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, September 2, 2016: A Lesson Plan on Mercantilism

Posted on September 2, 2016 | 1 comment

Here in New York City we return to school on Tuesday, September 6th, so this is the final weekend of the summer break. It went fast, as it always does. I’ll now return to post The Weekly Text every Friday morning. To begin the year, here is a a lesson plan on mercantilism. In my school, mercantilism is a topic that repeats in a variety of courses and is therefore an essential concept for understanding trade policy and legislation, causes of conflict, and one of the motives for the American Revolution, among other things. Unlike other complete lesson plans I’ve posted thus far on Mark’s Text Terminal, this one is a stand-alone, special topic lesson, i.e. not part of a larger unit plan. Therefore, you’ll find it aligned to four Common Core Standards in the lesson plan document itself.

A reading of this length and the reading comprehension worksheet that accompanies it, depending on where we are in the school year, can take up to three days to complete in my classroom–which I use to assess students’ capacity to retain and apply information over the short term. For that reason, I include with this lesson three context clues worksheets on commodity, barrier, and tariff. These are the short, do-now worksheets I use to ease transitions between periods at the beginning of class to help students settle themselves (not to mention assisting them in developing their own understanding of inferring meanings of words from context, and building abstract academic vocabularies). Obviously, these are three key vocabulary words related to mercantilism; the latter two, barrier and tariff, are the two leading instruments of trade policy in mercantilist systems, and therefore essential to an understanding of them.

Finally, for the mainstay of the lesson, here are an Intellectual Devotional reading on mercantilism and a reading comprehension worksheet to accompany the reading on mercantilism. These are self-explanatory, so I’ll resist the temptation to gas on about them. If you seek guidance in using any of these materials, you might want to check out some of the users’ manuals in the About Weekly Texts link (that one is live, too) on the homepage of Mark’s Text Terminal, just above the banner photograph.

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, August 19, 2016: An Introductory Lesson on Nouns

Posted on August 19, 2016 | Leave a comment

Over the years, I have become convinced of the utility of teaching the parts of speech in order to build literacy in general, and in particular to assist students in developing their own understanding of how to write grammatically complete, syntactically meaningful, and stylish sentences. To that end, I have developed units for each of the parts of speech, and these constitute an almost-year-long cycle of English Language Arts instruction.

So, this weeks text is the first lesson of the first unit of this cycle, on nouns. This lesson calls upon students to use this teacher-authored reading passage to identify all the nouns in it; as you will see, this is a three-part scaffold that asks students to read, then apply their understanding of nouns, first in modified cloze exercises, then in writing sentences from subject to period. The lesson opens with this Cultural Literacy do-now exercise on syntax. You might also find useful this singular and plural nouns formation review

You’ll notice that the plan for this lesson doesn’t list the standards met. Because of the way I manage my work flow, I list all the standards on the overarching unit plan. (That way if I must print a lesson plan to appease a bureaucrat, I don’t burn too much ink.) For that reason, I have posted typescript copies of the Common Core Standards I use in my practice  in the About Weekly Texts page that is above the banner photo on the home page for this site. They are in the penultimate paragraph there.

22 September 2016, Post Scriptum: I have just updated the singular and plural nouns formation review worksheet linked to above.

15 July 2022, Post Scriptum: I have revised the work for this lesson. The reading and worksheet now contains a reading from The Fight (Boston, MacMillan, 1975), Norman Mailer’s account of the legendary “Rumble in the Jungle” in 1974; it follows then that the teacher’s copy of the worksheet received an update as well.

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, August 12, 2016: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on the Black Death

Posted on August 12, 2016 | 1 comment

A couple of months ago I posted a short piece on the the Intellectual Devotional series of books. I believe these books have great potential for use in middle and high school classrooms; I’ve used them repeatedly and successfully with struggling readers and learners in my own high school classroom, as well as handing them out for independent makeup to students who have fallen behind.

During the 2016-2017 school year I plan as part of my personal professional development to take a longer and more analytical look at these documents with an eye toward either incorporating some of them into existing unit plans, or developing new lessons or units around them. In the process of this endeavor, which to a limited extent is already underway, I’ll convert these readings from PDFs (I scanned them directly from the pages of the books) to Word documents. Once they are in a manipulable form I can edit and adjust them for students’ reading levels. It’s worth mentioning that the authors of these books, Noah Oppenheim and David S. Kidder, are excellent compilers and editors. If you find yourself editing their writing for your students, I strongly recommend conforming to their original outline in your edits. These are some of the most well-outlined readings I’ve ever seen.

When I posted my original exposition of the five Intellectual Devotional volumes, I wrote the authors in search of their permission to post an occasional article from their books. I never heard back. I’m going to stick my neck out, and for this week’s text here is an Intellectual Devotional reading on the Black Death in Word format, so you can edit it, change the typeface, or whatever else best suits the students you serve. In addition, here is a reading comprehension worksheet to accompany the Black Death reading above. Eventually, I’ll incorporate these two documents into a lesson on writing essays for high-stakes exams. I’ll very likely end up posting that here as well.

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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An Early August, Midweek Text: Motive (n), Motivation (n), and the Profit Motive

Posted on August 10, 2016 | Leave a comment

While I was away in Vermont last month, I barely opened my computer and so skipped two Fridays, which is the day I have habitually posted my Weekly Texts. Ergo, another midweek Text to make up for those Fridays. First, here are two context clues worksheets on motive and motivation (both nouns) to help students understand these oft-used words in the English language. Then, because I work in a high school with an economics and finance theme, is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the profit motive.

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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A Midsummer, Midweek Text: Two Context Clues Worksheets on the Verb Flatter and the Noun Flattery

Posted on July 27, 2016 | 1 comment

Here is a quick midweek text for you, to wit two context clues worksheets on flatter and flattery, an verb and a noun, respectively.

