Here is a worksheet on the verb ask when used with an object or an infinitive. The student asked her teacher to supply her with some more substantial and rigorous work.
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.
Moving right along this morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom “diamond in the rough.” This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences (and beware the first one, which is a long compound separated by a colon) and three comprehension questions. A short, but thorough, introduction to this commonly used idiom–in English, at least.
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 week’s Text is a lesson plan on the Greek word roots arch, archi, arche/o, and archae/o. Collectively they mean rule, chief, first, and ancient. This complicated root, as you have probably already recognized, is very productive in English: It grows relatively high-frequency words (particularly in educated discourse) like archenemy, archaeology (obviously), anarchy, archetype, architect, hierarchy, and monarchy, all of which are included in this scaffolded worksheet, which is the principal work of this lesson.
I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the adjective ancient to point students in the right direction when analyzing these word roots.
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.
For the fifth and final Friday of National Native American Heritage Day 2024, here is a reading on Geronimo with its attendant 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.
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on pueblos, the outstanding example of which is at Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. This is a half-page worksheet with a three-sentence reading and three comprehension questions. It’s a good general introduction to the concept of the pueblo, including the origin of the use of this Spanish word to describe these indigenous dwellings.
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, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on noble savage archetype. This is a half-page worksheet with a three sentence reading and three comprehension questions.
This was a concept, I can say with some pleasure, that my high school teachers disabused me of quickly. It’s a good thing, too, because (“Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!” as I delighted in hearing Gomer Pyle USMC say when I watched that show as a child), despite what this worksheet avers in placing the origin of this concept with Jean-Jacques Rousseau, it turns out not to be the case.
In fact, in addition to the many problems implicit in the term itself, it happens that Rousseau never uttered the term, and that the concept and the linguistic clothes it wears are the product of poet and playwright John Dryden, who invoked the stereotype in his play The Conquest of Granada by the Spaniards. When the term is next heard, it is from the mouths of physician James Crawfurd and anthropologist James Hunt, who erected the term as a signpost en route to scientific racism. Apparently, in the process of their “work,” Crawfurd deliberately misattributed noble savage to Rousseau.
So, with this short document, there is a lesson on debunking that I will write sometime in the future. I can tell you that only the most cursory research yielded the results in the foregoing paragraph. So, there is quite a bit of juicy stuff here–especially for inquisitive high school students.
Finally, if you want to see the decisive send-up of the noble savage stereotype (or, alternatively, if you’re interested in trying some excellent series television), check out Dallas Goldtooth’s hilarious performance as William “Spirit” Knifeman in Reservation Dogs–one of the best things ever to appear on television in my opinion.
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.
Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Social Sciences, Worksheets
Tagged building vocabulary/conceptual knowledge, cultural literacy, diction/grammar/style/usage, fiction/literature, film/television/photography, first nation/indigenous peoples' history, professional development, science literacy
“American Indian Languages: Languages spoken by the original inhabitants of the Americas and the West Indies and by their modern descendants. They display an extraordinary structural range, and no attempt to unite them into a small number of genetic groupings has won general acceptance. Before Columbus, more than 300 distinct languages were spoken in North America north of Mexico by an estimated population of 2-7 million. Today there are fewer than 170 languages, of which a great majority are spoken fluently only by older adults. A few widespread language families (Algonquian, Iroquoian, Siouan, Muskogean, Athabaskan, Uto-Aztecan, Salishan) account for many of the languages of eastern and interior North America, though the far west was an area of extreme diversity (see Hokan, Penutian). In Mexico and north Central America (Mesoamerica), an estimated 15-20 million people spoke more than 300 languages before Columbus. The large Otomanguean and Mayan families and a single language, Nahuatl, shared Mesoamerica with many smaller families and language isolates. More than 10 of these languages and languages complexes still have over 100,000 speakers. South American and the West Indies had an estimated pre-Columbian population of 10-20 million, speaking more than 500 languages. Important language families include Chibchan in Columbia and south Central America, Quechuan and Aymaran in the Andean regions, and Arawakan, Cariban, and Tupian and north and central lowland South America. Aside from Quechuan and Aymaran, with about 10 million speakers, and the Tupian language Guarani, most remaining South American Indian languages have very few speakers, and some face extinction before linguists can adequately record them.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
This week’s Text, in observation of the fourth Friday of National Native American Heritage Month 2024, is this reading on Pine Ridge along with its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.
The Pine Ridge Reservation entered my consciousness in 1973, when activists from the American Indian Movement (AIM) began the Wounded Knee Occupation. AIM had earlier, for almost two years between 1969 and 1971, occupied the Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. I was dimly aware of that, but by 1973 I’d become much more aware, having read by then for the first time Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart and Wounded Knee. In 1975, members of the Menominee Nation seized the Alexian Brothers Novitiate in Gresham, Wisconsin; I lived in Madison at the time, and my high school friends and I followed these events with keen interest.
This reading pulls no punches about the role of the United States government in creating neglect and failure in the way it proceeded with establishing Native American reservations. The massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890 took place at Pine Ridge. Enough said.
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 Hiawatha. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of four sentences and four comprehension questions about an actual person shrouded in myth.
When I reviewed this document just now, it looked, unsurprisingly, a bit crammed. It might be better revised as a full-page worksheet. If it happens that you are teaching Henry Wadsworth Longellow’s poem (i.e. the aforementioned myth, which in any case I rather doubt is much taught anywhere, anymore) about Hiawatha, “The Song of Hiawatha,” I imagine there might be a place for this worksheet.
Otherwise, I don’t know. I do know I can think of several English teachers I worked with who wouldn’t know either Longfellow or one of his most famous poems.
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 Navajos, who, as you may know, call themselves the Dine, pronounced dee-nay. The Navajo nation is the largest federally recognized First Nation tribe in the United States; they inhabit the largest reservation here.
This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of five sentences with five comprehension questions. Beware the final sentence, which is a doozy of a compound separated by two (!) semicolons. Because of my commitment to presenting excerpted text with complete fidelity to the original, I have not edited this final sentence. If you look at each clause, you’ll see that separating this is relatively easy, as in something like this:
Original: Today, they are known for their houses, called hogans, made of logs and earth; for their work as ranchers and shepherds; and for their skill in weaving distinctive blankets and fashioning turquoise and silver jewelry.
Revision: Today, they are known for their houses, called hogans, made of logs and earth. The Navajo also work as ranchers and shepherds. Their skill in weaving distinctive blankets and fashioning turquoise and silver jewelry is also well known.
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.
 | A Measurement Conver… on An Elegantly Simple Cooking Co… |
| A Measurement Conver… on The Weekly Text, October 25, 2… |
 | markstextterminal on Cree |
 | panzer046a139293db on Cree |
| markstextterminal on Cree |
Mark's Text Terminal 
You must be logged in to post a comment.