The Weekly Text, 29 August 2025: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Charles Ponzi

This week’s Text is a reading on Charles Ponzi accompanied but its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

In the fall of 2008, when the United States economy crashed and nearly took the rest of the world down with it, I had just accepted a job at an economics-and-finance-themed high school in the Financial District in Manhattan. I rode the 2 or the 5 train from the North Bronx to the Wall Street Station. My school was on Trinity Place, right across the street from Zuccotti Park. In other words, I worked right in the middle of the Financial District while the place was–metaphorically–going up in flames. It was a weird time: the streets were weirdly quiet, and the restaurants and bars, usually full of boisterous traders, were dead.

Then came Bernie Madoff. My students couldn’t understand what he’d done, but several of them sure were interested. These documents are some of the fruits of my labor that sought to educate these kids about, well, rip-off artists.

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.

Emerson on the End of Humanity

“The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.

Common English Verbs Followed by an Object and a Gerund: See

Here is a worksheet on the verb see when used with an object and a gerund.

I see elephants walking down my block.

The teacher sees the student working on her essay.

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.

Lazlo Moholy-Nagy

“Lazlo Moholy-Nagy: (1895-1946) Hungarian painter, photographer, and art teacher. After studying law in Budapest, he went to Berlin in 1919, and in 1923 he took charge of the metal workshop of the Bauhaus as well as the Bauhaus-book series of publications. As painter and photographer he worked predominantly with light, His ‘photograms’ were composed directly on film, and his ‘light modulators’ (oil paintings on transparent or polished surfaces) included mobile light effects. As an educator, he developed a widely accepted curriculum to develop students’ natural visual gifts instead of specialized skills. Fleeing Nazi Germany in 1935, he went to London and then to Chicago, where he organized and headed the New Bauhaus.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

Cultural Literacy: Run-On Sentence

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the run-on sentence. This is a half-page worksheet with a two-sentence reading and three comprehension questions.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. When I looked at this document in preparation for publishing it, it looked crowded to me. That may be on account of the two-sentence reading, which consists of a couple of whopper compound sentence. I’ll publish this today, but check back here in the future for better learning supports on run-on sentences. I’m actually in the process of finishing a unit on sentence writing, and the lesson on run-ons is one of the last things I have to do.

So, like I said, check back if you need something like this.

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.

Crusade

“Crusade (noun): A journalistic focus on a cause or an abuse, such as a needed political corruption of governmental measure; purposive, editorialized, civic-minded reporting. Noun: crusader; verb: crusade.

‘The truth is that this crusading business is one of the worst curses of journalism, and perhaps the main enemy of that fairness and accuracy and intelligent purpose which should mark the self-respecting newspaper. It trades upon one of the sorriest weaknesses of man—the desire to see the other fellow jump. It is at the heart of that Puritanical frenzy, that obscene psychic sadism, which is our national vice. No newspaper, carrying on a crusade against a man, ever does it fairly and decently; not many of them even make the pretense.’ H.L. Mencken, A Gang of Pecksniffs”

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

The Weekly Text, 22 August 2025: A Lesson on the Latin Word Root Pel

This week’s Text is a lesson plan on the Latin word root pel. It means “drive” and can be found in such high-frequency English words as compel, dispel, expel, propel, and repel, all included, of course, on this scaffolded worksheet, which includes cognates from the Romance languages.

I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the verb animateIt’s used transitively, and in this document it means “to move to action.” I hope it points the way to the meaning of pel.

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.

Mullion

“Mullion: The vertical element or elements that divide a window into two or more lights.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

Common English Verbs Followed by an Object and a Gerund: Catch

Here is a worksheet on the verb catch when used with an object and a gerund.

He caught the train coming into Manhattan.

The principal caught the student skipping class.

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.

Term of Art: Self Esteem

“self esteem: A particularly positive way of experiencing the self that involves emotional, evaluation, and thinking components.

Self-esteem is the ability to experience oneself as being competent to cope with the basic challenges of life, and of being worthy of happiness. By extension, it is confidence in the ability to learn, to make appropriate choices and decisions, and respond effectively to change, It also involves the experience that success, achievement, fulfillment, and happiness are right and natural.

While many things can make a person feel good temporarily, if self-esteem is not grounded in reality, it is not self-esteem.

If a teacher treats students with respect, avoids ridicule, deals fairly, and projects a benevolent conviction about every student’s potential, then that teacher is supporting both self-esteem and the process of learning and mastering challenges. On the other hand, if a teacher tries to nurture self-esteem by empty praise that bears no relationship to the students’ actual accomplishments, then self-esteem is undermined and so is academic achievement.

Research indicates that there is a significant relationship between self-esteem and academic achievement, and that if a student’s self-esteem can be improved, academic achievement tends to follow. Many factors influence self-esteem, including parents, teachers, and other adults, and biology and life experiences.

Many students with a learning disability experience low self-esteem due to years of academic failure. This is why it is especially important to build positive self-esteem by creating opportunities for success, giving sincere praise, and cultivating talents and strengths in individuals with learning disabilities.”

Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.