Tag Archives: diction/grammar/style/usage

Regale (vi/vt)

It was Merriam-Webster’s word of the day a while back, so I wrote this context clues worksheet on the verb regale. It is used both intransitively and transitively. I’m not sure high school students need to use it at all; if you think they do, or at least might, then it’s yours for the taking.

It means “to entertain sumptuously : feast with delicacies”  and “to give pleasure or amusement to <regaled us with tall tales>.”

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.

Steroids

Here’s a reading on steroids and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet if you want them. I hope that there isn’t a real need for these documents–because that could mean kids are using steroids, a scary thought.

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.

A Learning Support on the Helping Verbs

These two learning supports on helping verbs have been a staple for for struggling readers and writers in my classroom. They’ll probably turn up again on Mark’s Text Terminal when I post lessons on this area of English usage.

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.

Blog Post 2000: A Trove of Learning Supports and Graphic Organizers

Here we are at Blog Post 2000. I have a number of documents to post, all from the first third of my career, when I was just figuring out how to assess students’ abilities and design instruction that challenged them, but didn’t frustrate them.

So, for starters, here is a learning support on the kinds of questions that drive research projects.

Next, here is a learning support on writing notecards for research papers. I don’t know if teachers still require students to keep analog note-cards in the real world, but the social studies teacher with whom I taught sophomore global studies in Manhattan at the beginning of this (2018-2019) school year still–to his credit–required them. Whatever you do in your classroom, perhaps this structured note-card blank will help students learn and master this task essential to the craft of research.

This sample outline learning support and this style sheet on using structured outlining blanks, you will notice, are basically the same material. The style sheet accompanies these structured outlining blanks.

Finally, here is a document I call the research paper in miniature. I use this document to show students, in essence, what a research paper is, why the authors of these kinds of papers must cite sources, and even ask them to infer the argument (i.e. the origins of rock and roll are in the blues and other African musical forms) from the paragraph they read. As I write this, I realize that I have a lesson plan to rationalize the research paper in miniature, so I’ll post that as a Weekly Text sometime over the summer when I have a chance to revise it.

That’s it. I emptied out the folder for Blog Post 2000. Now to start working on my next thousand posts.

Recalcitrant (adj)

While it isn’t probably isn’t much used by high school students, this context clues worksheet on the adjective recalcitrant might serve to help students understand abstractions, if nothing else.

Then again, maybe high school students should learn this word and its uses.

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.

A Lesson Plan on Using Personal Pronouns in the Nominative Case

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.

Ty Cobb

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.

Independent Practice: Martin Luther

It’s just about time I left for work, so let me leave off, on the first day of the penultimate week of the school year, with this independent practice worksheet on Martin Luther.

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.

A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case Dead Man’s Curvature

It’s Monday, so let’s start the week with a Crime and Puzzlement Lesson Plan, to wit, number seven from the first volume of Lawrence Treat’s series, “Dead Man’s Curvature.” I start this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet idiom “Steal Someone’s Thunder.” Here is a scan of the illustration and questions that are texts for this lesson. Finally, here is a typescript of the answer key.

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.

Word Root Exercise: Chron/o

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.