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, June 3, 2016: Five Parsing Sentences Worksheets for Nouns

Posted on June 3, 2016 | Leave a comment

WordPress, whose software drives Mark’s Text Terminal, provides a handy set of tools to help me understand who visits this blog and why. I’ve been particularly interested in the number of users finding their way here from countries outside the United States. If I’m reading the analytical material in my visitors’ log correctly, most people visiting Mark’s Text Terminal from around the world arrive here by using search terms in some variation of “parsing sentences worksheet.”

So, this weeks text is five parsing sentences worksheets for nouns. Over time, I’ll post all of my parsing sentences worksheets; I have five for each part of speech. You may want to take a look at the users manual for parsing sentences worksheets.

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, May 27, 2016: Two Learning Supports on Roman Numerals and Roman Deities

Posted on May 27, 2016 | Leave a comment

It’s finally Memorial Day Weekend: I don’t know about you, but I’m glad! That extra day makes all the difference in the world at this time of year. When we return on Tuesday, we’ll start counting down the days to the end of the school year.

This week’s Text offers two learning supports on Rome: the first is a learning support for Roman numerals; the second a chart of Roman deities.

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, May 20, 2016: Three Context Clues Worksheets on Exegesis (n), Exegete (n), and Exegetical (adj)

Posted on May 20, 2016 | Leave a comment

As the school year wanes, I’m working on The Weekly Texts for the summer months. I plan a lengthy break from computer screens and keyboards. So, I’ll prepare a bunch of posts, then publish them from my smartphone. If you’re a user of this blog who links through from the AFT’s Share My Lesson Plan site, nota bene that I won’t be able to post material there for much of the summer. You may want to point your browser directly to Mark’s Text Terminal; I’ll post a new Text every Friday throughout the summer.

For this week, here are three context clues worksheets on the words exegesis, exegete and exegetical. If you teach English, and particularly novels, poems etc., these are three words your students, arguably, ought to know. In any case, this trio also shows students something about word roots and morphology, and that can be taught actively, or left for students to infer.

Until next 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, May 13, 2016: A Learning Support and Worksheet on Citing Sources in Research Papers

Posted on May 13, 2016 | Leave a comment

It’s Friday the 13th! I hope nothing bad happens to you today.

Although I teach struggling students, I hold them to high standards. One way I can do that–and that is the purpose of this website, incidentally–is to adapt the curriculum in a way that has them doing the same work, though not at the same pace or in the same manner, as their peers working in the general education curriculum. I’m particularly interested in helping students learn to write synthetic research papers, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere in these pages. Needless to say, students struggling with literacy, executive skills, issues with focus and attention, impulse control, or general apathy need support, and plenty of it, to navigate a project of the scope of most research papers.

Here is a a worksheet that assists students in determining when to cite sources in a synthetic research paper; this is the same text as the worksheet, but rearranged and annotated as a learning support.

As always, I hope you find this material useful, and I’d be grateful to hear how you’ve used it and/or adapted it. Until next 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, May 6, 2016: A List of Daily Salutations for Classroom Use

Posted on May 6, 2016 | Leave a comment

I’d hoped to have a combination worksheet/learning support on citing sources for research papers ready to post this week, but events intervened: these documents aren’t quite ready, alas.

Instead, I’ll post this list of daily salutations that I use each day on my board. These are quick vocabulary builders, and if you have inquisitive students, they’ll ask what each salutation means. In other words, these words, which I use to follow either “Good Morning” or “Good Afternoon,” have the potential to supply you with an instant teachable moment at the beginning of a class period.

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, April 22, 2016: A Glossary of Basic Poetic Terms

Posted on April 22, 2016 | Leave a comment

Next week is my badly needed spring break, so Mark’s Text Terminal will be on sabbatical, enjoying spring weather and light. I’ll return with a fresh Weekly Text on Friday, May 6. For today, here is a glossary of basic poetic terms. One of these days I’m going to write a unit to accompany this support. This learning support is several years old, and it is an example of the kind of cart-before-the-horse planning I used as a novice teacher. I suspect this will be useful for teachers–if nothing else, it can be manipulated to serve your purposes in teaching poetry and poetic from.

Happy Spring! See you again on May 6.

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, April 15, 2016: Five Worksheets on the Homophones Son and Sun

Posted on April 15, 2016 | Leave a comment

Occasionally I get carried away developing certain kinds of instructional materials. Last fall, when I developed a large number of homophone worksheets while I was away from work for an extended civic responsibility, was no exception. I completed work on a large batch of these short exercises during that time, most of which were and are thought-provoking vocabulary builders and clarifiers.

However, the five worksheets for clarifying the use of the homophones son and sun don’t really fit that bill for the high schoolers I teach. This pair is too simple even for the struggling readers I teach. In fact, these worksheets impelled me to apologize to my students for insulting their intelligence. If you work in the elementary grades, or teach English language learners, these might be appropriate for your classroom. If you haven’t used these before, you’ll find the Homophone Worksheet Users’s Manual useful.

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, April 8, 2016: Four Word Root Worksheets on the Latin Roots for Three, Four, Five, and Six

Posted on April 8, 2016 | Leave a comment

If you’re a math teacher working with struggling learners, you might find these four Latin word root worksheets for the numbers three, four, five, and six useful. Or, if you just want to build vocabulary quickly, I think these will serve your purpose. If these are the first word root worksheets from Mark’s Text Terminal you’ve used, the Word Root Worksheets Users’ Manual will help you with a suggested method for their use.

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, April 1, 2016: A Lesson Plan on Alain Resnais’ Holocaust Documentary “Night and Fog”

Posted on April 1, 2016 | Leave a comment

Some years ago, I began working to build a unit that guided struggling learners through the process of writing a synthetic research paper. I knew it would have to be highly structured into a scaffold form, and would need to guide students through the process of postulating an argument, researching and reading, evaluating evidence, outlining, and citing sources in Modern Language Association style. Since our sophomore research paper topic at the time was the Holocaust, I designed my highly structured research paper unit around that dismal period of European history.

I’ve actually floated a book proposal to a small educational publisher for this unit; they passed, which persuaded me the unit requires more work before it’s publishable. Since then,  I’ve worked on refining this sprawling unit.

Do you know Alain Renais’ documentary on the Holocaust, Night and Fog? I first saw it as a student at Ray F. Sennett Middle School in Madison, Wisconsin, and it shocked me; indeed, it was one of those educational “before and after” (like reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X or Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, by Dee Brown) moments for me. Early on in planning this unit, I knew this film–which packs an amazing amount of information (and a number of shocking images) into its 32 minute running time–would serve as the opening lesson.

Here then is a complete lesson to attend a viewing of Night and Fog.

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 Stemming from the Verb Perceive

Posted on March 31, 2016 | Leave a comment

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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