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, 2 December 2021: A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Westward Ho-Hum!”

Posted on December 3, 2021 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is a lesson plan on the the Crime and Puzzlement case “Westward Ho-Hum!” I open this lesson with this half-page Cultural Literacy worksheet (with a two-sentence reading and three comprehension questions) on the Gallicism esprit de corps. To fortify this document with a bit of context, Merriam-Webster defines this noun as denoting “the common spirit existing in the members of a group and inspiring enthusiasm, devotion, and strong regard for the honor of the group.”

To investigate this case, your students will need this PDF of the illustration and questions that serve as both evidence and procedure of inquiry into this heinous crime. Finally, to solve your case and apprehend a suspect, here is the typescript of the answer key.

And that’s it for this week. I hope you and yours enjoyed a relaxed and (if this is your bent), suitably gluttonous Thanksgiving.

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, 19 November 2021: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on the Interstate Highway System

Posted on November 19, 2021 | Leave a comment

The passage of President Biden’s signature legislation, the Build Back Better Bill, strikes me as a perfect occasion to post as this week’s Text this reading on interstate highways in the United States, along with its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I think it’s important to note that a Republican president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, advanced the legislation enabling the construction of a national highway system of the scope our our interstates. What I mean to say here is that once upon a time, Republicans didn’t march in lockstep with each other in holding the idea that government investments in public works is “socialism.”

We take these highways for granted now, but when they were built, they eased shipping and leisure travel to an extent I think we now find difficult to imagine. They also homogenized American commercial culture and, over time, reduced regionalism, which as anyone familiar with the phrase “The Old Weird America” will understand and probably regret. Can I buy you lunch at Perkins/Stuckeys/McDonald’s/Cracker Barrel/Burger King ad nauseam (in some cases literally)?

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, 12 November 2021: A Review Lesson on the Use of Pronouns in Declarative Sentences

Posted on November 11, 2021 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is the penultimate lesson in the 13-lesson unit on pronouns I engineered several years ago, and have been working on ever since. It is basically a pre-assessment review lesson to prepare student for the final lesson, a guided mastery exercise in which they review and recapitulate all the foregoing lessons.

I open this lesson with this Everyday Edit worksheet on “Women Get the Vote.” If the lesson enters a second day for whatever reason, here is another Everyday Edit, this one on Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Here is the scaffolded worksheet for this lesson that is its primary work. Finally, here is the teacher’s copy of same. I’ll put up the final lesson soon, and then there will be a 13-lesson unit on pronouns available in its entirety on Mark’s Text Terminal.

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, 5 November 2021: A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “False Alarm”

Posted on November 5, 2021 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “False Alarm.” I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Gallicism enfant terrible.

To conduct your investigation of this misdemeanor, you’ll need this PDF of the illustration and questions that serve as evidence and interrogative in the case. And here is the typescript of the answer key. And that’s it for another week.

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, 29 October 2021: A Lesson Plan on the Basic Rights of All Children

Posted on October 29, 2021 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is another lesson plan drawn from Barbara Ann Kipfer’s indispensable reference book The Order of Things, this one on the basic rights of children. This is a basic lesson for emergent and struggling readers, as you’ll see from its list as reading and comprehension questions: the reading is a list of ten basic rights, and I’ve prepared five basic comprehension questions.

You, however, may do with this as you like. Because both lesson plan and worksheet are formatted in Microsoft Word (as are most of the documents you will find on this website–and if you’re a regular user of this site, I’ll bet you are tired of hearing me say that), these are what I believe are called, using the term loosely, “open source” documents. Whatever the nomenclature, these materials can be exported and manipulated freely.

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, 22 October 2021: A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Water Bed”

Posted on October 22, 2021 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is a on the Crime and Puzzlement case “Water Bed.” I begin this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Latinism caveat emptor. As you probably know, this locution means “let the buyer beware.” However, in everyday discourse one will often hear someone say “there is a caveat” or “there are several caveats” in any given situation. Caveat by itself means (by  Merriam-Webster’s reckoning) “a warning enjoining one from certain acts or practices.” All of this is a roundabout way of saying that caveat emptor in particular, and caveat in general, are arguable words high school students should know by their graduation.

Anyway, you’ll need this PDF scan of the illustration and questions related to the evidence in this case to investigate it. And here is the answer key to solve the case and bring your culprit to the bar of justice.

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, 15 October 2021, Hispanic Heritage Month 2021 Week V: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Cesar Chavez

Posted on October 15, 2021 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text, for the final Friday of Hispanic Heritage Month 2021, is a reading on Cesar Chavez along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. The reading comes from one of the Intellectual Devotional books; there is another reading and comprehension worksheet from one of those volumes. Entries on him appeared in two of them–Biographies and American History–and both are now available on this blog.

In fact, to use the boilerplate for this circumstance on Mark’s Text Terminal, these documents join a growing body of material on Mr. Chavez, one of the heroes of my youth.

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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Cultural Literacy: Banana Republics

Posted on October 8, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the term “Banana Republics.” This is a half-page worksheet with two simple sentences and two comprehension questions. The reading note that the “…term banana republic is often used in a disparaging sense” because “it suggests an unstable government.”

I’ve traveled a little bit in South America, and I never heard this term used there. In fact, the American writer O Henry coined the term to characterize the fictional nation of Anchuria, in his short story “The Admiral.” Given the United States government’s tendency to meddle in the affairs of the sovereign nations of Latin America, the epithet “Banana Republics” is a bitter irony indeed. If these nations suffered from unstable governments, in many cases it is the United States–and the United Fruit Company–that has destabilized them.

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, 8 October 2021, Hispanic Heritage Month 2021 Week IV: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Los Angeles

Posted on October 8, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here on the fourth Friday of Hispanic Heritage Month 2021, is a reading on Los Angeles along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

This second-largest city in the United States, known in the vernacular by its initialism, L.A., was founded as a city in 1781, but claimed as Spanish territory by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo in 1542. The city became Mexican territory in 1821 after the Mexican War of Independence. Then, in 1848 (a momentous year in world history, to say the least), after the Mexican-American War, following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the United States purchased the territory that became the state of California two years later, in 1850.

The city is a rich producer and repository of Chicano culture. This is the municipality, after all, that played a role in giving the world the nonpareil Los Lobos.

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, 1 October 2021, Hispanic Heritage Month 2021 Week III: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Don Quixote

Posted on September 24, 2021 | Leave a comment

For the third Friday of Hispanic Heritage Month 2021, here is a reading on Don Quixote with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I don’t know if you’ve read Miguel de Cervantes’ magisterial novel–I finally read it during the pandemic, and now want to read it again–but I must extol the virtues and richness of this landmark of world literature.

Otherwise, I have nothing to say, and I certainly wouldn’t presume to editorialize upon or criticize this novel. If that’s what you seek, I recommend Harold Bloom or someone of his ilk. It goes without saying, I assume, that a lot of ink has been spilled in seeking a deeper understanding of Don Quixote.

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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