Last but not least this morning, on a lovely spring morning, what’s more appropriate than a reading on Walt Whitman along with its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet?
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.
Here is a lesson plan on the Greek word roots homo, homoiao, and homeo. They mean same, similar, and equal. These are extremely productive roots in English; I assume science teachers will recognize the root of two important words in their domain, homeostasis and homeothermic.
I begin this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the adjective similar in order to provide students a hint of the meaning of these roots. Here, finally, is the 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.
Here is a context clues worksheet on the noun edict. If memory serves (and it generally does, happily), I wrote this for use in a freshman global studies class in New York City, where the word appeared repeatedly in lessons ranging from ancient Rome and Greece to the rise of the Catholic Church as a world power.
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.
Last but not least this morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on brainwashing. I imagine the importance of this speaks for itself.
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.
While wandering around in the warehouse yesterday morning, I came across this reading on the influenza epidemic of 1918 and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Given that this historical event has become something of a touchstone for understanding our current circumstances, i.e. the coronavirus pandemic, I can’t quite understand how I lost track of this material.
That is, until I read it. Over the years, I’ve developed a great deal of material based on the mostly excellent readings in the Intellectual Devotional series; I’ve also had a lot of success in using these materials. Students who would turn up their nose at a book, or a reading from a textbook (I especially understand the latter, as most corporate-published textbooks are lethal), will take on one of these–especially high-interest readings. This reading, however, is one of the weakest I’ve seen.
Which, however, provides some grist for the critical mill. Let’s start with the title of this reading. The influenza of 1918 was by any measure a pandemic–that’s why one of the John M. Barry’s book, The Great Influenza, one of the best on the subject, carries the subtitle “The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History.” So, the title for the reading in this post offers students an opportunity to differentiate, and understand the difference between, an epidemic and a pandemic. The influenza of 1918 was certainly a pandemic–remember that the Greek root pan means all. This reading, in short, presents an opportunity to teach students the importance of using language with precision.
In other words, the big question this reading raises is: Was the influenza outbreak of 1918 an epidemic or a pandemic?
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.
Finally, here is the eighth and last lesson plan of “The Great Debaters” unit plan here on Mark’s Text Terminal. This is the assessment; I sought to create a document that measures thinking and memory rather than students’ ability to get the “right answer.” I wanted students to think about the readings, the movie, and, indeed, their own impressions and thinking about the unit’s content. This is my attempt (and I’ll concede happily and readily that it could use improvement, so by all means–and please!–chime in with your comments on this) to create a metacognitive assessment. I want students, again, to think about their thinking, especially in the way they used their prior knowledge of the real-life figures in the film better to understand the film itself.
I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the noun cognition; if the lesson goes into a second day–and I planned that it would–here is another on the noun metacognition. I would like students to walk away from this lesson with knowledge of metacognitive assessments, which I think, and research supports, are an important way of helping students to internalize and commit to memory the contents of this or any unit plan.
And, finally, here is the final assessment worksheet itself. I think there are any number of ways to use this. I prefer to conduct this as a group discussion and note-taking exercise during which students can range freely over the material and their reactions to it. Like just about everything else on this blog, this document is in Microsoft Word, so you can alter it to you and your students’ needs and circumstances.
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.
Here is the seventh lesson plan (of eight) of “The Great Debaters” unit plan here on Mark’s Text Terminal. This lesson describes and rationalizes the second day of watching the film. Here is another note-taking blank with which students can record their thoughts and recollections while watching the film.
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.
Moving right along this morning, here is the sixth lesson plan in The Great Debaters unit plan here at Mark’s Text Terminal. This lesson initiates the viewing of the film.
So, here is a context clues worksheet on the noun montage, a cinematic term that describes the compression of exposition into a series of fleeting images that supplies deep context for the narrative without the sacrifice of a compelling pace of narration. The main document for this lesson is this simple note-taking blank that asks students to jot down responses to a single who, where and what questions.
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.
Here is the fifth lesson plan of the unit plan on the Denzel Washington film The Great Debaters. This lesson addresses the attempts of the Communist Party USA to enlist Americans of African descent in the class struggle in the United States. This is a complex and fraught topic, and I believe an entire academic career might be profitably spent on this topic. A good place to go to get a general sense of it is Richard Wright’s superlative memoir Black Boy. Because of Melvin Tolson’s involvement in labor organizing, and his possible membership in the Communist Party (a fact, I find, very hard to pin down), there are scenes in the film of Tolson (played, once again, by Denzel Washington) organizing farmers and farmworkers), I wanted students to understand the allure of the Communist Party to oppressed Black people.
Unsurprisingly, I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the noun socialism. In the event the lesson continues into a second day, here is another on the noun communism. Finally, here is the reading and comprehension 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.
Okay, here is the fourth lesson plan of a total of eight in The Great Debaters unit here at Mark’s Text Terminal. This lesson is on James Farmer Jr., the legendary Civil Rights activist, who is a key figure in the narrative of this unit and in the film in which this unit culminates. It’s worth mentioning here that Mr. Farmer’s father, James Farmer Sr. (played in the film by the estimable Forest Whitaker), was a truly heroic figure and probably worth a lesson in this unit. Unfortunately, when planning such a unit, one must make choices. I may return to this unit at some point and add a lesson about James Farmer Sr. What do you think?
I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the verb matriculate, which is used both intransitively and transitively. In the event the lesson goes into a second day (depending on the length of your class period and how you choose to teach this material, there is a good chance it will), then here is another on the noun labor union, a concept and concrete assembly of people that is a key aspect of the biography of Melvin Tolson.
Finally, here is the reading and comprehension worksheet on James Farmer Jr. that is the gravamen 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.
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