Tag Archives: diction/grammar/style/usage

Cultural Literacy: Indian Ocean

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Indian Ocean. This is a half-page document with a reading of two sentences followed by two comprehension questions. In other words, as Detective Joe Friday liked to say, grimly, on the old Dragnet series, “Just the facts, ma’am” (or sir, though in my memory he is always saying it to women, as though women need constant reminders to remain focused and rational).

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: Euphrates River

This Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Euphrates River is a full-page document with a two-sentence (one of them a longish compound) reading and five comprehension questions. Incidentally, the second sentence in the reading goes thus: “It was important in the development of many great civilizations in ancient Mesopotamia.” Yes it was. It was also important, given the development of agriculture along its banks, to the advancement of our species as a whole–for better or worse, that is.

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, 13 May 2022, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Week II: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Shiite and Sunni Muslims

For the second week of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2022, here is a reading on Shiites and Sunnis in Islam with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

If you have followed the United States’ war on Iraq, you have undoubtedly heard of the strained relations, between these two branches of Islam, which have occasionally broken out into violent, internecine conflicts. In just about every respect, the tensions between these two communities of belief are standard religious conflicts; they resemble the European wars of religion that broke out during the Protestant Reformation. You can see elements of the Sunni-Shia schism in the Iran-Saudi Arabia proxy war, which has devastated Yemen.

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.

Tibetan Language

“Tibetan language: Sino-Tibetan language spoken by more than 5 million people in Tibet (Xizang), Qinghai, Sichuan, and Gansu provinces in China; Bhutan; northern Nepal; and Jammu and Kashmir Province in India and Pakistan. Since the occupation of Tibet by China in 1959, enclaves of Tibetan-speakers have dispersed to India and other parts of the world. Spoken Tibetan comprises a very diverse range of dialects, conventionally divided into several groups: Western, including Balti and Ladakhi in Jammu and Kashmir; Central, including the speech of Lhasa and most of the Nepalese dialects (including Sherpa); Southern, including the dialects of Sikkim and Bhutan; Khams, or Southeastern, including the dialects of the interior plateau, southern Qinghai, eastern Tibet, and parts of western Sichuan; Amdo or Northeastern, including the dialects of northern Qinghai, southern Gansu, and northern Sichuan. Most Tibetans share a common literary language, written in a distinctive scripts of disputed origin first attested in the 8th century AD.”

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

Cultural Literacy: Mao Zedong

This Cultural Literacy worksheet on Mao Zedong is a full-page document: it contains a seven-sentence reading with seven comprehension questions. In other words, it is suitable for a variety of functions in a social studies (yeesh to that term, as always) classroom. This worksheet, like virtually every posted document on this website, is formatted in Microsoft Word. That means it is open to your editorial hand, should it not quite address your curricular requirements or the needs of your students.

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: Haiku

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the haiku as a poetic form. This is a half-page worksheet with a two-sentence reading and two comprehension questions. It is, in other words, a perfectly spare but complete introduction to the form itself. This joins a number of other documents and quotes posts on Mark’s Text Terminal. The search bar to your right will help you locate these materials.

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, 6 May 2021, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Week I: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Confucianism

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (which I have shortened, for typographical purposes, as above, to Asian Pacific American Heritage Month; I hope I offend no one with this stylistic liberty). As usual Mark’s Text Terminal will observe the month with a series of document posts and quotes relating to the history of Asian and Pacific Islander Americans as well as Asia and the Pacific Islands themselves.

So, let’s kick off the month with this reading on Confucianism along with its attendant 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.

Albert Einstein

Finally this morning, here is a reading on Albert Einstein with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Enough said.

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: Sol

Here is a worksheet on the Latin word root sol. It means, of course, sun. This productive root in English (and all the Romance languages as well) bearing solar, but also solarium, circumsolar, and lunisolar.

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: Academic Freedom

As state legislatures around the United States (and I am most definitely looking at you, Florida) pass “right-to-remain-ignorant” laws and impose them on educational institutions, now seems like the perfect moment to post this Cultural Literacy worksheet on academic freedom. This is a half-page worksheet with a once-sentence–a longish compound, nota bene–reading and two comprehension questions.

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.