreet and discrete, which are almost inarguably words students should know by the time they graduate high school.

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.

Term of Art: Divergent Thinking

“Divergent thinking: Imaginative thinking, characterized by the generation of multiple possible solutions to a problem, often associated with creativity. The concept was introduced in 1946 by the US psychologist J(oy) P(aul) Guilford (1897-1987) and is one of the five different types of mental operations in Guilford’s cube.”

Excerpted from: Colman, Andrew M., ed. Oxford Dictionary of Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

A Lesson Plan on Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

OK, wrapping up on a Wednesday afternoon, here is a lesson plan on obsessive-compulsive disorder. You’ll need this short reading and this vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet to teach this material. If you want slightly longer versions of the reading and worksheet, they’re under that hyperlink.

Nota bene that this has tended to be high-interest material among the students I’ve taught over the years, which is why I tagged it as such.

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.

Book of Answers: The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window

Where was The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window? In the 1964 play of the same name by Lorraine Hansberry, it was located in Greenwich Village, New York City.

Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

Everyday Edit: Charles R. Drew

Were you aware that Charles R. Drew, a black man, discovered that blood plasma could last over time if it were kept cool? I wasn’t until I began using this Everyday Edit worksheet on him about ten years ago. If you’d like more of these, you can find them at Education World, where you can actually take for free a whole year’s supply of them.

If you find typos in this document, fix them, for heaven’s sake! It’s an Everyday Edit worksheet….

Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin

Go Tell It on the Mountain: The first novel (1953) of the black US writer James Baldwin (1924-1987). The book has autobiographical undertones, and the climax is the religious conversion of a 14-year-old Harlem boy. At the center of the book are the boy’s troubled relations with his stepfather, a preacher of the storefront Temple of the Fire Baptized. Aspects of the slave era and of life in a dysfunctional family are recounted in flashbacks. The phrase ‘Go Tell It on the Mountain’ appears in the refrain of an African-American spiritual:

‘Go, tell it on the mountain,

Over the hills and everywhere

Go, tell it on the mountain,

That Jesus Christ is born’”

Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.

Cultural Literacy: Civil Disobedience

As is (I hope) well known, Dr. King found in civil disobedience the key to winning the struggle for dignity and basic civil rights for Americans of African descent. So, I believe I am justified in including this Cultural Literacy worksheet on civil disobedience in Mark’s Text Terminal’s observation of Black History Month 2020.

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.