Category Archives: English Language Arts

Starting with this post, and going up from here for a total of eleven documents posts (twenty-two if you count the interstitial quotes), I will publish an entire global studies unit. As I mentioned previously, especially below, where I posted the bulk of another global studies unit, I have, over the years, written and rewritten a number of global studies units as the New York State Global History and Geography Regents Examination changed. For this unit, I can’t remember, to paraphrase Lillian Hellman, how I cut the curriculum to fit that year’s fashion, only that I know that I changed these almost every year for ten years.

And, I am sorry to say, some of this isn’t exactly my best work. Units and lessons grow and mature over time. But when one must change the basic content or them every year (and I sometimes needed to do this for the needs of students, which is another story, and which I am much happier to do), units and lessons never have a chance to deepen, to mature. That loss of time to develop is the thing that primarily afflicts this unit. As I rewrite them, I kept the do-now exercises intact, so as I post these, you may see some repetition.

I considered throwing this material into the digital dumpster, but I can’t bring myself to do that. And, because I probably can continue to blog at the rate I do and not use up the storage I purchase from WordPress for this site for about 100 years, I don’t need to scrimp on uploading documents. Also, I’ve learned the hard way about throwing things away: the minute I do, I want or need them.

So, without further ado, here is first of two lessons on Sumer. Like another version of this lesson, I opened this one with this context clues worksheet on the verb banish; in the event that this lesson goes into a second day, here is another context clues worksheet, this one on the noun age, in the sense of “a period of time dominated by a central figure or prominent feature.” Finally, here is the worksheet with a reading and comprehension questions that is at the center of this lesson.

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.