Category Archives: The Weekly Text

The Weekly Text is a primary feature at Mark’s Text Terminal. This category will include a variety of classroom materials in English Language Arts and social studies, most often in the form of complete lesson plans (see above) in those domains. The Weekly Text is posted on Fridays.

The Weekly Text, 30 October 2026: A Lesson Plan on the Greek Word Root Chron/o.

This week’s Text is this lesson plan on the Greek word root chron/o. It means, of course, time. This is a very productive root in English, and its offshoots include such high-frequency English words as chronicle, chronology, synchronize, chronic, and, for those of us involved in online learning, asynchronous. I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the noun interval in the hope that it will point the way to the meaning of this Greek root; in any case, interval is a word I think students ought to know before graduating high school.

Finally, here is the scaffolded worksheet that is the principal work 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.

The Weekly Text, 23 October 2026: A Pair of Learning Supports on Annotating Text

In my final couple years of co-teaching high school English Language Arts class, I was disappointed that students rarely read entire books (although I had the good fortune to work with two English teachers who did assign entire books), and therefore seldom performed any substantial interpretive work on what they did read–which was and is, I expect, short passages from novels. Students annotate these texts, but don’t really write anything insightful about them. Still, given how little students read these days, they struggled with adding interpretive notes–i.e. annotating–even these short texts.

So I developed this learning support on annotating for analogy, allusion, metaphor and tone, and this one on rhetorical analysis for ethos, pathos, and logos.

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 October 2026: Five Homophone Worksheets on the Noun and Verb Hoard and the Noun Horde

This week’s Text is five homophone worksheets on the noun and verb hoard, and on the noun horde. These are full-page worksheets with five modified cloze exercises, below comprehensive definitions of the words under study. Although these are formatted as full-page documents, they are really only a half-page in length; I thought teachers might want some white space for composing practice sentences for independent practice or what have you.

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, 2 October 2026: Introduction to Writing Sentences Lesson 17, Avoid the Run-On Sentence!

Phew. We’ve made it. Here is the seventeenth lesson plan (of seventeen!) of the Introduction to Writing Sentences unit. This final lesson, as the header indicates, deals with avoiding run-on sentences. If you teach English, I imagine the run-on sentence is one of the bane of your existence; they were mine.

This lesson opens with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the run-on sentence, which, obviously, is the appropriate do-now for this lesson. Here is the scaffolded worksheet on avoiding run-on sentences that is the primary work of this lesson. This learning support on the types of run-on sentences and this one on coordinating conjunctions will help students–and you–get through this lesson.

And that’s it! Seventeen posts of lessons on writing sentences conclude with this post.

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, 25 September 2026: Introduction to Writing Sentences Lesson 16, Writing the Compound-Complex Sentence

We’re getting there! Here is the sixteenth lesson plan (of seventeen) from the Introduction to Writing Sentences unit. This one, as the title of this post heralds, seeks to assist students in developing their own understanding of composing the compound-complex sentence. This is, you probably won’t be surprised to hear, a complex lesson. It opens with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the compound-complex sentence. This is a full-page document with a two-sentence reading and three comprehension questions. As I frequently warn, and therefore do so emphatically this time, the two sentences in the text are, unsurprisingly, are compound-complex sentences. One of the reasons that I left this as a full-page document is that it will definitely need to be revised for emergent or struggling reader, or the student who uses English as a second language.

This scaffolded worksheet on writing compound-complex sentences. This is a bit clearer in its conveyance of the form and function of compound-complex sentences. Students and teachers will most likely benefit, in endeavoring to complete this work, from the use of this learning support on the basic structure of a compound-complex sentence as well as this one on the use of the semicolon in composition.

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, 18 September 2026: Introduction to Writing Sentences Lesson 15, Writing the Complex Sentence for Practice

OK, this fifteenth lesson plan is a direct companion to the preceding fourteenth lesson plan from the Introduction to Writing Sentences unit: both of these deal with the tricky business of writing complex sentences. The first of these two (again, the fourteenth) introduces students to the subordinating conjunctions that writers use to form complex sentences. This lesson calls upon students to practice this newly acquired (I hope) understanding of composing complex sentences.

This Cultural Literacy worksheet on the grammatical concept of coordination serves to open this lesson. Finally, here is the scaffolded worksheet to write complex sentences for practice 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.

The Weekly Text, 11 September 2026: Introduction to Writing Sentences Lesson 14, What Is a Subordinating Conjunction and How Does It Introduce a Dependent Clause?

OK, here is the fourteenth lesson plan of the Introduction to Writing Sentences Unit, this one on using subordinating conjunctions to compose complex sentences. This Cultural Literacy worksheet on conjunctions opens this lesson, and bears some explaining. First: this is a full-page worksheet with a five-sentence reading and eight comprehension questions. In other words, this do-now may end up turning this lesson into a two-day affair. Why? Well, I think students, to be able to write well whatever the demands of their writing happen to be. And to handle increasingly complex ideas, one must be able to write increasingly complex sentences. Conjunctions–particularly the subordinating conjunctions addressed in this lesson–are key to writing complex sentences that convey complex ideas. So, I would argue, in defense of this do-now document that is really more of a lesson in itself, that this is the right opening for this lesson.

And here is the scaffolded worksheet on writing complex sentences that is the principal work of this lesson. Your students–and you–will probably benefit from this general learning support on conjunctions as well as this one specifically on subordinating conjunctions. Finally, here is the teacher’s copy of the lesson 14 worksheet to ease your cognitive load while delivering 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.

The Weekly Text, 4 September 2026: Introduction to Writing Sentences Lesson 13, The Relative Clause; What Is a Relative Pronoun and How Does It Introduce a Relative Clause?

Let’s continue this website’s slog through the Introduction to Writing Sentences unit with the thirteenth lesson plan, this one on writing sentences with relative clauses. This lesson opens with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the regular verb. This is a half-page document with a two sentence reading and three comprehension questions. If I am not mistaken, I recently published this document in a standalone post.

Here is the scaffolded worksheet on relative clauses and their use–and punctuation–in declarative sentences. Students will probably benefit, while working on this material, from the presence of this learning support on the use of that and which when working with relative clauses, and this one on restrictive and non-restrictive clauses which offers a broad overview of these kinds of clauses and their role in a declarative sentences.

Finally, here is the teacher’s copy of the worksheet to ease your cognitive load while executing 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.

The Weekly Text, 28 August 2026: Introduction to Writing Sentences Lesson 12, The Parenthetical Element Part II; The Aside

This week’s Text, you won’t be surprised to hear if you’re a regular user of this blog, is the twelfth lesson plan of the Introduction to Writing Sentences unit. This is a second lesson on using parenthetical element, in the case of this lesson, the aside. Here is the worksheet on parsing sentences to find adverbs that opens this lesson. And, finally, here is the scaffolded worksheet on writing asides into sentences that constitutes the primary work of this lesson–writing parenthetical asides into declarative sentences.

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, 21 August 2026: Introduction to Writing Sentences Lesson 11, The Parenthetical Element Part I; Using The Appositive Noun

This week’s Text continues the distribution of the Introduction to Writing Sentences Unit. So here is the eleventh lesson plan, this one on using the appositive noun in declarative sentences. This lesson opens with this worksheet on parsing sentences to find adjectives.

This scaffolded worksheet on using the appositive noun in declarative sentences is the center of this lesson. Your students might find useful this learning support on using appositive nouns and this one on punctuating appositive nouns in declarative sentences.

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.