Category Archives: Lesson Plans

This category identifies a post with several documents, which will include a lesson plan, and may include a short exercise to being the class (known in the New York City Department of Education as a “do-now”) a worksheet, often scaffolded, a teacher’s copy of the worksheet, and a learning support of some kind.

How Confusing Is the Mapping in English?

“The principle may not come naturally, but surely we could make the particulars easier. If you were creating an alphabet for English from scratch, you would probably create 44 letters and match each speech sound with one letter. We’d call that one-to-one matching. Written English, alas, was not created from scratch. Our language is a mongrel: Germanic origins, heavily influenced by the Norman invasion and later by the adoption of Greek and Latinate words. That’s a problem because when we borrowed words, we frequently retained the spelling conventions of the original language. The result is that English uses a many-to-many matching. One letter (or letter combination) can signify many sounds, as the letter ‘e’ does: red, flower, bee.”

Excerpted from: Willingham, Daniel T. The Reading Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2017.

A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Murder in a Bookstore”

OK, esteemed colleagues: because they continue to be the most frequently downloaded files from Mark’s Text Terminal, here is another complete Crime and Puzzlement lesson plan, this one on the “Murder in a Bookstore.”

I begin this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on Aesop’s fables. You won’t be able to do much without this PDF of the illustration and questions that drive this lesson. Finally, here is the typescript of the answer key.

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.

A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Bankward Ho!”

Since these continue to be a very popular item on Mark’s Text Terminal, here is a complete lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “Bankward Ho!”

I start this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom “You Can’t Teach an Old Dog New Tricks.” To conduct this lesson, of course, you will need this PDF of the illustration and questions that are the center of the “case.” Finally, here is the typescript of the answer key.

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.

The Weekly Text, September 13, 2019: A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Dropout”

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere on this blog, the lessons I prepared to attend the Crime and Puzzlement books are quite frequently downloaded. Because I am exhausted from trying to get the school year started, and therefore bereft of imagination and initiative, I offer, as this week’s Text, a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “Dropout.”

I use this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the expression “Sword of Damocles” to open the lesson after a class change. You’ll need this PDF of the illustration and questions that drive this lesson to teach it. Finally, here is the answer key typescript; it’s in word if you need to differentiate it for your students.

And that makes ten posts for this week, so I’m done here for the moment. I hope your school year is off to a good start.

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.

The Weekly Text, September 6, 2019: A Lesson Plan on Using Interrogative Pronouns

This week’s Text is a complete lesson plan on the interrogative. pronoun. I begin this lesson with this worksheet on the homophones you’re and your. Should classroom events stall this lesson, here is a second short exercise, this on a Cultural Literacy worksheet on plagiarism. Finally, here is the structured, scaffolded worksheet on the interrogative pronoun that is the mainstay 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.

A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Back to the Classroom”

Ok, to finish up this Sunday morning, here is a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “Back to the Classroom.”

I begin this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom “If the Shoe Fits, Wear It.” To proceed in solving this case, you and your students will need the illustration and questions that drive the lesson. Finally, here is the answer key that interprets the evidence in the illustration for students and teachers.

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.

A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Music Hath Charms”

The statistics in the back end of this website report that there is interest among the blog’s users in the various Crime and Puzzlement lessons I have published here. My own experience using these has been quite successful, as the students with whom I have used them have actually asked to do more of them. Not to put too fine a point on this, but I don’t in general serve students who make it a habit to ask for additional work.

So, here is a lesson plan on “Music Hath Charms,” yet another Crime and Puzzlement case.

I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the American idiom “Life of Riley.” Here’s the evidentiary illustration and text that is the centerpiece of the lesson. Finally, you’ll need this typescript of the answer key and explanations of evidence to assist students in solving the case.

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.

Daniel Willingham’s First Demonstration of Memory as a Professional Development Exercise

Elsewhere on this blog, I published Professor Daniel Willingham’s “First Demonstration of Memory” as a lesson for classroom use with students (in fact, if you click on that second hyperlink, it will transfer you directly to that post). I originally wrote that lesson because it has important implications for classroom practice, and I wanted to discuss those implications with students at the beginning of the school year. In fact, I give the lesson on the first day of school, before talking about classroom conduct, as a way of establishing priorities–learning–and classroom methodology–i.e. students directly involved in the pedagogy in which they will engage through the school year.

Along the way, in order to satisfy my professional development requirements, I also developed this lesson, which in some respects is a cognitive science parlor trick, for use as a professional development exercise for teachers.

To present this lesson, you will need this PDF of the article that engendered it; you might also consider reproducing the article to hand out after you conclude the lesson. Here is the lesson plan that outlines and rationalizes it use. I use this learning support with both versions of this lesson. Finally, here is the context clues worksheet on the adjective condign that concludes the exercise.

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.

The Weekly Text, 9 August 2019: A Lesson Plan on the Latin Word Root Cent

This week’s Text, delivered from Vermont, the only place to be in this month, is a complete lesson plan on the Latin word root cent–which means, you will instantly recognize, and your students will before long, hundred. I use this context clues worksheet on the noun myriad to open this lesson–it gives students a hint about where to look for the meaning of cent. Finally, here is the scaffolded worksheet that is the mainstay of this lesson. It includes cognates, so if you’re working with Spanish-speaking students–or students who speak any or the other Romance languages–they will find words they already know in that list.

You are, I hope, enjoying your summer.

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.

A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Footsteps in the Dark”

Moving right along this morning, here is another lesson plan on a Crime and Puzzlement case, “Footsteps in the Dark.”

I begin this lesson, to get students settled after a class change, with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom money burning a hole in one’s pocket. Students and teacher will need the PDF of the illustration and questions of this case to investigate and solve it. Finally, here is the typescript of the answer key for this case.

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.