Category Archives: Independent Practice

This is material either specifically designed for or appropriate to use for what is more commonly known as “homework.”

Common English Verbs Followed by an Object and a Infinitive: Order

Here is a worksheet on the verb order when used with an object and an infinitive.

Doctor Zaius ordered his patient to schedule an MRI.

The hobbyist ordered some glue to build models.

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: Sarcasm

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on sarcasm. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences (the second of which is longish, but not insurmountable for emergent and struggling readers) and three comprehension questions. Just the bare facts about this often corrosive form of irony.

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, 12 September 2025: A Lesson on the Latin Word Roots Duc and Duct

This week’s Text is a lesson on the Latin word roots duc and duct. They mean “to lead” and grow such high-frequency English words as abduct, aqueduct, induct, deduct, deduce, and seduce, all of which are included on the scaffolded worksheet, complete with Romance language cognates. I open this lesson with this context clues on the verb guide. I’d like to think that short do-now points toward the meaning of the two Latin roots under analysis in this lesson.

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.

Common English Verbs Followed by an Object and a Gerund: Witness

Here is a worksheet on the verb witness when used with an object and a gerund.

Several people witnessed the train arriving.

The students witnessed a lion stalking its prey.

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, 5 September 2025: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Coeducation

The Weekly Text for 5 September 2025, for some reason, is this reading on coeducation and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I have only the faintest idea of why I developed this material; I vaguely recall a class that didn’t believe me when I told them that men and women were–and are (e.g. Smith, Mount Holyoke, both part of the Five College Consortium, which includes my alma mater, Hampshire College)–educated separately in many colleges and universities in the United States.

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.

Common English Verbs Followed by an Object and a Gerund: Spend

Here is a worksheet on the verb spend when used with an object and a gerund.

The students spent time researching their project.

The tourists spent the afternoon riding around in a tour bus.

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: Reparations

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on reparations. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of four sentences and three comprehension questions. If discussing reparations for the the horrors of chattel slavery in the United States is now forbidden as thought crime (have you seen the index of forbidden words in the Trump administration?), you’re safe with this document. It focuses on war reparations.

Which isn’t to say that one couldn’t dilate on the reading to include reparations for crimes against human rights or the sin and crime of enslavement, no matter how far in the past. I’m just saying.

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.

Bauhaus

“Bauhaus: (German, ‘house of architecture’) A school of architecture and design, founded in Weimar Germany, in 1919 by Walter Gropius. The school stressed functionalism in art and tried to unite the creative arts and the technology of modern mass production with 20th-century architecture. In addition to more strictly architectural studies, courses in painting, handicrafts, the theatre, and typography were given by outstanding artists, including Lyonel Feininger, Vassily Kandinsky, and Paul Klee. Functionalism, or the international style, in architecture and a number of examples of industrial design, such as the tubular lighting and steel furniture of Marcel Breuer, were first developed at the Bauhaus. In 1925, the school moved to the buildings designed for it by Gropius in Dessau; three years later, Mies van der Rohe became its director.

The Bauhaus was attacked by Hitler’s regime, and in 1933 it was forced to close. However, its great influence on modern architecture and design continued in Europe and the U.S. through its masters and students.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

The Weekly Text, 29 August 2025: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Charles Ponzi

This week’s Text is a reading on Charles Ponzi accompanied but its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

In the fall of 2008, when the United States economy crashed and nearly took the rest of the world down with it, I had just accepted a job at an economics-and-finance-themed high school in the Financial District in Manhattan. I rode the 2 or the 5 train from the North Bronx to the Wall Street Station. My school was on Trinity Place, right across the street from Zuccotti Park. In other words, I worked right in the middle of the Financial District while the place was–metaphorically–going up in flames. It was a weird time: the streets were weirdly quiet, and the restaurants and bars, usually full of boisterous traders, were dead.

Then came Bernie Madoff. My students couldn’t understand what he’d done, but several of them sure were interested. These documents are some of the fruits of my labor that sought to educate these kids about, well, rip-off artists.

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.

Common English Verbs Followed by an Object and a Gerund: See

Here is a worksheet on the verb see when used with an object and a gerund.

I see elephants walking down my block.

The teacher sees the student working on her essay.

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.