Tag Archives: diction/grammar/style/usage

The Weekly Text, October 25, 2019: A Trove of Documents for Teaching Vocabulary in the Culinary Arts

Circumstances have emerged in my new job that have impelled me into one of my favorite tasks as a teacher, namely, creating differentiated instruction. This week, I began work on a course of study for a student who is interested in pursuing a career in the culinary arts. This enterprise begins with the construction of a lexicon of words, adjectives, nouns, and verbs, to be specific.

So, this week’s Text is a trove of initial documents for this endeavor. Here is the lexicon that informs this early phase of this work. You’ll find most of the words in that lexicon on these four worksheets on adjectives, this set of four worksheets on nouns, and these four worksheets on verbs. If you want to make your own worksheets, then you might need these four different worksheet templates that form the basis of all this work.

As with virtually everything on Mark’s Text Terminal, all of these documents are in Microsoft Word; ergo, you may adjust them to your students’ needs. If you’ve ever considered commenting on this blog, may I ask you to do so viz this material? I am really curious if it has utility elsewhere, or (gulp!) merit.

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.

Asthma

Health teachers–as well as my erstwhile colleagues in the South Bronx, the asthma capital of New York City, and maybe the world–might find useful this reading on asthma and the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that accompanies 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.

Patriarch (n)

OK! It’s Friday again, and a in-service half-day in this district to boot. Here is a context clues worksheet on the noun patriarch. I can’t remember why I wrote this in the first place (there is, elsewhere on Mark’s Text Terminal, a worksheet on the Latin roots pat and patri, which probably ought to have sufficed for this), but I do think it’s a word high schoolers ought to know.

All of these words mean something related to father, incidentally.

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.

Two Learning Supports on Abbreviations and Symbols

While I don’t mean to say that the method doesn’t have universal application–it does, and I think it’s probably the best way to build literacy, particularly in procedural knowledge of English prose–I think Hochman and Wexler’s The Writing Revolution curriculum might have particularly effective application in the school in which I presently serve.

So, I have returned to working up some new curriculum for social studies base on it. This morning I made two learning supports, the first one on abbreviations and the second one on symbols. Both documents are in Microsoft Word (as is just everything here at Mark’s Text Terminal), so you can alter them to your students’ needs.

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.

Artificial Sweeteners

OK, to wrap up on this cool, autumnal morning in southwestern Vermont, here is a reading on artificial sweeteners and the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that accompanies 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.

Outlandish (adjective)

OK, moving right along, here is a context clues worksheet on the adjective outlandish.  This word is in common enough use in the vernacular that students should probably know 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.

Word Root Exercise: Gyn/o, Gyne, and Gynec/o

OK, let’s begin the week with this worksheet on the Greek roots gyn/o, gyne, and gynec/o. If you know the words gynecologist (or perhaps an even more timely word, misogynist), then you know that these roots mean “woman” and “female.”

Once again, any student with an eye on a career on healthcare will need to know this root and the many medical words that spring from 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.

Cultural Literacy: Socioeconomic Status

It’s Friday afternoon. In the process of cleaning off desktops virtual and tangible, I found this Cultural Literacy worksheet on socioeconomic status. If there was ever a time in the history of the United States (or the world, I suppose, for that matter) that people ought to be cognizant of this term and the deep well of concepts attached to it, it’s now.

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, October 18, 2019, Hispanic Heritage Month 2019 Week V: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Pueblo Civilization

This week’s Text, in the ongoing observation of Hispanic Heritage Month 2019 at Mark’s Text Terminal, is a reading on Pueblo Civilization and the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that accompanies it.

As I am wont to do, I debated with myself the relevance of Pueblo Civilization to Hispanic Heritage. I’m confident that these first nation peoples were part of the same ethnic group as the Mayans–who of course became a subject population to the Spanish Empire. In any case, if anyone with the bona fides to do so could weigh in on this, I would of course be grateful.

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.

Term of Art: Invented Spelling

“invented spelling: A unique spelling of a word created by a child who has not yet learned the correct spelling. Proponents of invented spelling believe that it encourages students  to express their ideas in writing before they have learned to spell. Critics worry that it introduces poor habits early in the learning process. Invented spelling is also referred to as temporary spelling, on the assumption that at some point students will learn how to spell the words accurately.”

Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.