“Quadratura: Illusionistic painting on a ceiling or wall in which perspective and foreshortening of architectural members, figure, etc., give the impression that the interior is open and limitless. Practiced by Italian baroque specialty painters, known as quadraturisti or quadratisti.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
Here is a worksheet on the verb permit when followed by an object and an infinitive.
The student radio host couldn’t permit the politician to curse on the air.
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.
“accolade: [E17th] The Provencal word acolada is the source of accolade. This literally meant an embrace or a clasping around the neck, and described the gesture of a friendly hug that was sometimes made when knighting someone, as an early alternative to a stroke on the shoulder with the flat of a sword. The ultimate root of the Provencal word is Latin collum ‘neck,’ from which we also get collar [ME].”
Excerpted from: Creswell, Julia. Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of a sect. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences and two comprehension questions. A simple but effective introduction to a concept students really ought to understand before they graduate high school.
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.
“Architect, n. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.
As regular readers of this blog may know, I have been trying for a number of years to develop a set of materials, particularly for my social studies classes (which I am no longer teaching at the moment), based on the methods articulated by Judith C. Hochman and Natalie Wexler in The Writing Revolution (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2017). Even though I have never had a chance to actually teach writing (which was done directly in none of the schools in which I have served in New York City; teachers assign writing work, but don’t really teach students how to write), I have been interested in doing so since I began my career 22 years ago. Now that I am about to retire, I see that I will probably never teach writing, and I probably won’t further develop my store of materials based on The Writing Revolution.
I’ve read enough about curriculum and curriculum design to know that I don’t care much for curricula that aren’t at once scaffolded and flexible. Most are not. But The Writing Revolution is the best thing of its kind I’ve encountered; I knew the first time I read the book that I would want to develop a curriculum based on its methods. It is scaffolded and flexible.
Two years ago, I was finally able to focus on working on these materials. It’s a lot of stuff, and I stipulate that it is uneven at best. Nonetheless–and I think now is a good time to remind users of this blog that most of what you’ll find here is set in Microsoft Word, therefore it is highly convertible and manipulable–I think some of this stuff is worth putting out there. I should also mention that I created a plethora of templates and supports–mostly typed verbatim from the book itself–for developing curricular materials consistent with The Writing Revolution’s prescribed methods.
At the time I began work on this stuff, sometime late in 2018, I thought it might me most useful for my freshman global studies class. This was for a number of reasons, the most salient among them that the New York State Regents Exam in Global Studies was notoriously challenging, and that the student population I served, everyone in my school at the time knew, really struggled with that particular test. But I also wanted to get students writing on their own, and to use language in ways that they otherwise wouldn’t–one of the principal strengths of The Writing Revolution in my opinion.
For global studies, I conceived of strands of work that followed a conceptual and factual arc across a relatively short, but dense and mildly challenging, series of documents. So, without further ado (and with apologies for the ado thus proffered), I offer the documents for Strand Three. This strand would concern agriculture and the earliest cities, but so far, as the lesson plan for Strand Three will show you, I only managed to pull together worksheets on agriculture and crop rotation. These are “developing questions” worksheets: they call upon students to read short passages of text, then develop a question or questions based on what they’ve read. The teachers copy of the agriculture as well as for the worksheet on crop rotation should help make the purpose of this work, and its methods, clearer.
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.
“The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.
Here is a worksheet on the verb pay when followed by an object and an infinitive.
You’ll need to pay him to clean your garage.
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.
“self-regulation: The ability to regulate and monitor a person’s own actions and behavior. Problems with effective self-regulation are a primary struggle for students with attention and executive function problems.
Effective self-regulation depends on a complex interaction of thinking, feeling, and perception.
Problems with self-regulation may stem from many different sources. Individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder typically have problems with self-regulation due to underlying brain processing difficulties with memory, attention, and executive function, particularly as these affect the ability to control impulses and restrain and monitor internal thoughts. Problems with self-regulation also may be caused by other psychological conditions, such as bipolar disorder, conduct disorders, or obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Development of more effective ways to self-regulate is part of an effective coaching and strategy development program for individuals with ADHD. In general, while self-regulation may be seen as an underlying brain function, it is also learned behavior. Therefore, it is possible to teach individuals how to change patterns of impulsive and reckless behavior.”
Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on science fiction. This is a half-page document with a reading of three sentences and three comprehension questions. A concise, symmetrical introduction to this literary genre.
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.
 | A Measurement Conver… on An Elegantly Simple Cooking Co… |
| A Measurement Conver… on The Weekly Text, October 25, 2… |
 | markstextterminal on Cree |
 | panzer046a139293db on Cree |
| markstextterminal on Cree |
Mark's Text Terminal 
You must be logged in to post a comment.