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, July 22, 2016: Three Context Clues Worksheets Stemming from the Verb Perceive

Posted on July 22, 2016 | 3 comments

A couple of weeks in Vermont always does me a world of good. This weeks Text is three context clues worksheets stemming from the verb perceive. If you haven’t previously used context clues worksheets from Mark’s Text Terminal, you might find the users’ manual for context clues worksheets helpful for working with them in your classroom.

It’s summer! This is the payoff for teachers, and I am collecting every minute I can.

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, July 1, 2016: A Trove of Documents for Conducting a Professional Development Inquiry into Executive Skills

Posted on July 1, 2016 | Leave a comment

Are you done with the 2015-2016 school year? I gather that our school year here in New York City goes much later than other districts in the United States. Our last day was Tuesday the 28th.

So it’s summer break! I always schedule my share of fun for these months, but I also work some–because I want to. You can continue to look for the Weekly Text at Mark’s Text Terminal, because I only plan to miss three Fridays during the summer.

Over the years, as an employee of the New York City Department of Education, I’ve experienced a mixed bag of professional development sessions. A few years ago, at least in the school in which I presently serve, teachers were responsible for performing professional inquiry groups, which selected its own topic for, well, inquiry, and analysis, germane to the work we do, but obviously for improving pedagogy. For this week, then, here are–in three separate links–the raw materials for a professional development presentation on executive skills and function I wrote for the group I joined in the 2011-2012 school year.

First up are the the proposal for this inquiry group, and a learning support for teachers, which are the teacher’s materials for this presentation; first up is the proposal for this inquiry group, and a learning support for teachers; second, here are four student surveys to assess executive skills; third, and finally, here is a letter explaining these surveys to students. I adapted the student surveys from Ellen Galinsky’s excellent book Mind in the Making.

Addendum, July 27, 2016: Here is the scoring criteria for the surveys that this professional development asks students to complete.

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, June 24, 2016: Two Short Exercises on the Greek Word Roots Leuk/o. Leuc/o, and Nephr/o

Posted on June 24, 2016 | Leave a comment

Classes are over, Regents testing is finished, and the halls in this school are eerily quiet. I’m enjoying some long stretches of uninterrupted planning time. Focusing on developing some more Greek word root worksheets–for words that are more abstract and therefore a bit more difficult to work with for struggling students–I’ve developed a small group of them that can be used as do-now exercises at the beginning of a period. These types of tasks aid me in getting teenagers settled after that second bell rings, and therefore focused for the primary lesson of the day.

Word root worksheets, in my classroom, are meant to accomplish several things, but three are salient: the first is to allow students a chance to work with a dictionary, whether that’s in book form or an app on a smartphone (I encourage students to use whatever works best with their learning styles); second, word root exercises aid students in building their vocabularies quickly; third, word root work fosters pattern recognition, with which, in my experience, struggling students need all the help they can get.

Coincidentally, as I was preparing these worksheets, the National Association of Special Education Teachers posted this article on pattern recognition and language acquisition on Facebook. So I rolled “Theme from the Vindicators” by the Fleshtones, and kept at it.

This week’s Text comes from the fruits of my recent labors, to wit, two do-now exercises on the Greek word roots leuk/o and leuc/o, and nephr/o. Students simply read the definitions, then use the common words–the pattern, that is–to identify the meanings of the roots. For leuk/o and leuc/o. the meanings are white and colorless; for nephr/o, the meaning is kidney (which is why if you have kidney disease, you consult a nephrologist).

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, June 17, 2016: A Trove of Documents for Teaching the Latin Word Roots for Mother and Father

Posted on June 17, 2016 | Leave a comment

We’re in the home stretch of the school year, and not a moment to soon: about three weeks ago, several students I work with began arriving with shell-shocked looks on their faces, and even further attenuation in their attention spans.

I understand. I feel how they look, as I regularly tell them.

This week’s Text is two context clues worksheets on two essential words, paternal and maternal. If you haven’t used these before, you might find the users’ manual for context clues worksheets useful. These complement a couple of word root worksheets I posted in March: the first one is on the  Latin word roots patr, patri and pater,  and the second on the Latin word roots mat, matri, and mater.

As always, if you find these worksheets useful, I would be much obliged to hear how–particularly if you modified them for your classroom.

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, June 10, 2016: Two Worksheet Templates for Working with Similes and Metaphors

Posted on June 10, 2016 | Leave a comment

Teaching figurative language, particularly when you want to give students direct experience in dealing with it, can be a tricky business. For several years, I had these two worksheet templates for working with metaphors and similes rattling around in my current work folder before I actually did something with them–to wit, making up some worksheets to attend a unit on Stephen King’s novella “The Body,” which is part of the Different Seasons collection (and which was made into the fine film “Stand By Me”).

The structure of these makes them pretty easy to use. For the metaphor-o-matic worksheet, I use, for the first section, which calls upon students to interpret metaphors, some metaphorical language or symbols from whatever we’re reading in class. Then, to offer students some direct experience with writing metaphors in the second section of the worksheet, I might ask them to create a metaphor for human emotions, weather, and the like. For example, you might ask students to think of and write down a weather metaphor that suggests confusion; the obvious answer would be fog. Similarly, you might ask for a metaphor that indicates anger, and students might say the color red, a storm, the Tasmanian Devil from “Looney Toons” or something along those lines.

In general, as similes are themselves, the simile-o-matic  worksheet is easier to use. At the top of this template, I’ve provided a number of exemplars of the simile at work. I usually ask students to write several similes of their own in order to give them direct experience working with them. After students have composed their similes, I use the basic writers’ workshop format for discussion of their work.

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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