Tag Archives: argumentation

The Weekly Text, 19 December 2025: The Writing Revolution Templates II; Worksheets

As we slide into the holidays (there will be no Weekly Texts for the next two Fridays), this week’s Text is a list of worksheet templates developed from Judith C. Hochman and Natalie Wexler’s excellent framework for writing instuction, The Writing Revolution (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2017). First of all, here is the worksheets templates table of contents. And here are the worksheet templates themselves:

II-A*What Makes a Sentence a Sentence; Fragments, Scrambled Sentences, and Run-Ons

II-B*Piece It Together; Unscrambling Scrambled Sentences

II-C*Put the Brakes On; Correcting Run-On Sentences

II-D*Four Types of Sentence Writing, Declarative, Imperative, Interrogative and Exclamatory (Four Templates in One Document)

II-E*What Do You Know? Developing Questions

II-F*Let’s Play Jeopardy; Giving Students the Answers and Asking for Questions

II-G*The Power of Basic Conjunctions Because, But, So

II-H*How to Say It in Writing–Ten Subordinating Conjunctions Distributed Over Three Worksheet Templates

II-I*Another Name for a Noun; Appositive and Matching Appositives (Two Templates in One Document)

II-J*Put Them Together; Sentence Combining

II-K* Sentence Expansion; Bigger and Better–Expanding Sentences to Expand Students’ Knowledge and Responses and What Do You See? Using Sentence Expansion to Write Captions for Pictures (Two Templates in One Document)

II-L*The Power of Note-Taking–To Note-Taking Formats Distributed Over Two Worksheet Templates

II-M*Sentence with a Semicolon Stop

II-N*Sentence with a Colon Stop

II-O*Sentence Stem with a Coordinating Conjunction

II-P*Sentence Stem with an Elision for Parentheses

II-Q*Sentence Stem with Like or As to Produce an Analogy or a Simile

II-R*Partial Sentence with the Conjunctions Except, But, and Although to Join Contrary or Contradictory Pieces of Information

II-S*Which One Doesn’t Belong? Eliminating the Lease Relevant Sentence

II-T*Summary Sentence Worksheet

II-U*Select Appropriate Details from the List to Support Each Topic Sentence

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 Weekly Text, 8 August 2025: Lesson Seven of a Unit on Writing Reviews

OK–after eight weeks of drafting these posts, this week’s Text is seventh and final lesson plan of a unit on writing reviews. Since this lesson concludes the unit and turns students loose to write their reviews, I have included four Cultural Literacy worksheets as do-now exercises with the idea that students will need at least four days to write and revise their compositions. So here are those documents on hyperbole, nuance, analogy, and paraphrase. Each of these worksheet is a half-page long with short readings and three or fewer comprehension questions.

At this point in the unit, students should have their thoughts on their review outlined, and, therefore, in a final state of organization. So this short organizer is the worksheet for this lesson, and simply asks students a few final clarifying questions on their planned paper. This is for their benefit, and one final clarifying exercise.

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 Weekly Text, 4 July 2025: Lesson Two of the Writing Reviews Unit

The second lesson plan of the Writing Reviews Unit is about argumentation, which any review will need to do well to convince its readers. In fact, when I first began working on these materials in 2006 or so, I conceived them as an introduction to the kind of academic writing kids really need to know how to do before they graduate high school.

So this scaffolded worksheet seeks to assist students in developing their own understanding of the difference between a quarrel and an argument in order to clarify the rhetorical and epistemological purpose of an argument. You might find the the teacher’s copy of the worksheet useful.

This lesson opens with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of to damn with faint praise, the use of which in a review I will take as a given.

Happy Fourth of July! I bid you a restful day and evening.

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 Weekly Text, 2 September 2022: A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “The Big Bang”

This week’s Text is a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “The Big Bang.” This lesson opens with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on dogma: it’s a half-page document with a two-sentence reading and two comprehension questions. This is one of the better of these things I’ve produced over the years–it’s strength is clearly in its economy. Two sentences, it turns out, is all the subject needs if the writer is sufficiently concise.

You’ll need this PDF of the illustration and questions to use as evidence to investigate the offense against good order the case represents. To bring the alleged misdemeanant or felon to justice, you and your students will also need this typescript of the answer key.

That’s it. And by “that’s it,” I mean that this is the last of these lessons I have to publish here. That also means that there are 72 Crime and Puzzlement lessons on this blog now. Help yourself!

