Tag Archives: learning supports

The Weekly Text, 31 July 2026: Introduction to Writing Sentences Lesson 8, Writing the Imperative Sentence

Posted on July 31, 2026 | Leave a comment

Another Friday, another Weekly Text from Mark’s Text Terminal: this one, as the header indicates, is the eighth lesson plan from the Introduction to Writing Sentences unit, on writing the imperative sentence. This worksheet on parsing sentences worksheet to find nouns opens this lesson as a do-now exercise.

This scaffolded worksheet on writing the imperative sentence stands as the principal work of this lesson; students will benefit in their work on this material by using learning support on the concept of an imperative.

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.

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The Weekly Text, 24 July 2026: Introduction to Writing Sentences Lesson 7, Writing the Interrogative Sentence

Posted on July 24, 2026 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is the seventh lesson plan of the Introduction to Writing Sentences Unit, this one on writing interrogative sentences. This lesson opens with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the transitive verb; this is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences and three comprehension questions.

This scaffolded worksheet is the centerpiece of this lesson. However, to complete it, and to understand interrogative sentences, students will need this learning support on the concept of interrogation and this one on modal and auxiliary verbs to perform the work for 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.

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A Learning Support to Aid Writing on Lawrence Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development

Posted on July 21, 2026 | Leave a comment

Are you familiar with Lawrence Kohlberg’s  Theory of the Stages of Moral Development? My excellent co-teacher in the years I worked in his senior English Language Arts class, Jason Zanitsch, developed a clever unit in which students apply their understanding of Kohlberg’s framework to assess a character from the fiction and dramatic texts–the characters in August Wilson’s magisterial play Fences were favorites for this work–that we had dealt with in this class.

I developed this learning support for a mid-term examination, which was the composition of an essay on the above, for students to use. I don’t know how useful it would be for you. But if you’re dealing with Kohlberg in any way, this document is in Microsoft Word (like practically everything else on this blog) and can be easily manipulated for your classroom needs.

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.

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A Learning Support to Accompany Stephanie Ericsson’s Essay “The Ways We Lie”

Posted on July 21, 2026 | Leave a comment

One of the most consistently downloaded items since I published it in 2021 is this set of documents on Stephanie Ericsson’s essay “The Way We Lie.” Last year, I developed this learning support to abet deeper thinking (I hope) and further written work on this essay.

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.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

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A Lexicon of Igbo Words to Accompany a Reading of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Novel Purple Hibiscus

Posted on July 21, 2026 | Leave a comment

I don’t know why, but for some reason, when I published this blog post several years ago, with a trove of materials I developed to accompany a reading of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Purple Hibiscus, I didn’t include this lexicon of Igbo words, names, and phrases. So here it is now.

This is where I usually ask for feedback on a document, especially for alerts on typos. But since I know nothing of Igbo orthography, I must ask you to trust, as I do, the unnamed author or authors of this document.

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A Learning Support on the Concept of Solipsism

Posted on July 18, 2026 | Leave a comment

Here is a learning support on the concept of solipsism that I worked up for a student in the excellent Senior English Language Arts class I’ve co-taught with Jason Zanitsch during these final years of my teaching career. There are more differentiated materials and learning supports from this course forthcoming.

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.

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Five Documents to Support Learning in Freshman Biology

Posted on July 18, 2026 | Leave a comment

For the 2025-2026 school year, my last, thank goodness, I was assigned to co-teach two sections of Freshman Biology. This was the first, and therefore the last, time I was to teach biology. Would you be surprised, given the contents of this blog, that biology is not exactly a strong subject for me?

Therefore, I needed to work closely with the content area teacher, as well as study up to the greatest extent possible on the subjects under review. I did develop material for both student use as well as my own edification so I might, to the greatest extent possible, be of some utility in this classroom. So here, in no particular order of content or potential usefulness, are a learning support on the concept of independent and dependent variables, a glossary of terms related to genetics, a glossary of terms related to human reproduction, a summary of a text on protein synthesis, and a support the viewing of a video on protein synthesis.

This is not the most, uh, coherent or well-supported stuff I’ve developed in twenty years of teaching. But rather than toss it, I’ll add it to the pile on this blog. I have more storage space on this website than I will ever use, so what the hell?

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.

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Three Learning Supports Adapted from the High School Edition of They Say, I Say

Posted on July 18, 2026 | Leave a comment

As I continue to clean out differentiated material folders, I found three learning supports I whipped up from the high school edition of Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein’s They Say/I Say, The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing (New York: Norton, 2018). Ergo, here are a glossary of expository terms, a list of commonly used transition words, and a list of argumentation templates divided into two parts (for ease of use, and depending on the students using these, you might want to divide them into even smaller parts), argumentation templates I and argumentation templates II.

I hope this material is useful to you, but if you need something like this, I imagine you found different versions of these document that I posted several years ago.

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.

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Sample Annotations for The Declaration of Independence

Posted on July 13, 2026 | Leave a comment

Since we’re on a bit of a theme this morning, here is another document, this one a set of sample annotations for The Declaration of Independence, from the 11th-grade English class I co-taught over the past two years. This requires, I think, no explanation; so, I’ll spare you the bloviating.

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.

 

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Sample Annotations for a Reading of Horatio Alger’s Short Story “Henry Trafton’s Independence”

Posted on July 13, 2026 | Leave a comment

Moving right along with differentiated material I developed for the 11th-grade English class I co-taught over the past two years, here is a sample annotations for “Henry Trafton’s Independence,” a short story by Horatio Alger. My father, who taught Alger at the University of Wisconsin, taught me, alas, to ridicule Alger’s contrived and even precious rags-to-riches stories. Nonetheless, this story showed up in this English class.

Incidentally, in researching this post, I learned that Horatio Alger, in his role as a Unitarian clergyman in Brewster, Massachusetts was found to have engaged in “the abominable and revolting crime of gross familiarity with boys.” I think, in this post-Catholic-clergy-scandal era, you know what that means. My father had a great deal to say about Richard “Dick” Hunter, the protagonist of Alger’s “Ragged Dick” stories. Dick’s name, my father told me, suggested a great deal about Horatio Alger himself.

I myself am agnostic on all of this.

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.

 

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