Tag Archives: building vocabulary/conceptual knowledge

A Lesson Plan on Using Personal Pronouns in the Nominative Case

Posted on June 4, 2019 | Leave a comment

OK: here, on a Tuesday morning, is a complete lesson plan on the personal pronoun in the nominative case.

I begin this lesson, after a class change, with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on Jargon; and if the lesson, for whatever reason (there are many in classroom, as we teacher know) continues into a second day, here is a second do-now, an Everyday Edit worksheet on Booker T. Washington. Incidentally, if you or your students find Everyday Edits useful or edifying, the good people at Education World offer a yearlong supply of them for the taking.

This scaffolded worksheet on using the personal pronoun in the nominative case is the mainstay of this lesson. Finally, here is a learning support on pronouns and case to help students navigate this area of usage and develop their own understanding–and mastery–of it.

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.

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Ty Cobb

Posted on June 3, 2019 | Leave a comment

He was a nasty and irredeemably racist piece of work, but he was also one of the greatest baseball players in the history of the game.

For that reason, Mark’s Text Terminal offers, with some trepidation, this reading on Ty Cobb and its accompanying worksheet for vocabulary building and comprehension.

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.

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Word Root Exercise: Chron/o

Posted on June 3, 2019 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the Greek word root chron/o. It means, as you probably already know–but your students may not know–time. It’s an extremely productive root in English; as this worksheet shows, chron/o is at the base of a number of words that educated people know and routinely use: chronic, chronology, synchronize–this list could go on at some length.

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.

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Allusion (n) and Illusion (n)

Posted on June 2, 2019 | Leave a comment

Moving right along on a Sunday morning, here are five worksheets on the homophones allusion and illusion. They’re both nouns, and both are words high schoolers ought to know and be able to use properly.

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.

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Nirvana

Posted on June 2, 2019 | Leave a comment

Here’s some high interest material that has motivated, in my experience, even the most resistant students to read: this reading on the rock band Nirvana and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet might have the same effect in your classroom.

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.

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Cultural Literacy: Don’t Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth

Posted on June 2, 2019 | Leave a comment

Over the years I worked with struggling learners in New York City’s schools, I always counted among the students on my rosters a complement of English language learners. Observing them across time, I noticed that all but a very few struggled with idioms from American English. Idioms are, arguably, one of the most difficult if not the most difficult figures of speech to master: they are not literal, and as abstractions they are difficult to interpret because they don’t bear any resemblance in most cases to the concept they describe and represent.

Which is why, when I started using E.D. Hirsch and Joseph F. Kett’s book, The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, I wrote up worksheets on American idioms and attached them as short, do-now exercises (they take five to ten minutes at the beginning of a class period and help with transitions between classes) to as many of the lessons as I could.

So, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on “Don’t Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth”. This is still, I think, a very commonly used idiom, and is easy to explain conceptually, which will help students make the jump from the figurative to the literal and back again on this worksheet, and, this teacher hopes, to many of the other of its type I have posted and will post over 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.

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Quirk (n)

Posted on June 2, 2019 | Leave a comment

If you can use it, here is a context clues worksheet on the noun quirk. This is a common enough word that high school students should know it. Put another way, adolescence tends to be a time of personal quirks, so this is a useful, arguably vital, word for teenagers.

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.

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A Learning Support on Three Rhetorical Terms: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos

Posted on June 1, 2019 | Leave a comment

Several years ago I became interested in the Trivium both as a concept and as a potential framework for a unit, in this case a unit on writing. I actually began developing the unit, put together the first three lessons, and offered it as a special institute class at the high school in which I was serving. Ultimately, alas, I was unable to bring the unit to fruition due to institutional disinterest.

When I arrived at the school in which I presently serve, I noticed that the English teachers required in writing assignments that students use the rhetorical moves of ethos, pathos, and logos to argue their case. Since rhetoric is one of the three subjects in the trivium–logic and grammar are the others–I found this interesting.

Which is why I developed this learning support on ethos, logos, and pathos in case the students in my literacy classroom needed it. Unfortunately, I was never able to use 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.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

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White Blood Cells

Posted on June 1, 2019 | Leave a comment

Some years ago, I oversaw a credit-recovery class over summer, and one of the most frequently failed courses that year was health. I developed a number of supplemental materials for the inadequate corporate software the school used for his endeavor. I’ll start posting them here occasionally.

Here, then, is a reading on white blood cells and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

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.

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Word Root Exercise: Cardio

Posted on May 31, 2019 | Leave a comment

Finally, on this Friday afternoon, before I leave for an appointment at the dentist, here is a worksheet on the on the Greek word root cardi/o. It means heart, which you probably already knew, but also, apparently, orifice.

This is yet another of those Greek roots that students interested in careers in healthcare must know–must know.

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.

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