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, 22 May 2026, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Week IV: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Mahjong

OK, let’s face (or at least I should) a simple fact: this reading on mahjong and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet are not exactly essential materials.

This board game did arrive in this country from China, so it does have relevance to Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2026. And this relatively short reading is interesting: it notes the game’s popularity among Jewish women (my mother, and her mother, neither of whom was Jewish, played it with their Jewish friends when I was a very little kid) and speculates that this stems from the proximity in tenements of Jewish and Chinese people in American cities.

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, 15 May 2026, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Week III: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Sikhism

For the third Friday of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2026, the Weekly Text is this reading on Sikhism along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Like just about everything I post during themed history months, this article derives from one of the books (the first one, actually) in the Intellectual Devotional series. Basically, these documents are a miniature research assignment.

And, like just about everything you’ll find on this website, these documents are formatted in Microsoft Word for ease of adaptation and other manipulation.

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, 8 May 2026, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Week II: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Sufism

OK, for the second week of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2026, Mark’s Text Terminal offers as its Weekly Text this reading on Sufism and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Sufism, as you may know, is a mystical sect of Islam.

Are you aware that there are as many as 73 sects in Islam? And that there are a group of Muslims known as “non-denominational Muslims?” We Americans tend to think of Islam as homogenous–and, alas, in the view of far too many people in the United States, sinister.

It behooves us to know, understand, and respect our neighbors.

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, 1 May 2026, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Week I: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Confucius

May 1 brings us May Day, but also the beginning of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2026. Mark’s Text Terminal observes this month with a series of posts dealing with subjects in Asian area studies, quotes, and biographies.

So let’s start with this reading on Confucius with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension 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, 24 April 2026: A Lesson on the Latin Word Roots Corp/o, Corpor, and Corpus

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 corpseCorporal 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.

The Weekly Text, 17 April 2026: The Writing Revolution Learning Supports V; Expository Words Learning Supports

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.