Tag Archives: questioning/inquiry

Cultural Literacy: Carpe Diem

Not that most teenagers need any help understanding the sentiment, but here, nonetheless, is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Latin imperative carpe diem.

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.

Oppositional Defiant Disorder

Over the winter, I finished some materials for health literacy that I’d been procrastinated on for, literally, years. I’ll be posting these regularly over the next couple of years, I suppose–I have a total of 76 of them.

Anyway, this reading on oppositional defiant disorder and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet strike me as a good place to start: this has turned out to be relatively high-interest material to the students in whose interest I currently toil.

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.

Independent Practice: Greece

For you global studies (or world history, or whatever your district calls it), teachers, here, if you can use it, is an independent practice worksheet on Greece.

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, March 29, 2019, Women’s History Month 2019 Week V: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on J.K. Rowling

Today marks the end, on Mark’s Text Terminal, of Women’s History Month 2019. When I return on Monday, it will be April Fool’s Day. Here is a reading on J.K. Rowling and its attendant vocabulary building and comprehension worksheet.

I would think this is high interest material, as Ms. Rowling and her books remain interesting to kids.

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.

Princess Diana

OK, here is a reading on Princess Diana and the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that accompanies it. I have been surprised at how many of the young women I teach took an interest in this.

But then, I guess I’ve never understand the appeal or allure of the British royal family. I know it’s harsh, but I have always concurred with Elvis Costello’s assessment of the royals, uttered in a 1989 interview with Rolling Stone magazine. When asked about playing at a  Prince’s Trust benefit concert at Buckingham Palace, Costello replied: “No. I wouldn’t do anything with the royal family. They’re scum. Why do we subsidize this family of buffoons? What makes them so damn important? I just don’t understand why we subsidize people who seem to just go on holiday all the time. So no, you won’t be seeing Elvis Costello live at Buckingham Palace.”

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: Pocahontas

Alright, it’s Tuesday again. Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Pocahontas. I expect this is probably relatively high interest material for certain kids, and certainly those kids who are familiar with the Disney movie about this extraordinary woman.

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, March 22, 2019, Women’s History Month 2013 Week IV: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Eleanor of Aquitaine

Yesterday I posted a short exercise on Queen Elizabeth I. As long as we’re dealing with British sovereigns, this week’s Text offers this reading on Eleanor of Aquitaine 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: Queen Elizabeth I

Here’s a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Queen Elizabeth I if you have any use for it–or any use at all for the British royal family, for that matter.

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.

We Should All Be Feminists

In my current posting in Springfield, Massachusetts, I have encountered the most simpatico colleague with whom I’ve worked as a teacher. Unfortunately, she is about to depart the school. I bid her a fond farewell; I also thank her for bringing into our classroom Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s slim but compelling volume We Should All Be Feminists. I was aware of Ms. Adichie over the years, and at one point, on National Public Radio, I listened to a feature on what I could have sworn the reporter called the “Children of Achebe”–referring, of course, the Chinua Achebe–but I cannot for the life of me find anything on this on the Internet.

This is not to say that NPR didn’t cover Mr. Achebe, a towering figure in global literature in general and African literature in particular, because the media outlet definitely did, including an interview with that great interrogator, Terry Gross. The BBC reported on something close to what I thought I heard on NPR, to wit a report on Achebe’s heirs–which names among that group Ms. Adichie, Ben Okri, and Chris Abani. Just so readers don’t think I missed anything (even though this is still a far-from-complete list of Nigeria’s distinguished writers), Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka makes this list–and he is eatured, incidentally in conversation with Henry Louis Gates, in the current edition of The New York Review of Books.

In any case, I’d of course seen the We Should All Be Feminists over the years since its publication, but was too busy with other things to engage with it. But now that I’ve had time to read it a couple of times, readers of this blog won’t be surprised that I’ve begun developing a self-selected and self-paced reading unit to accompany the book. Incidentally, part of the impetus for this (it has turned out to be a bigger project than I’d initially envisioned) project is the fact that this text began its life as a TED Talk, which makes it accessible to struggling readers and English language learners; the other, major part of my motivation for this is the interest the girls in our class took in it. This is a book kids like and to which they relate.

So, the fruits of my labor thus far are five vocabulary-building worksheets and five comprehension worksheets. These are, you will perceive, in their initial stage. Owing to time constraints, as well as to focus on this endeavor and put my best work into it, I am working on this in stages. By this time (i.e. March, which is of course Women’s History Month) next year, I plan to have this material ready to post as a Weekly Text.

For now, however, this stuff is just too tentative. I do want to say this: if you have ever considered commenting on material on Mark’s Text Terminal, I would encourage you to do so now. I am particularly interested in hearing from women about how I could dilate upon the basic questions the comprehension worksheet asks, and improve them, and improve this whole project. And internet trolls? Don’t bother. I’ll just trash your comments.

And, as always:

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.

Bessie Smith

It’s finally starting to feel like spring in New England, for which I am grateful. In celebration of spring, and of Women’s History Month 2019, here is a reading on Bessie Smith, the justly named “Empress of the Blues,”  with an 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.