Tag Archives: high-interest materials

The Weekly Text, 12 April 2024: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Batteries

This week’s Text is this reading on batteries along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Since most if not all students now carry a smart phone, this reading, to my surprise, has become a high-interest item; thus, I have tagged it as such.

Students want to know, apparently, how to keep these high-tech toys going.

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.

The Weekly Text, 1 March 2024, Women’s History Month Week 1: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Barbie

She has had a big year with her hit movie, so here, for the first Friday of Women’s History Month 2024 is this reading on Barbie along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. The reading, from the The Intellectual Devotional Modern Culture, takes a crisply and, to my mind, surprisingly critical look at Barbie. I gather the the film does the same, though I have not seen 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.

Cultural Literacy: Loch Ness Monster

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Loch Ness Monster, a subject of no small fascination for me when I was a child in school (which is why I have tagged it as high-interest material, which I suspect it will still be for a certain type of elementary school student). This is a half-page worksheet with a two-sentence reading, both longish compounds, so you may want to take a look at them if you have emergent readers or English language learners on your hands, and three comprehension questions.

Somewhere along the line, I gathered the impression that Nessie, as the monster is affectionately known, was definitively disproved as a hoax. The reading in this document does not mention it, nor, particularly, does the Wikipedia page for the Loch Ness Monster. (The page, at its bottom, however, does warn that the article “…may lend undue weight to fringe sources and hypotheses.” For my part, I remain–mostly–agnostic.)

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.

Robert De Niro

Here, on an oppressively humid Monday morning in Brooklyn, is a reading on Robert De Niro along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. This has tended to be high-interest material, especially among young men, so I have so tagged it.

Nota bene, please, that the reading cites “eight collaborations” between Mr. De Niro and Martin Scorsese. In fact, at least two more collaborations–The Irishman and the forthcoming Killers of the Flower Moon between these towering figures in American cinema have occurred since this reading was published. In other words, as film history continues to unfold where it concerns Scorsese and De Niro, this reading will need revision.

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.

The Weekly Text, Friday 16 June 2023: History of Hip-Hop Lesson 15, Public Enemy Picks up the Baton

This week’s Text offers the fifteenth lesson plan of the History of Hip-Hop Unit, this one on one of the seminal groups in the genre, Public Enemy. The lesson opens with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on Marcus Garvey. This is a full-page document with a reading of four sentences, two of them relatively simple compounds, and seven comprehension questions. A bit longer, in other words, than the typical do-now exercise.

Because of Public Enemy’s importance to the genre, there are an inordinate number of materials to use with this lesson. I’ve tended to use them all, but obviously you can pick and choose. So, for starters, here is a reading on Public Enemy along with its comprehension worksheet. Secondarily–or primarily, if you prefer–here are the lyrics to “Fight the Power”, one of the group’s best known songs and the opening theme to Spike Lee’s film Do the Right Thing, along with the analytical reflection 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.

The Weekly Text, Friday 9 June 2023: History of Hip-Hop Lesson 14, The Message: Hip-Hop as Political and Social Manifesto

Don’t worry, after this, only two lessons remain to post in the History of Hip-Hop Unit. This week’s Text is lesson plan fourteen of the unit, on Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s seminal Hip-Hop recording, “The Message.” This lesson begins, after your class change, with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of a manifesto. The central work of this lesson is a reading, and a listening, for which I use this Official Video of the song on YouTube, and the lyrics to the song, to guide students toward completing these comprehension and analytical questions on these verses.

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.

The Weekly Text, Friday 27 January 2023: History of Hip-Hop Lesson 8, James Brown Brings the Funk

This week’s Text is the eighth lesson plan of the History of Hip-Hop Unit. I’ve begun this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Civil Rights Movement. This is a full-page document with a paragraph-length reading (seven sentences, to be exact) and six comprehension questions, so depending on your idea of a do-now exercise, this one might exceed proper length. Fortunately, like nearly everything else on Mark’s Text Terminal, this document is formatted in Microsoft Word, so you can edit, adapt, and revise freely.

The main part of this lesson is this reading on James Brown and its accompanying worksheet with seven comprehension questions. Finally, here are the the lyrics to “Say It Loud, I”m Black and I’m Proud,” one of the many great songs James Brown recorded. My version of this lesson includes playing the song.

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.

The Weekly Text, Friday 6 January 2023: History of Hip-Hop Lesson 5, The Emigre Griots: The Birth of the Blues in the Southern United States

Happy New Year!

Let’s move right along to the fifth lesson plan of the History of Hip-Hop unit, this one on the birth of the blues in the southern United States, with a particular emphasis on a huge figure in global culture, the blues artist nonpareil Robert Johnson. I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Deep South. The main work of this lesson is this reading on Robert Johnson along with its accompanying comprehension worksheet. Finally, here are the lyrics to one of his most famous songs, “Sweet Home Chicago,” now a blues standard, which I play for students during the lesson.

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.

The Weekly Text, Friday 30 December 2022: History of Hip-Hop Lesson 4, The Griot in African Culture

Moving right along with this big unit on Hip-Hop, here is the fourth lesson plan, on the West African griot tradition (which should not be confused with the Haitian dish of the same name). This is a key lesson in this process. I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the noun griot.

Because this lesson includes a viewing of the video for the song, here are lyrics to the Afropop song “Shaking the Tree,” a collaboration between British rock star Peter Gabriel and the Senegalese griot (he descends from a family of griots) Youssou N’Dour. Finally, at the center of this lesson is this reading and comprehension worksheet, which is also meant to spur discussion, on the griot tradition in Africa.

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.

The Weekly Text, Friday 16 December 2022: History of Hip-Hop Lesson 2, Homer–History’s First Hip-Hop Songwriter

Here is the second lesson plan from the History of Hip-Hop Unit. This lesson posits, proceeding from the previous two, that Home’s Odyssey and Iliad, composed to be read aloud and to glorify Greece, that these ancient epics are two of the world’s first Hip-Hop songs. I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Muses so that students understand the reference in the first stanza of the Iliad. Here is the worksheet with reading and comprehension questions that is the centerpiece of this lesson.

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.