Tag Archives: questioning/inquiry

Cultural Literacy: Continental Congress

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Continental Congress. This is a half-page worksheet with a four-sentence reading and three comprehension questions. For its brevity, this document is a solid general introduction to the term and concept of the Continental Congress of North America. Users can, if so inclined, alter this Microsoft Word document to their classroom’s 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.

The Weekly Text, 29 October 2021: A Lesson Plan on the Basic Rights of All Children

This week’s Text is another lesson plan drawn from Barbara Ann Kipfer’s indispensable reference book The Order of Things, this one on the basic rights of children. This is a basic lesson for emergent and struggling readers, as you’ll see from its list as reading and comprehension questions: the reading is a list of ten basic rights, and I’ve prepared five basic comprehension questions.

You, however, may do with this as you like. Because both lesson plan and worksheet are formatted in Microsoft Word (as are most of the documents you will find on this website–and if you’re a regular user of this site, I’ll bet you are tired of hearing me say that), these are what I believe are called, using the term loosely, “open source” documents. Whatever the nomenclature, these materials can be exported and manipulated freely.

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: Constitutional Convention

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Constitutional Convention in the nascent United States. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three compound sentences and three comprehension questions that are in two or three parts each. As I looked at this document prior to posting it, it occurred to me that if probably would be better as a full-page worksheet with the questions broken up. Since this is a Microsoft Word document, you can alter it for the needs of your classroom.

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 Sopranos

OK, continuing with items from the I-don’t-know-why-or-when-I wrote-this shelf in the warehouse at Mark’s Text Terminal, here is a reading on The Sopranos (which I loved, so that may figure into this) along with its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I expect that this will have, more than 14 years after the final episode of the show aired, very little relevance to students–if ever it did. I must have put this together for a student who asked for it, but I cannot for the life of me remember who that would have been.

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.

Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts

While I concede that this reading on Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet may not have compelling utility in our mostly arts-free schools, here they are nonetheless.

I’m old enough to remember the broadcasts of Maestro Bernstein–who was an eminent figure in the American Culture of my youth–and his Young People’s Concerts. The New York Philharmonic, then as now, stood as one of the world’s great orchestras. I can’t say these television shows inculcated a lifelong love of classical music in me, but they did introduce me to it and help me understand it. Fortunately, Wynton Marsalis, a figure as vital to American culture as Leonard Bernstein, continues the tradition of introducing young people to a genuinely American art form with his “Jazz for Young People” concerts. Mr. Marsalis leads the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, perhaps the greatest large ensemble playing jazz these days.

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.

The Weekly Text, 22 October 2021: A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Water Bed”

This week’s Text is a on the Crime and Puzzlement case “Water Bed.” I begin this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Latinism caveat emptor. As you probably know, this locution means “let the buyer beware.” However, in everyday discourse one will often hear someone say “there is a caveat” or “there are several caveats” in any given situation. Caveat by itself means (by  Merriam-Webster’s reckoning) “a warning enjoining one from certain acts or practices.” All of this is a roundabout way of saying that caveat emptor in particular, and caveat in general, are arguable words high school students should know by their graduation.

Anyway, you’ll need this PDF scan of the illustration and questions related to the evidence in this case to investigate it. And here is the answer key to solve the case and bring your culprit to the bar of justice.

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: The Communist Manifesto

As long as I have my computer on this afternoon, let me offer readers this Cultural Literacy worksheet on The Communist Manifesto. This is a half-page worksheet with a two-sentence reading and two comprehension questions. In other words, the most basic of introductions to this world-changing book.

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.

Leave It to Beaver

OK, for some reason, here is a reading on “Leave It to Beaver” along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I haven’t the faintest idea why I produced these documents on this late-1950s and early 1960s television show. A friend of mine extolled its virtues in the past; the one episode I saw nauseated me–a sitcom vision of a placid, indeed complacent, ultra-White America produced during the depths of Jim Crow–and I never watched another episode.

So again, I can’t imagine why I wrote this worksheet other than, perhaps, to help students understand how often popular media, particularly fictional narratives, are at variance with reality.

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.

The Weekly Text, 15 October 2021, Hispanic Heritage Month 2021 Week V: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Cesar Chavez

This week’s Text, for the final Friday of Hispanic Heritage Month 2021, is a reading on Cesar Chavez along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. The reading comes from one of the Intellectual Devotional books; there is another reading and comprehension worksheet from one of those volumes. Entries on him appeared in two of them–Biographies and American History–and both are now available on this blog.

In fact, to use the boilerplate for this circumstance on Mark’s Text Terminal, these documents join a growing body of material on Mr. Chavez, one of the heroes of my youth.

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: Che Guevara

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Che Guevara. This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of five sentences and six comprehension questions. With this worksheet, I can say that the document joins a growing body of materials on Che Guevara on this blog.

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.