This six-sentence reading in this Cultural Literacy worksheet on South Korea does a very nice job of summarizing the last seventy-five or so years of South Korean history. The six comprehension questions, which I wrote, are up for your judgment.
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.
“James Wong Howe originally Wong Tung Jim: (1899-1976) U.S. cinematographer. At age 5 he emigrated with his family to the U.S. He worked in Hollywood from 1917 and became a cameraman for Cecil B. DeMille. He developed innovations in lighting in the 1920s and pioneered the use of the wide-angle lens, deep focus, and the handheld camera. His low-key cinematography is seen in such films as Kings Row (1942), Body and Soul (1947), Picnic (1956), The Rose Tattoo (1955, Academy Award), and Hud (1963, Academy Award).”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
OK, let’s face (or at least I should) a simple fact: this reading on mahjong and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet are not exactly essential materials.
This board game did arrive in this country from China, so it does have relevance to Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2026. And this relatively short reading is interesting: it notes the game’s popularity among Jewish women (my mother, and her mother, neither of whom was Jewish, played it with their Jewish friends when I was a very little kid) and speculates that this stems from the proximity in tenements of Jewish and Chinese people in American cities.
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.
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Mount Everest. This is a half-page worksheet with a three-sentence reading and three comprehension questions. A nicely symmetrical inquiry into Mount Everest.
Which is, after all, the tallest peak in the world. The mountain fascinated my crowd in high school, and we all rushed to see The Man Who Skied Down Everest when it arrived in Madison in early 1976. After seeing it, alas, we ridiculed it as an ego-driven mess that would have been better titled The Man Who Fell Down Everest.
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.
For the third Friday of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2026, the Weekly Text is this reading on Sikhism along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Like just about everything I post during themed history months, this article derives from one of the books (the first one, actually) in the Intellectual Devotional series. Basically, these documents are a miniature research assignment.
And, like just about everything you’ll find on this website, these documents are formatted in Microsoft Word for ease of adaptation and other manipulation.
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.
Last but not least this morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Upanishads. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of one sentence and one comprehension question.
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.
OK, for the second week of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2026, Mark’s Text Terminal offers as its Weekly Text this reading on Sufism and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Sufism, as you may know, is a mystical sect of Islam.
Are you aware that there are as many as 73 sects in Islam? And that there are a group of Muslims known as “non-denominational Muslims?” We Americans tend to think of Islam as homogenous–and, alas, in the view of far too many people in the United States, sinister.
It behooves us to know, understand, and respect our neighbors.
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.
Here, in what appears to be a spate of posts on religious and philosophical themes, is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Taoism. This is a half-page worksheet with a two-sentence reading and two comprehension questions. A basic, symmetrical introduction to this school of thought and belief.
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.
This Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of yin and yang might be of some use in your classroom. I know it was something that greatly interested my pals and me back in high school.
This is half-page worksheet with a reading of two longish sentences and two comprehension questions. I don’t think these two sentences, while long, will cause much problems for students, even those struggling with reading. But what do you think?
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.
May 1 brings us May Day, but also the beginning of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2026. Mark’s Text Terminal observes this month with a series of posts dealing with subjects in Asian area studies, quotes, and biographies.
So let’s start with this reading on Confucius with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.
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.
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