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, 24 April 2026: A Lesson on the Latin Word Roots Corp/o, Corpor, and Corpus

Posted on April 24, 2026 | Leave a comment

The Weekly Text from Mark’s Text Terminal for 24 April 2026 is this lesson plan on the Latin word roots corp/o, corpor, and corpus. They mean, simply, body. A number of shoots grow from these roots, including the high-frequency English words corporation, incorporate, and corpse. Corporal punishment, of course, is punishment of the body.

I use this context clues worksheet on the noun physique to open this lesson and perhaps point the way for students toward the meaning of these roots. And this scaffolded worksheet , replete with Romance language cognates, stands as the primary work for 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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The Weekly Text, 17 April 2026: The Writing Revolution Learning Supports V; Expository Words Learning Supports

Posted on April 17, 2026 | Leave a comment

At least for the moment, we have (finally!) reached the end of planning materials posts for The Writing Revolution. What you should know, and possibly dread, is that I have quite a lot of materials based in the methods of The Writing Revolution in various stages of development. So those will appear here eventually.

For this morning, however, let me post the last two learning supports, these on expository words:

V-A*Argumentative Nouns and Verbs

V-B*Expository Words

And even though there are only these two items on it, here is the table of contents for these two documents. And, if it is of any use to you, here is the the complete table of contents as I use it for all the learning supports excerpted or adapted from The Writing Revolution.

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, 10 April 2026: The Writing Revolution Learning Supports IV; Punctuation Learning Supports

Posted on March 27, 2026 | Leave a comment

Alright, let’s move along with another Weekly Text dealing with materials aligned with Judith C. Hochman and Natalie Wexler’s The Writing Revolution (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2017).

Even though there are only two items in this post, I nonetheless include this table of contents in case you are assembling your own table of contents from this series of posts. And without further ado, here are two learning supports.

IV-A*Using Colons and Semicolons Versions 1, 2, and 3 (i.e. three supports in one document)

IV-B*Using Parentheses Versions 1 and 2 (i.e. two supports in one document)

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, 3 April 2026: The Writing Revolution Learning Supports III; Transition Words and Phrases Learning Support

Posted on March 27, 2026 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is a simple one, to wit this learning support on transition words and phrases. This is, as the header for this post indicates, part of a series of posts on material related to Judith C. Hochman and Natalie Wexler’s The Writing Revolution (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2017) and the methods of writing instruction therein.

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, 27 March 2026, Women’s History Month Week IV: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Agrippina

Posted on March 27, 2026 | Leave a comment

For the final Friday of Women’s History Month 2026, here is a reading on Agrippina with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. She probably doesn’t figure in curricula anywhere, but I can imagine that she must–because she was a real piece of work–be of interest to students of certain intellectual proclivities.

Because she did murder her husband, the Emperor Claudius.

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, 20 March 2026, Women’s History Month Week III: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Madonna

Posted on March 18, 2026 | Leave a comment

For a variety of reasons I have resisted posting, especially during Women’s History Month, this reading on Madonna and its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Why? I don’t know: maybe simple sexism? There is something about her that has always annoyed me. Maybe her apparent vanity? Maybe her ubiquity over a long span of time?

The fact remains that during the early 1990s, when I was an undergraduate at Hampshire College, a number of critics and scholars touted Madonna as a feminist icon. That’s not what I see when I look at her, but what do I know? In any case, Madonna at this point is unarguably a part of women’s history (however we all feel about that).

Does anyone still pay attention to her? On the chance that she still has an audience, I have tagged this as a high-interest item.

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, 13 March 2026, Women’s History Month Week II: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Anne Hutchinson

Posted on March 13, 2026 | Leave a comment

For the second Friday of Women’s History Month 2026, here is a reading on Anne Hutchinson along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

She wasn’t exactly the Gloria Steinem of her day, but Puritan officials did bounce her out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony because she would not stop holding religious meetings in her home.

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, 6 March 2026, Women’s History Month Week I: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Zora Neale Hurston

Posted on March 6, 2026 | Leave a comment

We’ve now turned the corner into Women’s History Month 2026. Mark’s Text Terminal opens its observance of this month with this reading on Zora Neale Hurston along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

Whether or not one teaches Hurston’s novels, it seems to me that students, by the time they graduate high school, ought to know about this important figure in United States cultural and intellectual history.

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, 20 February 2026, Black History Month Week III: A Reading on Arturo Schomburg

Posted on February 13, 2026 | Leave a comment

Sometime not long after I returned to New York in 2021, I attended a lecture a the New York Public Library (the main on 5th Avenue and 42nd Street, with the lions Patience and Fortitude at the front) on Arturo Schomburg. When I lived in Harlem, I walked by his namesake, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, every morning on my way to work. I also regularly stopped in to view exhibits there as well.

Therefore, Arturo Schomburg has been something of a presence in my intellectual life since 2004.

There are two biographies of Arturo Schomburg: Diasporic Blackness: The Life and Times of Arturo Schomburg,  by Vanessa Valdes or Arturo Schomburg: Black Bibliophile and Collector by Elinor Des Verney Sinette. I read the latter

One thing that I did pick up on at the lecture and in Ms Sinette’s book, however, was the existence of this article from the man himself. This is a PDF of an article “Arthur” (one thing I learned about Schomburg is that very little is known about him, including which given version of his given name he was using at any time) Schomburg wrote on Black History, “The Negro Digs Up His History.” Nota bene, please, that I have only posted the reading; next year at this time (I already have the basic structure assembled) you’ll find a fully realized lesson plan to accompany this article.

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, New York City, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences, The Weekly Text, Worksheets

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The Weekly Text, 13 February 2026, Black History Month Week II: A Lesson Plan on Richard Wright’s Poem “Between the World and Me”

Posted on February 13, 2026 | Leave a comment

One of the better (by which I mean most interesting) things I worked on and finally finished last year is this lesson plan on Richard Wright’s poem “Between the World and Me.” As you may know, Ta-Nehisi Coates, in an obvious homage, took this title for his exceptional and necessary book of the same name.

A few years back, a colleague of mine taught it to a class in which I was the co-teacher. This was during the 2021-2022 school year: we were back after the pandemic, still wearing masks, and I had just moved back to New York City after three years away. In other words, I filed away the poem for days when I had a clearer head.

Three years later, and after a second case of covid which left me cognitively bereft for about 18 months, I was able to recover my senses and develop this lesson. Without further ado, then, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Richard Wright (two-sentence reading, three comprehension questions–very simple), which serves as the do-now exercise for this lesson. Here is the the text of the poem itself; and here is the comprehension and analysis 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.

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