Category Archives: Worksheets

Classroom documents for student use. Most are structured and scaffolded, and most are pitched at a fundamental level in terms of the questions they ask and the work and understandings they require of students.

The Weekly Text, 19 March 2021, Women’s History Month 2021 Week III: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Marie Curie and Radium

Posted on March 19, 2021 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text, in observance of Women’s History Month 2021, is a reading on Marie Curie and radium with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Over time, there will be a variety of Marie Curie-related material on this blog: I have several things in a Women’s History Month folder, and there is already a brief biography of her posted on Mark’s Text Terminal.

This reading concerns Madame Curie’s work with radium, and the extent to which her discoveries about the element drove innovations in medical care, particularly the x-ray and radiotherapy for cancer treatment, as well as radium’s utility as a way to understand the structure of the atom. The reading also contains a brief biography of Madame Curie and her husband. I hadn’t realized that Marie Curie coined the term “radioactive.”

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: Isadora Duncan

Posted on March 18, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Isadora Duncan. This is a short worksheet, three questions, that could be expanded to include a couple more. I expect this would be high-interest material to certain students, so I’ve tagged it as such.

And, of course, Ms. Duncan’s rich life, in the hands of an interested student, is the stuff of a variety of avenues of inquiry, from modern dance to the life of a bohemian, and beyond. Incidentally, did you know that her sister Elizabeth Duncan was also a dancer? Or that her brother Raymond Duncan was as well? Finally, a second brother, Augustin Duncan was an actor and theatrical director who continued to perform and direct even after he had gone blind.

So, a couple of big questions that come out of even this cursory knowledge of the Duncan family are What is an artistic family? and How does an “artistic family” become artistic?

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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Cultural Literacy: Feminism

Posted on March 17, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on feminism. This is about as bare bones as these worksheets come: a one-sentence reading followed by one question.

Nonetheless, it is a solid basic introduction to feminism, and something that could prompt a conversation on, among other things, whether feminism is a “radical ideology.”

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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Cultural Literacy: Geraldine Ferraro

Posted on March 16, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman, in 1984, nominated to run on a presidential ticket.

Specifically, Ms. Ferraro, at the time a United States Congresswoman, was nominated as the vice-presidential candidate on the ticket the included Walter Mondale, himself a former vice president in the administration of President Jimmy Carter. She served first in 1993 as a delegate to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, after which President Bill Clinton elevated her to the position of United States Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council. Along the way, she served in the various kinds of think-tank and media sinecures (including a time on CNN’s execrable “Crossfire,” as well as on Fox News) generally available to retired politicians.

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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Cultural Literacy: Charlotte and Emily Bronte

Posted on March 15, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Charlotte and Emily Bronte. Are the Brontes taught in high school?

If nothing else, this is an interesting artistic family: lesser-known sister Anne also a writer, perhaps because she originally published her novels under the name Acton Bell which may account for her public status among her more famous sister; she also died young, at 29, of tuberculosis. She was also the youngest of six children–in addition to the four siblings mentioned here, two elder sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, rounded out the family. Branwell Bronte, also a writer and an accomplished translator, was also a painter, for which he is primarily known. He too died young, the result of unhappiness and, apparently, drug addiction.

The patriarch of the family, Patrick Bronte (Branwell Bronte carried the full name Patrick Branwell Bronte, after his father and his mother’s–Maria Branwell–maiden name), was a clergyman of humble Irish origins.

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, 12 March 2021, Women’s History Month 2021 Week II: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Margaret Fuller

Posted on March 12, 2021 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text, in this blog’s ongoing observation of Women’s History Month 2021, is this reading on Margaret Fuller and it’s attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

Who is Margaret Fuller? I am embarrassed to say that I had never heard of her before I read the Intellectual Devotional article linked to above. She is, if nothing else, a crystal clear example of why themed history months are valuable in lifting the erasure from historical figures who are not, frankly, white males. In her short life–she died at age 40 in a shipwreck off the coast of Long Island–she accomplished enough as a writer and public figure to earn a key position in the history of American letters. To wit, she joined the Transcendental Club in Boston, where she became friends with Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson solicited contributions from her for the influential American literary journal The Dial, to whose editorship she ascended in late 1839.

