Tag Archives: building vocabulary/conceptual knowledge

Concepts in Economics: Central Planning

“Central planning: The operation of an economy through centralized decision-taking whereby the decisions are taken at the center and orders issued to enterprises concerning their production and investment plans. While in theory such a system should allow the use of all resources in an economy in the public interest, without wasteful duplication of effort, the amount of information required to achieve efficiency is too great, and the incentives to supply the center with viable information are too poor. As a result, centrally planned economies, such as those of the former Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries, were not able to perform as well as a decentralized system based on competition between independent decision makers, and had to abandon central planning in the late 1980s in favor of the market economy.”

Excerpted from: Black, John, Nigar Hashimzade, and Gareth Miles. Oxford Dictionary of Economics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

The Weekly Text, 30 January 2026: The Writing Revolution Learning Supports II; Abbreviations and Symbols

As we approach Black History Month 2026, this will be the last–for the moment–of the Writing Revolution Learning Supports I will publish. I have a few documents remaining that I’ll distribute over three Weekly Texts in April. For the next two months, you’ll find materials related to Black History Month (February) and Women’s History Month (March).

For today, however, here is the table of contents–not that you’ll need it as there are only two documents. However, depending on how you organize your own files, you might want this document to copy and paste from if you decide to assemble your own table of contents for all this material.

And here, of course, are the documents:

II-A*Abbreviations and Symbols Learning Support 1

II-B*II-A*Abbreviations and Symbols Learning Support 2

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.

Common English Verbs Followed by an Object and an Infinitive: Want

As I am soon to run out of this particular run of documents (two more after this one), about which I remain skeptical, I offer this worksheet on the verb want when used with an object and an infinitive.

The students want their teacher to help them understand concept of post-colonial literature.

The teacher wants financial support to assist her in buying Apple computers for her classroom.

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.

Dialect

“Dialect (noun): A special or regional strain of a language, usually oral in its dissemination, that is distinctive in its idiom, pronunciation, or grammar and is one of several varieties of a common tongue; the language peculiar to a social class, foreign-born group, or the like; idiosyncratic or nonstandard speech. Adjective: dialectical; adverb: dialectically.

‘It was a hard school. One could not learn geography very well through the medium of strange dialects, from dark minds that mingled fact and fable and that measured distances by “sleeps” that varied according to the difficulty of the going.’ Jack London, ‘Lost Face'”

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

Cultural Literacy: Subordination

Given this weeks focus on conjunctions, and especially subordinating conjunctions, now seems like a particularly good time to publish this worksheet on the grammatical concept of subordination. This is a half-page worksheet with a two-sentence reading and three comprehension questions.

Nota bene, please, that the second sentence, in two parts separated by a colon, contains an example of sentence that contains a subordinate clause. This might confuse emergent readers; that said, it’s a well constructed sentence. When I consider the meaning the sentence tries to convey, I’m not sure what I would do to change it.

So if you come up with something interesting, I would appreciate hearing about it.

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, 23 January 2026: The Writing Revolution Learning Supports I; Conjunctions

OK, now that all the templates I developed for The Writing Revolution curricula are up, let’s get started with the learning supports. These will roll out in five different posts in order to keep the categories straight. This first post is the big one, on conjunctions. Here is the table of contents I, on conjunctions, for this tranche of documents.

And here are the documents:

I-A*Learning Support Template with Citation

I-B*Conjunctions Explanation Support

I-C*Because, But, So Learning Support

I-D*Because, But, So Learning Support Annotated

I-E*Learning Support for Subordinating Conjunctions Before, After, If

I-F*Learning Support for Subordinating Conjunctions When, Although, and Even Though

I-G*Learning Support for Subordinating Conjunctions Since, While, Unless, and Whenever

I-H*Learning Support for Subordinating Conjunctions Before, After, If, Adapted for Basic Definitions

I-I*Learning Support for Subordinating Conjunctions When, Although, and Even Though Adapted for Basic Definitions

I-J*Learning Support for Subordinating Conjunctions Since, While, Unless, and Whenever Adapted for Basic Definitions

I-K*Using Conjunctions Learning Supports 1 and 2 (Two Pages in One Document)

I-L*Subordinating Conjunctions Learning Support

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.

Common English Verbs Followed by an Object and an Infinitive: Urge

Here is a worksheet on the verb urge when used with an object and an infinitive.

The teacher urged her students to buy a good Russian-English/English-Russian dictionary.

The political organizer urges young people to run for office.

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.

Cultural Literacy: Stock Options

Lately, I’ve been reading The House of Morgan by Ron Chernow (New York: Grove Press, 2010), so now seems like a good time to publish this Cultural Literacy worksheet on stock options. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences and three comprehension questions. Even at the standards of cogency and clarity I have come to expect from The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, this is a remarkably clear and concise explanation of this financial instrument.

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, 16 January 2026: The Writing Revolution Templates IV; Miscellanea

Alright, this is the fourth of four posts with, I am confident, all the templates one would need to develop units and lessons using the framework Judith C. Hochman and Natalie Wexler erected with their book The Writing Revolution (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2017). These are the stragglers that don’t quite fit in with the groups of documents I posted in the previous three Weekly Texts. There are only six documents here, as listed in the table of contents:

IV-A*Listening Evaluation Checklist

IV-B*Revise and Edit Checklist

IV-C*Research Plan Time Sequence Sheet

IV-D*Summary Sentences

IV-E*Assessment Template

IV-F*Writing Pre-Assessment

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.

Common English Verbs Followed by an Object and an Infinitive: Tell

Here is a worksheet on the verb tell when used with an object and an infinitive.

Every day, the professor tells his students to take notes during the lecture.

Doctors tell their patients to take their medications on time.

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.