Tag Archives: building vocabulary/conceptual knowledge

The Weekly Text, 10 April 2026: The Writing Revolution Learning Supports IV; Punctuation Learning Supports

Alright, let’s move along with another Weekly Text dealing with materials aligned with Judith C. Hochman and Natalie Wexler’s The Writing Revolution (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2017).

Even though there are only two items in this post, I nonetheless include this table of contents in case you are assembling your own table of contents from this series of posts. And without further ado, here are two learning supports.

IV-A*Using Colons and Semicolons Versions 1, 2, and 3 (i.e. three supports in one document)

IV-B*Using Parentheses Versions 1 and 2 (i.e. two supports in one document)

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: Would Like

This is finally the last of these, so without further ado, here is a worksheet on the verb phrase would like when followed by an object and an infinitive.

The cat would like you to feed it.

We would like the server to bring us our check.

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: Role Model

As I have always thought role modeling is an important element of any teaching practice, I think this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of a role model is a bit overdue. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of four straightforward sentences and three comprehension questions.

This document might be modified into a full-page worksheet with some critical questions about who might best be characterized as role model. In terms of design, the worksheet looks a bit crowded to me. It is, like just about everything on Mark’s Text Terminal, formatted in Microsoft Word for ease of adaptation, editing, or whatever else you might want to do with it for benefit of your students.

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.

Dialogue

“Dialogue (noun): Conversation between two or more people, or the literary representation of direct speech; quoted utterance; a work written entirely in the form of a colloquy, especially in philosophy; and exchange of ideas or opinions. Adjective: dialogic; adverb: dialogically.

‘He was for long thought to write very bad English, and indeed he gave you the impression or writing with the stub of a blunt pencil; his style was labored, an uneasy mixture of the classical and the slangy, and his dialogue as such that could never have issued from the mouth of a human being.’ W. Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale

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

The Weekly Text, 3 April 2026: The Writing Revolution Learning Supports III; Transition Words and Phrases Learning Support

This week’s Text is a simple one, to wit this learning support on transition words and phrases. This is, as the header for this post indicates, part of a series of posts on material related to Judith C. Hochman and Natalie Wexler’s The Writing Revolution (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2017) and the methods of writing instruction therein.

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: Emma Lazarus

Last but not least for Women’s History Month 2026, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Emma Lazarus. She wrote, as you may know, “The New Colossus,” the poem that visitors to the Statue of Liberty find at her base. This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences, and the poem itself, and three comprehension questions.

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: Doris Lessing

She’s not exactly primary or secondary school material, but here, nonetheless, is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Doris Lessing. This is a half-page document with a reading of two longish, but not insurmountable, sentences and two comprehension questions. Anyone at the level at which I teach with an interest in Doris Lessing shouldn’t have any problem with this document.

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, 27 March 2026, Women’s History Month Week IV: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Agrippina

For the final Friday of Women’s History Month 2026, here is a reading on Agrippina with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. She probably doesn’t figure in curricula anywhere, but I can imagine that she must–because she was a real piece of work–be of interest to students of certain intellectual proclivities.

Because she did murder her husband, the Emperor Claudius.

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.

Cultural Literacy: Esther

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Esther, the Old Testament figure and book in her name. People of the Jewish faith hold the festival of Purim in her honor.

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: Betsy Ross

Frankly, I am hard pressed to imagine that there is any demand for this Cultural Literacy worksheet on Betsy Ross. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences and one comprehension question. I think I learned in grade school about her–primarily through her association with sewing the first United States flag–for which, this reading asserts, there is no documentation.

Every once in a while, I post something that I think is filler. This might be one of those.

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.