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.

A Lesson Plan on Linking Verbs

Posted on December 3, 2019 | Leave a comment

Here is a complete lesson plan on linking verbs. Because sentences with predicate adjectives are one of the most commonly used structures in both English prose and speech, I teach them several times in the course of the parts of speech unit I wrote several years ago (and continue to revise).

Anyway, here is the Cultural Literacy worksheet on intransitive verbs with which I open this lesson after a class break. This scaffolded worksheet on linking verbs is at the center of this lesson. Finally, here is a learning support on the verb to be to help students conjugate this often confusing verb.

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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A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Boy Scout”

Posted on December 2, 2019 | Leave a comment

Moving right along, here is a complete lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “Boy Scout.”

I open this lesson, after the relative chaos of a class change, with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the American English idiom bone to pick. This PDF of the illustration and questions of the case is the centerpiece of the lesson. Finally, here is the typescript of the answer key to finish the lesson by 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.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Lesson Plans, Social Sciences, Worksheets

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A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Kidnap”

Posted on November 22, 2019 | Leave a comment

OK, moving right along on this Friday morning, here is a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “Kidnap.”

I open this lesson, after the fractiousness of a class change, with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom “bee in one’s bonnet.” You’ll need this PDF of the reading and questions that drive the case. Finally, here is the typescript of the answer key that solves 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.

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The Weekly Text, November 8, 2019: A Lesson Plan on the Art of Summarizing

Posted on November 8, 2019 | Leave a comment

Alright, this week’s Text is a lesson plan on the art of summarizing which is part of a bigger unit on argumentation that I wrote–but used only once–a couple of years ago.

This context clues worksheet on the verb concede (which is used transitively, but can be used intransitively, according to Merriam-Webster’s, by writing to make concession) opens the lesson. I use this exemplar of a summary, drawn from the book that informs this unit, Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein’s They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing (New York: Norton, 2018) as a learning support and model text. This learning support on the verbs used in the rhetorical figures of argumentation supplies students with the vocabulary they require to postulate and write sound arguments. Here are the two exercises for summarizing that are at the center of this lesson. Finally, here is the worksheet for this lesson that contains the full text of the exemplar linked to above.

And that’s it for another week at Mark’s Text Terminal. Enjoy the weekend.

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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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Lesson Plans, Reference, Social Sciences, The Weekly Text, Worksheets

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A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Snow Cover”

Posted on November 6, 2019 | Leave a comment

It has been a busy week already, but I’m forcing a few minutes of time this morning to publish this lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “Snow Cover.”

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Apollo with which I open this lesson. The center of this lesson is, of course, this PDF of the illustration and questions that drive the case. Finally, here is the typescript of the answer key that solves 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.

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The Weekly Text, November 1, 2019: A Lesson Plan on the Use of Transitive and Intransitive Verbs

Posted on November 1, 2019 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is a lesson plan on differentiating and using transitive and intransitive verbs. I think it’s important that students understand these kinds of words because if they decide to study an inflected language, they will need to understand how to decline the direct objects of verbs, which often take the accusative case in such languages. I ran into this while studying Russian all those years ago.

In any case, the first do-now exercise for this lesson is this Cultural Literacy worksheet on transitive verbs. If this lesson, for whatever reason, goes into a second day, then here is an Everyday Edit worksheet on Dr. Seuss; if you and your students like that document, then you can find a yearlong supply of them for free from the good people at Education World. Finally, here is the scaffolded worksheet 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.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Lesson Plans, Social Sciences, The Weekly Text, Worksheets

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How Confusing Is the Mapping in English?

Posted on October 21, 2019 | Leave a comment

“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.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Essays/Readings, Lesson Plans, Quotes, Reference

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

Posted on October 17, 2019 | Leave a comment

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.

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

Posted on September 30, 2019 | Leave a comment

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.

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

Posted on September 13, 2019 | Leave a comment

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.

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