Tag Archives: learning supports

The Weekly Text, December 18, 2015: A Lesson Plan on Using Conjunctions

Posted on December 18, 2015 | Leave a comment

Here is the final Weekly Text of 2015. I plan to avoid, to the greatest extent possible over the holiday break, this computer screen. I’ve just completed the final piece of my cycle of units on the parts of speech, an eight-lesson unit on conjunctions (I’ve previously posted the learning support on the most commonly used conjunctions that you’ll very likely need to use the material on this post).

So,  here is the second lesson on conjunctions from this unit, which gives struggling students some structured and independent practice at using the coordinating conjunctions. While this Word document includes the lesson plan, first do-now exercise (a homophone worksheet which you may need the Homophone Worksheets Users’ Manual to use), a structured worksheet, and a teacher’s answer key, it does not include the second do-now worksheet, an Everyday Edit on Beethoven. Incidentally, if you like this Everyday Edit, you can find more of them at the Education World Everyday Edits page, where the folks who operate that site generously give them away as tear-offs.

That’s it! I wish you and yours a joyous holiday season. I’ll see you again in the New Year.

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, December 11, 2015: A Learning Support on the Most Commonly Used Prepositions

Posted on December 11, 2015 | Leave a comment

After a long absence for a basic civic responsibility, I am back at work, teaching and writing lesson plans. It’s the end of a marking period, and my students, to my great surprise, are glad to have me back. So I’m quite busy trying to catch up with paperwork and engage my students in creating meaning. Here, in the penultimate text for 2015 (I don’t plan to post Weekly Texts over the holiday break) is a learning support for the most commonly used prepositions in the English language.

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, November 6, 2015: Two Paragraph Analysis Worksheets

Posted on November 6, 2015 | Leave a comment

Over the past couple of years, I’ve been asked to participate in a special institute class in my school on writing the five-paragraph essay. I find this approach, particularly for the struggling students I serve, confining and tedious. Nonetheless, I set out this year to write my own scaffolded curriculum for this class, which meets once a week. Here are two paragraph analysis worksheets that I developed to use in helping students understand the underlying structure of paragraphs. The reading is high interest, and the questions basic.

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, October 30, 2015: A Learning Support on Pronouns and Case

Posted on October 30, 2015 | Leave a comment

For this week, I offer this learning support on pronouns and case. I’d hoped to have some new lesson plans prepared to post here, but the civic responsibility of jury duty has occupied my time and prevented me from working on them.

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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The Weekly Text, October 16, 2015: A Learning Support on Commonly Used Conjunctions

Posted on October 16, 2015 | Leave a comment

Over the years,  many if not most of the high school students I’ve served alerted me to the fact that it isn’t possible to begin a sentence with because. Of course that is incorrect, and it means that no one taught them the use of subordinating conjunctions–probably because this skill isn’t on the high-stakes test du jour. It’s true that this is a moderately tricky area of English usage, but with proper preparation, I believe it is possible to teach the use of all three types of conjunctions–coordinating, subordinating, and correlative–effectively and with ease. To that end, here is a learning support on the most commonly used conjunctions of all three types.

I believe strongly in teaching the parts of speech to struggling learners. Properly planned, units on each part of speech provide a variety of ways to foster and improve literacy. Over the years, I have developed units on all the parts of speech, and they now constitute a nearly yearlong course of study in my English Language Arts classes. The conjunctions unit is the last of them I need to complete, and I’m working on it now. Over time, I’ll post a variety of learning supports from these units on Mark’s Text Terminal.

UPDATE, December 14, 2015: Since I wrote this post, I have revised the learning support it includes three times, the most recently today. In the process of finding the document on my computer to revise it, I discovered that I have a second, more complete learning support for conjunctions in my English Language Arts Support folder. I probably set this one aside because it’s a little too complicated for the students I’m currently serving. In any case, to write a unit around this support is more than I can take on right now. Perhaps you’ll find it useful?

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, September 25, 2015: A Learning Support on the Verb To Be

Posted on September 25, 2015 | Leave a comment

In my experience, most students at some point struggle with the idea, both in theory and practice, of subject-verb agreement. I worked my way through college and graduate school tutoring students in writing, and more than half the time, students were referred to the writing center for subject-verb agreement issues in their prose.

This week’s Text is a simple learning support that conjugates the verb to be and explains one way of making sure that subjects and verbs agree. The school year has started, so this is a quick entry between adjusting instructional materials for this year’s freshmen, writing an IEP, and preparing lessons for my upcoming absence on account of jury duty. Are you this busy?

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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