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.

The Weekly Text, June 28, 2018: A Lesson Plan on Using the Interrogative Pronoun

This week’s Text is a complete lesson plan on the using the interrogative pronoun. I start this lesson with this homophone worksheet on the contraction you’re and the possessive pronoun your. If for some reason (and there are often plenty of reasons for this) the lesson goes into a second day, I like to keep nearby this Cultural Literacy worksheet on plagiarism, which I use with other lessons as well (I find one cannot emphasize the issue of plagiarism enough). The center of this lesson this scaffolded worksheet on using the interrogative pronoun. Finally, here is the teacher’s copy of the 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.

The Weekly Text, June 22, 2018: A Lesson Plan on Developing Thesis Statements

This week’s Text is a lesson plan on postulating theses, i.e developing thesis statements, I wrote for somewhat more advanced students in our Wednesday afternoon institute class. Here is the worksheet that attends the lesson and the teacher’s copy of the worksheet. I wrote this last fall, and used it once; if ever you felt inclined to comment on Mark’s Text Terminal, I would enthusiastically welcome your comments on these documents. The unit of which they are a part is still in the developmental stage.

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, June 22, 2018: A Lesson Plan on Using Adverbs to Modify Verbs

Today’s Text is a complete lesson plan on using adverbs to modify adverbs. I start this lesson with this short exercise on the idiom “money burning a hole in one’s pocket.” Should this lesson go into a second day, here is a second short exercise, this one a on the homophones pore, poor, and pour. The mainstay of this lesson is this scaffolded worksheet on using adverbs to modify adverbs. Depending on the students you’re serving, they may need this learning support, which is a word bank to use with the cloze exercises on the worksheet. Finally, here is the teacher’s copy-answer key of the 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.

The Weekly Text, June 8, 2018: A Lesson Plan on Using Adverbs to Modify Adjectives

This week’s Text is a complete lesson plan on using adverbs to modify adjectives.

I begin this lesson with this short Cultural Literacy exercise on the idiomatic expression If the shoe fits, wear it. I like to keep a second do-now ready in the event that this lesson, for whatever reason, runs into a second day, so here is a second Cultural Literacy on the concept of avatar. This structured, scaffolded worksheet on adverbs modifying adjectives is the mainstay of this lesson, and you will probably want the teacher’s copy of it as well. Finally, here is a learning support in the form of a word bank that will help your students identify the best words to use in the cloze exercises in the first section of the worksheet.

That’s it. See you next week, if not before.

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 Worksheet on Identifying Active Verbs

Over the past couple of days, and after a couple of decades, I reread William Zinsser’s fine book Writing to Learn; it was every bit as good as I remembered it. William Zinsser was a superlative prose stylist himself. Reading him on writing, quite simply, is a glimpse inside the workshop of a master.

And I found a passage in it, which Mr. Zinsser excerpted from something Norman Mailer wrote about the infamous Benny Paret vs. Emile Griffith III fight in 1962. Because I have a student this year involved and interested in boxing, I grabbed the passage and worked up, just now, this short exercise on identifying active verbs in a passage of text. Nota bene that there are two pages in this document; the second is the teacher’s copy/answer key with the active verbs in bold. I’m still trying to figure out lesson plans for these one-off differentiated worksheets. If you can use it, here is a lesson plan template to accompany the worksheet, which you can complete as you see fit (obviously).

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.

The Weekly Text, June 1, 2018: A Lesson Plan on the Latin Word Roots Ann and Enn

The end of the school year is right around the corner, and it couldn’t come a moment too soon for me. After next week, we here in New York City (and the state as well, I guess) are looking at two weeks of high-stakes testing, which is akin to slow-motion nightmare.

Anyway, one of the things I’ve noticed when I analyze the page-view statistics here at Mark’s Text Terminal is that people fairly heavily traffic the word root worksheets I have posted over the past three years. As it happens, last summer, after several months of deliberation, I took some of those worksheets and formed them into a year-long, one-instructional-period-per-week unit for building basic academic vocabulary in the students it is my privilege to serve.

