Tag Archives: questioning/inquiry

Luddites

Posted on August 2, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on the Luddites along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

The noun and adjective Luddite, as you surely know, is tossed around in American English, occasionally as a pejorative, to signify someone opposed to innovation and technological advances. I’ll hazard a guess that most people using this word aren’t aware of its origins in Ned Ludd, who destroyed a pair of stocking frames (an early technological advance in textile manufacturing) in 1779. The Luddites, who destroyed textile manufacturing equipment in England from 1811 to 1816 to protest the depredations of the Industrial Revolution, took him as their namesake. I’ve vastly simplified the story of the Luddites for this blog post, this reading is a good general introduction to the subject of the Luddites, and emphasizes how their name entered the political and social lexicon of our time.

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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Cultural Literacy: Euthanasia

Posted on August 2, 2021 | Leave a comment

It’s not exactly the most pleasant topic, but here, nonetheless, is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on euthanasia. This is a half-page worksheet with a one sentence (a compound) reading with two questions.

One need look very carefully to see this is an obviously a word derived from ancient Greek (i.e. eu, “good, well,” than, “death,” etc.), so people have been thinking about this concept and act for a very long time. Nonetheless, this a high-school word, it seems to me, as it its verb form, euthanize.

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, 30 July 2021: A Lesson Plan on the Reflexive and Intensive Pronoun

Posted on July 30, 2021 | Leave a comment

This week’s text is a lesson plan on the reflexive and intensive pronouns–i.e. myself, yourself, herself, himself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, and themselves–and their use in declarative sentences and expository prose.

I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the bibliography and its function in scholarly writing. In the event the lesson goes into a second day due to whatever classroom exigencies you encounter, you might want to use this Everyday Edit worksheet on Miranda rights (“You have the right to remain silent…” etc.) that the United States Constitution guarantees people when they are arrested. (Incidentally if you like Everyday Edit worksheets, don’t forget that the good people at Education World offer a year’s supply of them at no charge.)

Here is a learning support on reflexive and intensive pronouns that I distribute with this scaffolded worksheet that is the primary work of this lesson. Finally, here is the teacher’s copy of the worksheet that eases delivery of this material.

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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Cultural Literacy: Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining

Posted on July 29, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the proverb “every cloud has a silver lining.” This is a half-page worksheet with the barest of reading, one simple sentence, and three questions.

Two of the questions (namely two and three) ask students to apply their understanding of this expression by identifying an instance in their own life in which a cloud had a silver lining–or, as the reading as it, “Every misfortune has its positive aspect.” Then students are asked to compose a simple declarative sentence that includes this proverb.

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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J. Edgar Hoover

Posted on July 29, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on J. Edgar Hoover along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. From the Intellectual Devotional series, this is a good general introduction to Hoover’s biography.

Any “good” biography of J. Edgar Hoover must by definition include his subversion of democracy, via COINTELPRO, during his reign as FBI Director. Hoover was a nasty piece of work, and he’s just the kind of villain that students find fascinating; he’s also a good figure with which to begin a critical examination of United States history in the twentieth century, including the Civil Rights Movement and the anti-Vietnam War upheavals. It’s an established fact that COINTELPRO monitored Malcolm X closely; his daughters, earlier this year, released a letter from the late New York City Police officer Raymond Wood in which Detective Wood confessed to participating with the FBI in the conspiracy to murder Malcolm. Netflix has done an admirable job of exposing this with the excellent documentary series Who Killed Malcolm X? I found it riveting.

In other words, these two documents are a gateway to some juicy, engaging stuff. I can already think of two students of mine who would have engaged deeply in a unit around these circumstances and events.

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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Cultural Literacy: Ego

Posted on July 28, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of ego. This is a half-page worksheet; the reading is three sentences, though two of them are longish compounds, and there are three comprehension questions.

This is a concept students should understand. The virtue of the reading in this document is that it situates the ego in Freud’s structural theory of mind, (without, interestingly, ever mentioning Sigmund Freud himself) so students will also learn about the id and the superego. This is a good general introduction to this subject. That said, there is clearly room to expand this document (easy for you to accomplish, since like everything on Mark’s Text Terminal, this is a Microsoft Word document) for further exploration or exposition of psychoanalytic theory. If I were to expand this in any way, I would make sure students walked away with a basic understanding of Freud’s biography and his ideas about the psyche.

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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Containment

Posted on July 27, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on the United States’ policy of containment along with its accompanying vocabulary-buidling and comprehension worksheet.

This is a good general introduction to this piece of United States foreign policy toward the Soviet Union after World War II. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it is the best short introduction to the topic I’ve seen, presenting the biographies and motivations of the key players, to wit, George F. Kennan and President Harry Truman, as well as a quick analysis of the policy itself.

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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Common Errors in English Usage: Every (adj)

Posted on July 27, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the use of every, which is an adjective, but which readily joins with words like body and one to give us nouns like everybody and everyone. These are singular nouns, so they take singular verb forms. That’s the gist of this worksheet–but there is a small excursus on the use of their with these nouns in the interest of avoiding gendered pronouns, and therefore sexism in language.

The worksheet consists of 10 modified cloze exercises, which you may modify further, as this is an open source document formatted in Microsoft Word. Which, like all of the documents under the header of Common Errors in English Usage, are informed by Paul Brians’ excellent book of the same name, which he has posted on the Washington State University website. 

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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Cultural Literacy: Fiscal Year

Posted on July 26, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the fiscal year in both concept and practice. It’s a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences and three questions.

In other words, it’s a short, basic, but effective general introduction to the fiscal year. I wrote this because I worked in a economics-and-finance-themed high school in Lower Manhattan. But the truth of the matter is that I don’t think I ever had a need to use it. Maybe you will.

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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Antiglobalization

Posted on July 23, 2021 | 3 comments

Here is a reading on the antiglobalization movement in the United States along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

Because this relatively short reading focuses on the United States, it serves only as a general introduction to a movement that is, well, global in scale. If you scroll down from here to the sixth post below this one, you’ll find a reading and comprehension worksheet on the Bretton Woods Conference that might complement this reading–or vice versa.

I’d like to thank friend of the blog Adelaide Dupont, who called my attention to a typo in the reading in this post.

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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