Tag Archives: building vocabulary/conceptual knowledge

Cultural Literacy: Montezuma

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Montezuma. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two simple sentences and two comprehension questions. This document, I think, epitomizes the concept of the do-now exercise: you know, something to settle students at the beginning of  class session after a change of instructional periods? This is a spare introduction to Montezuma, more properly spelled Moctezuma, but a good place to start, I think, a discussion of the conquistadors in what we now call Latin America.

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, 24 November 2023, National Native American Heritage Month Week III: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Spain in the New World

For the third Friday of National Native American Heritage Month 2023, this week’s Text is a reading on Spain in the New World along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I think the effect on indigenous peoples of the arrival of Spanish explorers, then the conquistadors that succeeded them, is obvious and in no need of belaboring here. Put another way, remember that the Aztecs, Mayas, and Incas were indigenous populations–and that the conquistadors’ legacy of abuse of indigenous populations persists: I offer you, as one egregious example, the late and loathsome Efrain Rios Montt.

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: Native Americans

This Cultural Literacy worksheet on Native Americans is a full-page worksheet with a reading of four sentences–all but one of which are longish compounds that may need to be broken up and recast for emergent readers and English language learners–and four comprehension questions. It’s a shorter version, I suppose, of last week’s Text.

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: Jim Thorpe

As there is a movie about him in the works (and if you look under that link, you will learn, happily I hope, that the production team is made up of Native American people), now seems like a good time to post this Cultural Literacy worksheet on Jim Thorpe. This is a half-page worksheet with a two-question reading and two comprehension questions. In other words, a spare introduction to this famous athlete. Still, it’s a good place to start–especially if our students end up seeing this movie when it arrives.

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, 17 November 2023, National Native American Heritage Month Week II: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Imperialism

In the second week of observation of Native American Heritage Month 2023, here is a reading on imperialism along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Imperialism may seem indirectly related to Native Americans, except that imperialist projects around the world have been–and in many real ways continue to be–deleterious to indigenous communities.

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.

Tupian Languages

“Tupian Languages: Family of South American Indian languages with at least seven subgroups, spoken or formerly spoken in scattered areas from south French Guiana south to southernmost Brazil and Paraguay and east to eastern Bolivia. About a third of the estimated 37 known Tupian languages are extinct. The largest subgroup, Tupi-Guarani, includes the extinct language Tupinamba, the source for borrowings of many New World flora and fauna terms into Portuguese and hence other European languages. Another language of the subgroup, Guarani, is spoken as a first or second language by more than 90 percent of Paraguayans, who consider it a token of Paraguayan identity.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

Cultural Literacy: Incas

Last but not least this morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Incas. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences and three comprehension questions. A clear, cogent, and symmetrical introduction to a great civilization.

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: French and Indian Wars

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the French and Indian War in the British Colonies in North America. This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of five sentences and five comprehension questions. The reading explicitly connect sthe French and Indian War to the Seven Years War, which I’ve rarely seen done in social studies classrooms where I have been a co-teacher. In general, historians regard the French and Indian War as the North American theater of the Seven Years War.

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, 10 November 2023, National Native American Heritage Month Week I: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Native Americans

November is Native American Heritage Month in the United States, though given what has imperialism has wrought on indigenous peoples around the world, it ought to be a global observance in by opinion. I am a week behind with posts for this month because I wanted to post the sixteen-lesson Styling Sentences unit seriatim, which caused it to run into the first Friday in November.

So, as there are four Fridays in September, the four posts for this month will run into Friday, 1 December. Problem solved.

Without further ado, then, here is a reading on Native Americans from the Intellectual Devotional series of books, along with 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.

Common English Verbs Followed by an Infinitive: Need

Here is a worksheet on the verb need as it is used with an infinitive. I need to move these worksheets out of my data warehouse.

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.