So, here is the lesson plan that accompanies this worksheet on the Latin word roots ann and enn–they mean year. Finally, here is a context clues worksheet on the adverb yearly. One of the things you’ll notice about these word root lessons, if you choose to use the do-now exercise to start the lesson, is that the do-now worksheets contain a hint to the meaning of the root. I wrote all the context clues worksheets for these lessons specifically for them, to show students, even within the confines of a 44-minute long class period, that prior knowledge (i.e. that gained from work on the do-now exercise) is useful in understanding the mainstay of the lesson (i.e. the word root worksheet itself).

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, April 27, 2018: A Lesson Plan on Using the Personal Pronoun in the Possessive Case

It’s Friday again, so it’s time for another Weekly Text.  This week I offer a complete lesson plan on using the personal pronoun in the possessive case. I begin this lesson with this short exercise on the homophones to, too, and two; in the event the lesson runs into a second day, I keep this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the rhetorical question in reserve. The mainstay of this lesson is this structured, scaffolded worksheet on using the personal pronoun in the possessive case. Here, also, is the teacher’s copy of the worksheet to help you get through the lesson. Finally, here is a learning support on pronouns and case that both your and your students might find useful for this lesson–and elsewhere.

That’s it. It finally feels like spring here, so it’s one of the best times of year her in the Big Apple. On second thought, though, aren’t all the seasons marvelous here?

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, April 13, 2018: A Lesson Plan on Using Adverbs of Time

It’s Friday the thirteenth, and so far nothing bad has happened in my tiny corner of the universe; I hope the same is true for you.

This week’s Text is a complete lesson plan on using adverbs of time. I begin this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on anthropomorphism. However, if the concept of anthropomorphism is too abstract for your students, or if this lesson enters a second day, then here is a homophone worksheet on the nouns profit and prophet that may well be useful to you in other areas of your practice. When teaching this lesson, I also use this learning support which might also be useful elsewhere in your classroom; it’s in Microsoft Word, in any case, so it will be easy to bend to your needs. Here is the structured, scaffolded worksheet that is the mainstay of this lesson. Finally, here is the teacher’s copy of the worksheet to guide you in guiding your students.

And that’s it for another week. I hope spring has sprung where you live. The first azaleas are in bloom in the New York Botanical Garden, which is pleasant indeed.

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, January 19, 2018: A Complete Lesson Plan on Using Coordinating Conjunctions

OK, it’s Friday again, and like everybody else, I guess, I anticipate the weekend with relief.

This week’s Text is a complete lesson plan on using coordinating conjunctions. I begin this lesson with this homophone worksheet on the the noun council and counsel used as both noun and a verb. If this lesson runs into a second day (I always plan for a variety of contingencies in a class period), here is–courtesy of the generous folks at Education World, where you can get a year-long supply of these exercises–an Everyday Edit exercise on Banned Books Week. The mainstay of this lesson is this scaffolded worksheet that guides students through the use of coordinating conjunctions. Finally, you’ll probably find helpful the teacher’s copy of the 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.

The Weekly Text, January 5, 2018: A Complete Lesson on Adverbs Modifying Sentences

The New Year blew in to New York City with a “cyclone bomb” yesterday, whatever that is. For my part, I went out to lunch about three blocks from my apartment building in The Bronx. Imagine, if you can, a violent midsummer thunderstorm; instead of warm temperatures and rain, however, it was twenty-two degrees with relatively wet (especially considering the temperature) and heavy snow driven by strong winds.

Anyway, Happy New Year!

This week’s Text is a complete lesson plan on adverbs modifying sentences. To begin this lesson, I use this Cultural Literacy worksheet on dogma. If the lesson runs into a second day, and you wish to use a short do-now exercise to get it started, here is a parsing sentences worksheet on adjectives. The mainstay of this lesson is this structured exercise on using adverbs to modify entire sentences. When teaching this lesson, I find students more often than not require (or at least benefit from) this word-bank learning support. Finally, for your convenience, here is the teacher’s copy of the 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.