Ms. Fuller’s work at The Dial, as well as her proto-feminist book Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1844), brought her to the attention of Horace Greeley, the storied publisher of The New York Tribune. Recognizing her talent, Greeley hired at first to write book reviews, making her the first full-time book reviewer. In 1846, the Tribune deployed her to Europe, where she became the paper’s first female foreign correspondent.

All in all, Margaret Fuller’s is an extraordinary life, and one worthy of both casual and scholarly attention. I hope this small contribution from Mark’s Text Terminal brings her to the attention of high school students.

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: Lizzie Borden

Posted on March 11, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Lizzie Borden. If you are my age (or perhaps younger–do kids still recite this?), you might remember her from this piece of doggerel, recited on finer playgrounds during recess from the horrors of the elementary school classroom:

“Lizzie Borden took an axe
She gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done
She gave her father forty-one.
Lizzie Borden got away
For her crime she did not pay.”

I wrote this worksheet for this year’s Women’s History Month 2021 which is under way now. So I’ve never used it in the classroom. But it’s a safe bet that it will be a high-interest item–especially if paired with a deeper examination of the facts of Lizzie Borden’s case, and the fact that one may, if one chooses, lodge at the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast/Museum while traveling through Fall River, Massachusetts.

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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Cultural Literacy: Fannie Farmer

Posted on March 10, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Fannie Farmer. I knew so little about her that I confess I cannot honestly say (to my chagrin) that I understood that she was even a real person.

Rest assured she was: in fact, she possessed the kind of indomitable spirit that makes for interesting and inspiring reading. At age 16, she suffered a paralytic stroke, which prevented her from finishing high school in Medford, Massachusetts. At age 30, with a limp she would endure throughout her life, Ms. Farmer enrolled in the Boston Cooking School. When she submitted her famous cookbook, The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, to Little Brown for publication, the publisher couldn’t imagine a market for the book and so limited the first edition to 3,000 copies; moreover, the book was published at Ms. Farmer’s expense. Unsurprisingly, there appear to be no true first editions of this book for sale in online used book sites–but quite a few reprints, to the annoyance of this bibliophile, identified as firsts.

I asked two friends of mine about Fannie Farmer, both of whom are talented and adventurous cooks. They responded immediately. The first noted that Ms. Farmer’s cookbook is “The first cookbook I ever bought and I still use it from time to time. Basic and reliable.” This friend also sent along a photograph of the copyright page of her copy, which shows, as of 1968, that the book had been through 18 printings (HA! Take that, Little Brown!). My other friend declared himself agnostic where Ms. Farmer is concerned: “My thoughts on Fannie Farmer? I don’t have any. She’s more an historical allusion but I’m late coming to the cooking game.” At least he knows she’s a real person, which, again, was more than I could say for myself before I prepared this post.

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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Cultural Literacy: Queen Elizabeth I

Posted on March 9, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Queen Elizabeth I. This is a full-page worksheet, so it is suitable in its present form for a variety of learning needs. It can also be revised–as always, this is a Microsoft Word document–for your and your students’ particular needs.

I can’t imagine what needs to be said about Elizabeth. This is a timely topic, given what’s I’ve heard about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s interview with Oprah Winfrey, broadcast the other evening. The House of Windsor is racist? Imagine my surprise! Anyway, while the link may not age well, it is worth noting that #AbolishTheMonarchy is trending on Twitter this morning. I particularly liked the bootlicking meme.

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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Cultural Literacy: Amelia Earhart

Posted on March 8, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Amelia Earhart. She requires no commentary from me.

That said, the enduring mystery of her disappearance is just the kind of thing, in my experience, that motivates alienated students to work to get to the bottom of it. Stories, like this one from just over a year ago, continue to appear in the popular press. In fact, the question “Where, how, and why did Amelia Earhart disappear?” is the kind that starts synthetic research papers.

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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