Category Archives: Independent Practice

This is material either specifically designed for or appropriate to use for what is more commonly known as “homework.”

The Weekly Text, January 15, 2016: Two Glossaries on the Parts of Speech

Posted on January 15, 2016 | Leave a comment

It has been a hectic week, characteristic of January in this school, which is always a concatenation of testing and extracurricular activities. For this week’s text, I offer up a couple of learning supports. The first is a basic glossary of the parts of the speech. This version of this support contains simple descriptions of each of the parts of speech with a few spare examples of their use. The second is a supported glossary of the parts of speech which includes a fuller description of each part of speech, along with some sentences that demonstrate their use.

If you use these, as always, I’d very much like to hear how; moreover, I’d like to hear from you if you have any suggestions about how I might further develop or improve these learning supports–or how you have done so.

Earlier this week, I had a very interesting experience teaching the words empirical and empiricism, by way of context clues worksheets, to some of the struggling readers and learners whom I serve. In both of the classes in which I used these worksheets, students, secondary to my Socratic questioning, were able to infer the meanings of both of these highly abstract words. Next week or the week after, as time permits, I plan to post these worksheets with a blog post on the line of questioning I used to elicit the meanings of these words.

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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The Weekly Text, January 8, 2016: A Lesson Plan on Teaching the Ordinal Centuries

Posted on January 8, 2016 | Leave a comment

Over the years, I have seen students suffer persistent confusion over the difference between the cardinal (counting numbers) and ordinal (numbers that place things in rank or order) numbers historians, and therefore social studies teachers, use to name and number centuries. It goes without saying, I assume, that a lack of understanding of this basic means of understanding historical time leads to confusion about the scope, sequence and, indeed, sweep of history. Understanding this discourse is by any standard, I should think, necessary for any basic understanding of what is going on in a social studies classroom.

Yet, I have not seen this way of understanding historical time taught explicitly in my thirteen years as a social studies/English/special education teacher.

So, fresh from Mark’s Text Terminal for the New Year, here is a complete lesson plan on teaching the ordinal centuries. Under this link you’ll find a lesson plan, two context clues for the noun phrase cardinal number and the adjective ordinal (and you may want to take a look at the Focus on One Word Worksheets Users’ Manual to work with those), and a scaffolded 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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The Weekly Text, December 11, 2015: A Learning Support on the Most Commonly Used Prepositions

Posted on December 11, 2015 | Leave a comment

After a long absence for a basic civic responsibility, I am back at work, teaching and writing lesson plans. It’s the end of a marking period, and my students, to my great surprise, are glad to have me back. So I’m quite busy trying to catch up with paperwork and engage my students in creating meaning. Here, in the penultimate text for 2015 (I don’t plan to post Weekly Texts over the holiday break) is a learning support for the most commonly used prepositions in the English language.

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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The Weekly Text, December 4, 2015: A Worksheet on the Greek Word Root Phobia

Posted on December 4, 2015 | Leave a comment

OK, here’s a quick weekly text, starting with a context clues worksheet on the noun triskaidedaphobia. This might well serve as a template for the context clues worksheet in general–you will notice, as your students probably will, that this word means fear of the number 13. I believe the context for inferring meaning is fairly strong in these sentences.

This might also be a good time to use this worksheet on the Greek word root phobia, the utility of which I expect is obvious. This root shows up in so many words in English that knowledge of it is nothing short of de rigeur. 

Addendum, May 28, 2019. Here is a comprehensive list of phobias from the pages of the Oxford Dictionary of Psychology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003) that might interest your students; kids to tend to find this kind of thing fascinating.

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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The Weekly Text, November 13, 2015: A Lesson Plan on the Elements of a Declarative Sentence

Posted on November 13, 2015 | Leave a comment

For the second year, as I have mentioned elsewhere on this blog, I have struggled to assemble a structured and scaffolded unit on writing the five-paragraph essay for the eight-week special institute class required of freshmen in my school. The premise of the exercise–that all there is to be learned about composing five-paragraph essays–and therefore, I guess, all essays–can be learned in eight class meetings has always struck me as…well, to put it as charitably as possible, problematic. This approach is especially problematic for the struggling learners I serve.

So, I’ve worked at creating a unit that leads students who struggle with writing and reading, and don’t really understand the elements of grammatically complete sentence, to an understanding of how to write expository prose. My own sense remains that for the students I work with, this material would be best presented seriatim in daily classroom sessions rather than once a week, and that it should be presented one step at a time over two eight-lesson units rather than one. The five-paragraph essay is not the only form of expository writing students will need to learn, so why not make that form part of a broader and deeper strategy on teaching writing?

