Tag Archives: questioning/inquiry

Cultural Literacy: Mesopotamia

This Cultural Literacy worksheet on Mesopotamia would be useful in a number of lessons, I would think. Interestingly, as I was preparing this post yesterday, this item popped up in my Google news feed.

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, May 17, 2019 Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2019 Week II: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on the Annexation of Hawaii

Is anybody else in need of respite from a hectic school year?

In any case, Mark’s Text Terminal offers this reading on the Annexation of Hawaii and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet in observation of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2019. I appreciate the fact that the writers of this passage did not minimize the fact that this was an basic act of imperialist aggression.

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: Nirvana

On a Tuesday morning, let me put out this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Buddhist concept of Nirvana. Depending on whom you’re teaching, this might be high-interest material for teenagers who are fans of the rock band Nirvana.

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, May 10, 2019, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2019 Week I: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Confucianism

Continuing with Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2019, Mark’s Text Terminal offers this reading on Confucianism 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.

Cultural Literacy: Hiroshima

In Mark’s Text Terminal’s ongoing observation of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2019, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Hiroshima and the tragedy one nuclear bomb visited on that city.

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: The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

Today begins Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2019. Mark’s Text Terminal, as it did last year, will feature posts on topics related to this theme for the entire month of May.

Now that xenophobia and bigotry have returned to a rolling boil in the United States, it’s worth remembering that, as ugly as all this is, the grotesqueries of nativism are hardly a new phenomenon in this country. So let’s start the month with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to remind us of the ignominious places we’ve traveled as a nation.

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.

Independent Practice: Ivan the Terrible

As I work to clear off my desktop for the start of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2019, which begins tomorrow, here is an independent practice worksheet on Ivan the Terrible. And since parts of Russia are geographically in Asia, this is a perfect place to conclude this morning’s publishing orgy.

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

Moving right along, I’ll close out this morning’s publication schedule with this short reading on Robert De Niro and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

This has been, to my surprise, high interest material for several groups of kids I’ve served over the years. Then again, on some level, De Niro is definitely a tough guy, a “gangsta,” as the young men I work with like to say.

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 DBQ on Ancient Egypt

How the “document-based question” came by its unwieldy bureaucratic designation mystified me in the years I worked in New York City schools. Known to teachers by its initialism, “DBQ,” it always seemed to me to describe a cornerstone of any humanities curriculum. Indeed, much of what we asked students to do in history and English classes at the secondary level is to read and interpret a variety of documents.

In any case, in order to appease administrators, I developed a couple of social studies”DBQ” units that called upon students to read and interpret primary and key secondary documents. This worksheet on ancient Egypt endeavors to school kids in this practice. If you need or want it, here is the teacher’s copy of the same document.

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: Dead Languages

Once upon a time I possessed sufficient ignorance and moral certainty to rail against “dead languages,” to wit Greek and Latin, and their valorization for their part in the “Western Canon.” On some level, I still think valorization of the “Western Canon” is mistaken, but so do I think that about the idea of “dead languages.” My own comments on dead languages ended when I discovered, to my surprise and chagrin, that Greek and Latin are very much alive in the roots of the English language.

Anyway, if you’d like your students to understand this, perhaps this Cultural Literacy worksheet on dead languages will help.

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.