Tag Archives: questioning/inquiry

Cultural Literacy: Sparta

If you can use it, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Sparta–you know, the ancient Greek city-state known for its, uh, Spartan characteristics.

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.

Black Sabbath

In the early- to mid-1970s, they were all the rage among certain of my peers, but I mostly listened to Bob Dylan in those days. If you have students who are fans of heavy metal music, then this reading on Black Sabbath and the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that accompanies it will be, I expect, of high interest to those students. After all, Ozzy Osbourne still occupies a relatively prominent place in the culture.

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 Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Snow Cover”

It has been a busy week already, but I’m forcing a few minutes of time this morning to publish this lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “Snow Cover.”

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Apollo with which I open this lesson. The center of this lesson is, of course, this PDF of the illustration and questions that drive the case. Finally, here is the typescript of the answer key that solves the case.

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.

Vitamin C and Scurvy

For health teachers (and for social studies teachers who want, improbably, their students to understand what life on the high seas was like for English sailors, and how they came by the epithet “Limeys”), here is a reading on vitamin c and scurvy and its accompanying 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.

A Halloween Lesson Plan on Vlad the Impaler

While I have posted these materials elsewhere on Mark’s Text Terminal, I have not included (because I just wrote it yesterday) this lesson plan on Vlad the Impaler. He is the model for Bram Stoker’s Dracula. He also offers a glimpse into the mentality of some of those European knights who went on Crusade in the Holy Land. His biography also offers some insight into the privileges and prerogatives of European nobility in the fifteenth century. And of course, there are his horrifying crimes against humanity, though they would not have been called that at the time (see “privileges and prerogatives of European nobility”).

Anyway, here is a context clues worksheet on the verb impale (it’s only used transitively). This short reading on Vlad is the center of the lesson. Finally, here is the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that accompanies the reading.

And with that: Happy Halloween! Go easy on the candy, eh?

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 Lesson Plan on Culture and Religion as Causes of History

Last but not least this morning is this lesson plan on culture and religion as causes of history. I start this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the noun epidemic. This lesson is a brainstorming and note-taking activity, so, accordingly, you’ll want this (or some iteration of it you make) this brainstorming and note-taking worksheet for students to use.

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.

Dance Marathons

Last year, to my great surprise, this reading on dance marathons and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet became high-interest materials in my classroom in Springfield, Massachusetts. As a teenager, I read They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? By Horace McCoy, so I have always found this cultural phenomenon interesting.

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: Sociology

OK, it’s Monday again, and cool and damp in southwestern Vermont. Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on sociology if you need your students to understand (and who doesn’t I guess, particularly those of us charged with teaching the social sciences) the concept and academic discipline.

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.

Asthma

Health teachers–as well as my erstwhile colleagues in the South Bronx, the asthma capital of New York City, and maybe the world–might find useful this reading on asthma and the vocabulary-building and comprehension 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.

Artificial Sweeteners

OK, to wrap up on this cool, autumnal morning in southwestern Vermont, here is a reading on artificial sweeteners and the vocabulary-building and comprehension 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.