Tag Archives: building vocabulary/conceptual knowledge

The Weekly Text, September 1, 2017: A Complete Lesson Plan on the Most Commonly Used Prepositions

Posted on September 1, 2017 | Leave a comment

Of the seven units on the parts of speech I’ve built, the one on prepositions is the shortest. As I start writing this week’s Text, I realize that with this post I’ve already published three of the seven lessons in the unit–and one of them just last week.

This is the third lesson in the unit, on working with commonly used prepositions. There are, as with most of the lessons I post here, two do-now, Everyday Edit exercises to start the lesson, the first on the “Miracle Worker,” Anne Sullivan and the second on James Forten, a free Black man in Philadelphia. The center of this lesson is this scaffolded worksheet on working with commonly used prepositions. To complete it, students will benefit from access to this learning support on using prepositions, prepositional phrases, and compound prepositions. Finally, while delivering this lesson, I’m confident that you’ll find the teacher’s copy and answer key helpful.

That’s it. School starts on Tuesday! I hope the school year starts well for you.

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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The Weekly Text, August 25, 2017: A Lesson Plan on Using Prepositions with Pronouns in the Objective Case

Posted on August 24, 2017 | Leave a comment

Last spring, while teaching my unit on prepositions, I found I needed to revise and strengthen this lesson plan on using prepositions with pronouns in the objective case; as long as I had it out, I duplicated and set it aside for a future text, and that future has arrived, so here it is as a Weekly Text.

To teach this lesson you’ll need the two do-now exercises (and, as I’ve written here before, if you like Everyday Edits, the good people at Education World generously give them away), the first of which is an Everyday Edit on Charles Drew; the second, another Everyday Edit, this one on the poet Gwendolyn Brooks, you may need if classroom exigencies extend this lesson into a second day. The mainstay of this lesson is this scaffolded worksheet on using prepositions with the objective case of pronouns. Your students and you will probably find useful this learning support to accompany the worksheet.

I design my worksheets, as you’ll see explained in the About Weekly Texts on the home page banner, so that I can insert students’ names in them as both subject and object noun. This worksheet is, in terms of these insertions, complicated sufficiently that I’ve decided to include in this post this finished copy, ready for classroom use, of the worksheet to demonstrate how to fill the asterisks with subject and object nouns in the worksheet itself. Finally, here is the teacher’s copy of the worksheet which serves as the answer key as well.

That’s it. I hope this lesson is useful to you, and not marred by its prolixity.

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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Consent (vi)

Posted on August 23, 2017 | Leave a comment

Ah, summer, how quickly you wane! Two weeks from today I’ll be suffering through one more of the vapid, insufferable “professional development” sessions the administration of my school inflicts upon the faculty.

Here is a context clues worksheet on the verb consent. Merriam-Webster tags it as intransitive, and if you think about its use, it’s hard to imagine a direct object following 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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The Weekly Text, August 3, 2017: Two Context Clues Worksheets on Descend (vi/vt) and Descendant (n)

Posted on August 3, 2017 | Leave a comment

Here are two context clues worksheets on the verb descend and the noun descendant. As you will infer from the choice of the noun, these are the definitions of these words that relate to origins rather than moving in a downward direction. I like to use these early in the year in global studies classes.

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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Conspire (vt/vi)

Posted on August 1, 2017 | Leave a comment

On my penultimate morning in Vermont, here is  a context clues worksheet on the verb conspire. The dictionary indicates it is used transitively and intransitively, though it looks like it is almost always used intransitively.

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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Cultural Literacy: Schism

Posted on July 31, 2017 | Leave a comment

On a bright, cool morning in Springfield, Vermont, I offer you this Cultural Literacy worksheet on schism. The definition and this worksheet limits the noun to its meaning as a breach within a religion. Merriam-Webster defines it more broadly, so there is some room here for the kind of rich discussion on usage that educational research suggests benefits students.

In any case, by their senior year at the very least, this is a word and concept high school students really ought to 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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The Weekly Text, July 28, 2017: Two Context Clues Worksheets on Prolix (adj) and Prolixity (n)

Posted on July 28, 2017 | Leave a comment

At the moment, I’m busily developing a unit on argumentation for the fall semester at my school. Ergo, This week’s Text is a quick one, namely these two context clues worksheets on the adjective prolix and the noun prolixity. I can tell you from my experience working in a couple of different college writing centers that students are regularly dispatched to those old-fashioned help desks for prolixity. Students ought to know what these words mean, in any case, especially students planning to major in subjects in the humanities in college–which require a lot of (good) writing.

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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A Midsummer Text: Five Worksheets on Differentiating the Homophones Who’s and Whose

Posted on July 25, 2017 | Leave a comment

I’ve been working on a series of new homophone worksheets, including these five on the who’s and whose and this learning support to accompany them.

I assume you see these words confused regularly, as they are two of the most commonly confused homophones in the English language. Writing these worksheets, I’m afraid I let the material get away from me. Endeavoring to create materials that helped students form their own, comprehensive, understanding of these two words, I wrote a lot of text that I realized, after it was down on paper, was too much information for worksheet instructions. I turned quite a bit of the text into the learning support post in this Text. However, the worksheets themselves still may be prolix by virtue of the still-lengthy definitions of these two words and their definitions,

In any case, these are Word documents, so you may manipulate them for your use.

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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The Weekly Text, July 21, 2017: A Lesson Plan on Using the Degrees of Adjectives

Posted on July 12, 2017 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is a complete lesson plan on using the degrees of adjectives. To refresh your memory, the three degrees of adjectives are the positive (big), the comparative (bigger) and the superlative, (biggest). Two do-now exercises open this unit, the first a parsing sentences worksheet on verbs and the second a Cultural Literacy Worksheet on acronyms. (I include as a matter of course two do-now exercises in the event that a lesson runs into a second day because of interruptions.) The mainstay of the lesson is this scaffolded worksheet on using the three degrees of adjectives. You may also want to use this learning support on the degrees of adjectives. Finally, you might find the teacher’s copy of the worksheet useful while giving this lesson.

Finally, this lesson affords you an opportunity, should you care to emphasize it, to point out to students that they will always, after the comparative adjective, use the conjunction than and not the adverb then.

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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The Weekly Text, July 14, 2017: Two Context Clues Worksheets on Deify (v) and Deity (n)

Posted on July 12, 2017 | Leave a comment

While I like to think Mark’s Text Terminal adheres to relatively high standards in the tone it sets and the material it presents, I fear this week may be an exception to that rule (if indeed it exists, since I’m not necessarily the best or most objective judge, in the final analysis, of my own work). I’m having too much fun after a long and difficult school year to spend too much time this morning on a blog post; today I’m taking a day trip up to the charming town of Beacon, New York.

Here are two context clues on the verb deify and the noun deity. N.B. that deify is used only transitively; in other words, don’t forget your direct objects–you must deify someone or something, in order to have a deity.

I think these are a couple of words high school students really ought to know. In any case, this pair provides you an opportunity to make connections between two parts of speech–verbs and nouns.

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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