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 Weekly Text, 19 August 2022: A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Idora Park”

It’s Friday again, so that means it’s time for the Weekly Text: here is a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “Idora Park.” This lesson opens with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on nuance: it’s half-page document with a single-sentence reading and three comprehension questions, one of which calls upon students to think of some nuances.

To investigate whatever unlawful act occurred at Idora Park, you’ll need this PDF of the illustration and questions that serve as evidence against the alleged perpetrator. To bring charges and secure a conviction, you’ll need this typescript of the answer key.

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.

The Weekly Text, 12 August 2022: A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “The Gentle Breezes”

This week’s Text is a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “The Gentle Breezes.” I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on motif; it’s a half-pager with a three-sentence reading and three comprehension questions in what looks to me like a nice symmetry. To investigate the wrongdoing in this case, you will need this PDF of the illustration and questions that serve as evidence of the crime. Finally, to apprehend and charge a suspect, you and your students will need this typescript of the answer key.

And that’s it for another week. I hope yours was pleasant and fulfilling.

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 Weekly Text, 1 July 2022: A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “The Great Diamond Heist”

The Weekly Text from Mark’s Text Terminal for the first of July 2022 is a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “The Great Diamond Heist.” I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on allusion (a half-page document with a three-sentence reading and three comprehension questions–just the basics). To conduct your investigation into this act of larceny, you will need the PDF of the illustration and questions that serve as the evidence in this case. Finally, for your students to bring the culprit or culprits to the bar of justice, here is the typescript of the answer key.

And that’s it for another week. I hope you are enjoying a relaxing summer.

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.

Rhetoric

Rhetoric (Greek, rhetor, “speaker in the assemby): Rhetoric is the art of using language for persuasion, in speaking and writing; especially in oratory. The Classical theoreticians codified rhetoric very thoroughly. A knowledge and command of it was regarded as essential. The major textbooks included Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria, Cicero’s De Inventione, De Optimo Genere Oratorium, and De Oratore. Cicero himself was an accomplished rhetorician. So great was the influence of these men (and, later, of Longinus in the work ascribed to him, On the Sublime) that in the Middle Ages rhetoric became part ot the trivium, along with logic and grammar.

The rules for oral and written composition (these rules altered little from Cicero’s day until well on in the 19th century) were divided into five processes in a logical order: invention, arrangement (or disposition), style, memory, and delivery (each had a number of sub-divisions). ‘Invention’ was the discovery of the relevant material; ‘arrangement’ was the organization of the material into sound structural form; under ‘style’ came the consideration of the appropriate manner for the matter and occasion (e.g. the grand style, the middle and the low and the plain); under ‘memory’ came guidance on how to memorize speeches; the section devoted to ‘delivery’ elaborated the technique for actually making a speech.”

Excerpted from: Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New York: Penguin, 1992.

The Weekly Text, 2 July 2021: A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “The Cider Booth”

This week’s text is a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “The Cider Booth.” 

I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on dead languages. Incidentally, the short reading in this half-page document speaks specifically of Latin, ancient Greek, and Sanskrit. As a matter of routine in my classroom, I taught Greek and Latin word roots for vocabulary building. When one thinks about how often classical word roots turn up in English words, the idea under the circumstances that these languages are “dead” can make for interesting classroom discussions. Also, when one considers that Spanish, the first lingua franca of a wide swath of student I served over the years, is in some respect a modern version of Latin, the idea that the tongue of the Roman Empire is dead doesn’t quite make sense.

Anyway, to conduct your investigation into the case of “The Cider Booth,” you will need this PDF of the illustration and questions that both drive the investigation and serve as evidence in it. Finally, to identify a suspect and bring him or her to the bar of justice, here is the typescript of the answer key you will need.

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 Weekly Text, June 4, 2021: A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “The Cheater”

This week’s Text is a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “The Cheater.” I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Latinism mea culpa, which means, of course, “through my fault.” You see the root of the noun culpability there, I’m confident, which means “responsibility for for wrongdoing or failure” and “the quality or state of being culpable.” Translated into adolescent-speak, it means “my bad.” You and I might say it translates to “my fault.” Enough said.

To conduct your investigation into the case of “The Cheater,” you’ll need this scan of the illustration that presents the evidence in the case, which is attended by short narrative and questions to guide your inquiry. Finally, here is the typescript of the answers to help you conclude your investigation.

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.