When I went through the first unit just now, I found that I hadn’t made the kind of progress on it that I’d hoped. In any case, I think these units will undergo revision each time I use them to meet the need the students I work with. On that note, here is a lesson on the elements of a declarative sentence, the first from my unit on writing the five-paragraph essay.

N.B., please, that in several of the sentence setups in exercises one through eight have a series of asterisks where the subject should be. This is so you may, if you choose, insert names of your students for use as subjects, and the same is true of the parsing sentences do-now work that opens the lesson. Please see the About Weekly Texts page for the rationale behind this.

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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The Weekly Text, November 6, 2015: Two Paragraph Analysis Worksheets

Posted on November 6, 2015 | Leave a comment

Over the past couple of years, I’ve been asked to participate in a special institute class in my school on writing the five-paragraph essay. I find this approach, particularly for the struggling students I serve, confining and tedious. Nonetheless, I set out this year to write my own scaffolded curriculum for this class, which meets once a week. Here are two paragraph analysis worksheets that I developed to use in helping students understand the underlying structure of paragraphs. The reading is high interest, and the questions basic.

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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The Weekly Text, October 30, 2015: A Learning Support on Pronouns and Case

Posted on October 30, 2015 | Leave a comment

For this week, I offer this learning support on pronouns and case. I’d hoped to have some new lesson plans prepared to post here, but the civic responsibility of jury duty has occupied my time and prevented me from working on them.

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.

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The Weekly Text, October 23, 2015: Documents for Teaching Word and Concepts Stemming from the Latin Word Root Agr-o and Agri

Posted on October 23, 2015 | Leave a comment

This week I offer some word study work on a key word and concept in Freshman Global Studies here in New York State (and elsewhere, I must assume), to wit, agriculture. For starters, here is a worksheet on the Latin word roots agr-o and agri. These are relatively productive roots–they mean “crop production” and “field”– and the words on this worksheet are in common use in American English as well as appearing on various high stakes college and graduate school entry exams. You may need the Word Root Worksheets Users’ Manual to use this material.

I’ve also included two context clues worksheets for the words agriculture and agrarian to solidify understanding of  these words’ meaning by showing them in use in context. To use these, you may want to take a look at the Focus on One Word Worksheets Users’ Manual.

That’s it! It’s the busy time of the school year–then again, between Labor Day and the last day of school, when are teachers not busy?

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.

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The Weekly Text, October 16, 2015: A Learning Support on Commonly Used Conjunctions

Posted on October 16, 2015 | Leave a comment

Over the years,  many if not most of the high school students I’ve served alerted me to the fact that it isn’t possible to begin a sentence with because. Of course that is incorrect, and it means that no one taught them the use of subordinating conjunctions–probably because this skill isn’t on the high-stakes test du jour. It’s true that this is a moderately tricky area of English usage, but with proper preparation, I believe it is possible to teach the use of all three types of conjunctions–coordinating, subordinating, and correlative–effectively and with ease. To that end, here is a learning support on the most commonly used conjunctions of all three types.

I believe strongly in teaching the parts of speech to struggling learners. Properly planned, units on each part of speech provide a variety of ways to foster and improve literacy. Over the years, I have developed units on all the parts of speech, and they now constitute a nearly yearlong course of study in my English Language Arts classes. The conjunctions unit is the last of them I need to complete, and I’m working on it now. Over time, I’ll post a variety of learning supports from these units on Mark’s Text Terminal.

UPDATE, December 14, 2015: Since I wrote this post, I have revised the learning support it includes three times, the most recently today. In the process of finding the document on my computer to revise it, I discovered that I have a second, more complete learning support for conjunctions in my English Language Arts Support folder. I probably set this one aside because it’s a little too complicated for the students I’m currently serving. In any case, to write a unit around this support is more than I can take on right now. Perhaps you’ll find it useful?

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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The Weekly Text, October 9, 2015: An Exercise on the Greek Word Roots Syn, Sym, Syl, and Sys

Posted on October 9, 2015 | Leave a comment

Because I teach a relatively large population of native Spanish speakers (who are, of course, bilingual, which often makes their low levels of literacy confounding to me), I tend to assign Latin word roots to freshmen, and Greek word roots to sophomores. It goes without saying that I aim to show freshmen, by way of Latin word roots, the commonalities between their native tongue and English–which is, of course, Latin and its roots.

Accordingly, when I publish word root worksheets, I’ll alternate between Latin and Greek roots. This week’s Text is a worksheet on the Greek word roots syn, sym, syl, and sys. As you can see, these are very productive roots–they mean together and same–which are at the base of a number of key high school vocabulary words, not the least of which, for both students and teachers, is synthesis.

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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