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, January 10, 2020: A Lesson Plan on the Latin Word Roots Bi and Bin

This week’s Text is a complete lesson plan on the Latin word roots bi and bin, which mean, of course, two and twice. In the hope that it will hint to students the meaning of these roots, I open this lesson plan with this context clues worksheet on the noun adjective dual. Finally, here is the word root worksheet that is the substance 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, January 3, 2020: A Lesson Plan on the Concept of Solving Problems in Mathematics

Let me begin by stipulating that where math teaching is concerned, I leave a lot to be desired.

So, several years ago, when I was tasked with developing a math and science literacy unit for struggling learners, I had little time and few ideas, so I began planning one of my standard literacy units. Fortunately I had a couple of colleagues to coach me on some of the actual math work (and thanks to Nate Bonheimer and Jeremy Krevat for this). I’ve been posting lessons from this unit as I’ve gone along.

This week’s Text, therefore, is this lesson on the concept of solving problems. This lesson begins with this extended context clues worksheet on the verb solve (it’s used both intransitively and transitively) and the noun solution. These definitions of solve and solution can serve either as the teacher’s copy or as a learning support. This problem set and comprehension questions serves as the second piece of work for students. Here is one version of the answer key and here is another. Finally, here is the answer-key template if you decide to develop this lesson further and need it.

Let me end where I began: I am not a particularly deft math teacher, so this is not, by this blog’s standards, a superior piece of work. However, it may well work as a framework for a number of lessons on understanding the lexicon we use with mathematics.

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, December 20, 2019: A Lesson Plan on the Demonstrative Adjective

Tomorrow is the winter solstice; the day sure seems to come up fast this year. After tomorrow, the days will begin to lengthen, which means warmer weather and more light is on the way. And who doesn’t want that? I like a few deep, dark winter nights, but a little, in the end, goes a long way.

This week’s Text, the last of 2019, is a lesson plan on the demonstrative adjective. I open this lesson with this Everyday Edit on worksheet on “Edison’s First Movie Set” (and if you and your students like working with Everyday Edit worksheets, the good folks at Education World give away a year’s supply of them under that hyperlink). If the lesson runs into a second day, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on slang. Finally, here is the scaffolded worksheet on the demonstrative adjectives that is the gravamen of this unit.

That’s it. Happy Hanukkah, Happy, Kwanzaa, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I’ll be back on Friday, January 3 with the first Weekly Text for 2020.

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, December 13, 2019: A Lesson Plan on Placing Quotes in a Synthetic Research Paper

Okay, Friday has rolled around again, and it is the end of a momentous week for this author. To make a long story short, I now own a car for the first time in almost 17 years.

This week’s Text, from my ongoing endeavor to write a couple of units on the art of argumentation and the craft of composing a synthetic research paper, is a complete lesson plan on the art of quoting in a paper. I wrote this context clues worksheet on criterion and criteria, which are, respectively, a singular and a plural noun, specifically for this lesson. As I look at this document today, I realize that depending on how one deals with it, and who one is teaching, that this worksheet could stand on its own as a lesson (and I have one on datum and data in the works). Finally, here is the worksheet that is at the center of this lesson and affords students an opportunity to try their hands directly at quoting within a larger body of text.

That’s it! It’s Friday the 13th, so step lightly and carefully.

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, December 6, 2019: A Lesson Plan on the Latin Word Root Bene

This week’s Text is a lesson plan on the Latin word root bene. It means good and well, and as you have probably already figured out, it turns up as the root of such common words in English as benefit and benevolent. This context clues worksheet on the noun welfare with which I intended deploy a hint to point students in the right direction (and also to hint at the idea that government welfare benefits, which so many families in our nation now receive, are meant to keep us, as individuals and as a society, good and well). Finally, here is the word root worksheet 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, November 22, 2019: Four Context Clues Worksheets on Symmetry (n), Asymmetry (n), Symmetrical (adj) and Asymmetrical (adj)

Alright, I’m reaching the end of today’s burst of publishing. This week’s Text is a series of four context clues worksheets starting with the noun symmetry and continuing with the noun asymmetry, then the adjectives symmetrical and aysmmetrical. These are heavily used words in a variety of learning domains; students really ought to know them, which is why they merit their own Weekly Text. Put another way, the concepts these words represent cut across fields of knowledge to such an extent that these words are quintessential to learning 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, November 18, 2019: Five Worksheets on the Homophones Sight (n), Site (n/vt), and Cite (vt)

This week’s Text is a set of five worksheets on the homophones sight (noun), site (noun and transitive verb), and cite (transitive verb). These are very commonly used words in the English language. For some learners, these are easily confused. Part of the reason I wrote this was to help students who needed to learn to cite sources for research papers. I took it as an opportunity to do some vocabulary building. These are short exercises for opening a class period after a transition.

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, November 8, 2019: A Lesson Plan on the Art of Summarizing

Alright, this week’s Text is a lesson plan on the art of summarizing which is part of a bigger unit on argumentation that I wrote–but used only once–a couple of years ago.

This context clues worksheet on the verb concede (which is used transitively, but can be used intransitively, according to Merriam-Webster’s, by writing to make concession) opens the lesson. I use this exemplar of a summary, drawn from the book that informs this unit, Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein’s They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing (New York: Norton, 2018) as a learning support and model text. This learning support on the verbs used in the rhetorical figures of argumentation supplies students with the vocabulary they require to postulate and write sound arguments. Here are the two exercises for summarizing that are at the center of this lesson. Finally, here is the worksheet for this lesson that contains the full text of the exemplar linked to above.

And that’s it for another week at Mark’s Text Terminal. Enjoy the weekend.

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, November 1, 2019: A Lesson Plan on the Use of Transitive and Intransitive Verbs

This week’s Text is a lesson plan on differentiating and using transitive and intransitive verbs. I think it’s important that students understand these kinds of words because if they decide to study an inflected language, they will need to understand how to decline the direct objects of verbs, which often take the accusative case in such languages. I ran into this while studying Russian all those years ago.

In any case, the first do-now exercise for this lesson is this Cultural Literacy worksheet on transitive verbs. If this lesson, for whatever reason, goes into a second day, then here is an Everyday Edit worksheet on Dr. Seuss; if you and your students like that document, then you can find a yearlong supply of them for free from the good people at Education World. Finally, here is the scaffolded worksheet at the center 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, October 25, 2019: A Trove of Documents for Teaching Vocabulary in the Culinary Arts

Circumstances have emerged in my new job that have impelled me into one of my favorite tasks as a teacher, namely, creating differentiated instruction. This week, I began work on a course of study for a student who is interested in pursuing a career in the culinary arts. This enterprise begins with the construction of a lexicon of words, adjectives, nouns, and verbs, to be specific.

So, this week’s Text is a trove of initial documents for this endeavor. Here is the lexicon that informs this early phase of this work. You’ll find most of the words in that lexicon on these four worksheets on adjectives, this set of four worksheets on nouns, and these four worksheets on verbs. If you want to make your own worksheets, then you might need these four different worksheet templates that form the basis of all this work.

As with virtually everything on Mark’s Text Terminal, all of these documents are in Microsoft Word; ergo, you may adjust them to your students’ needs. If you’ve ever considered commenting on this blog, may I ask you to do so viz this material? I am really curious if it has utility elsewhere, or (gulp!) merit.

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.