Category Archives: Independent Practice

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

Cultural Literacy: Class Structure

Posted on October 12, 2020 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on class structure to complement another post, seven below this, on class consciousness. My guess? This stuff wouldn’t fly in most schools and school districts. We Americans actually believe all the nonsense we tell ourselves about opportunity and the American meritocracy; we fancy ourselves above or immune to class distinctions.

I have bad news: we’re not. I think poor kids have a right to know that, and I think teachers have a moral and intellectual obligation to help students understand the way the edifice of class circumscribes students’ lives.

Just sayin,.

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, October 9, 2020, Hispanic Heritage Month 2020 Week IV: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Emiliano Zapata

Posted on October 9, 2020 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text, in the ongoing observation of Hispanic Heritage Month 2020, is a reading on Emiliano Zapata along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Any study of the history of Mexico, United States policy there or elsewhere, or revolutionary movements across the world probably ought to include something on this patriot and revolutionary.

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: Regretfully (adv), Regrettably (adv)

Posted on October 9, 2020 | Leave a comment

In my experience, regret isn’t at the forefront of the adolescent’s emotional range; indeed, it is probably at graduation at the earliest that teenagers get a taste of regret.

So, this English usage worksheet on differentiating the adverbs regretfully and regrettably might not land. Still, it does meet the standard for understanding how to work with a usage manual, albeit adapted for struggling learners.

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: Class Consciousness

Posted on October 9, 2020 | Leave a comment

It’s not something we talk about in school, because it offends people’s perception of our exceptional, egalitarian society in the United States. Of course that is nonsense: social class divisions, with unequal access to basic resources and economic privileges, has long been a part of American social life.

This Cultural Literacy worksheet on class consciousness is actually a good introduction to the idea of social class as well as, obviously, consciousness of one’s own social class.

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: The Birth of a Nation

Posted on October 8, 2020 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on The Birth of a Nation, the infamous 1915 film by D.W. Griffith. I think now is a good time for students to learn about this piece of racist propaganda.

There, I got that out on the page. I’ve been walking around this document, metaphorically speaking, for months. In fact, I have a good deal of material about this film–and know more about it than I care to admit. Suffice to say this: this film innovated production techniques and really represents the birth of the long-form, narrative cinema we take for granted today. Even the Marxist auteur Sergei Eisenstein admired D.W. Griffith’s advances in technique while deploring the racism of The Birth of a Nation.

Generally, this film in its “artistic” and commercial dimensions offers a lot of grist for the critical mill. I am still working up to posting more material about this hot-button issue. For now, this short exercise will have to suffice.

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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Word Root Exercise: Mania

Posted on October 8, 2020 | Leave a comment

You’ll find it in a number of very commonly used words in the English language, so here is a worksheet on the Greek word root mania, which means excessive desire and mental aberration. For any students interested in psychology or work in the health care professions, understanding of this root is de rigueur; but, again, this is such a productive root in English that all students really ought to know it.

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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A Lesson Plan on Pilot Checklist Steps from The Order of Things

Posted on October 7, 2020 | Leave a comment

If you have any students with an interest in aviation, here is an Order of Things lesson on the checklist of steps pilots use to assure their aircraft is ready to fly. You’ll need the worksheet with list as reading and comprehension questions to do the work of 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.

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Cultural Literacy: Sinclair Lewis

Posted on October 7, 2020 | Leave a comment

Is Sinclair Lewis taught at the high school level? I don’t remember encountering him, with Babbitt, until I was well into my twenties. He was the first writer from the United States to win a Nobel Prize in Literature. I don’t remember seeing his books around the high school in which I served for ten years.

If you just want to introduce him to your students, or settle them after a class change, or both, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Sinclair Lewis that shouldn’t take anybody long.

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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Personal Identity

Posted on October 6, 2020 | Leave a comment

Let me start with the documents, to wit this reading on personal identity and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. The more I think about the conceptual and personal issues attached to personal identity, and how self-identifying has empowered oppressed communities, the more I think I would like to build either a short unit or a long lesson around these documents. If that interests you, please read on.

It’s one of those big philosophical and psychological concepts, but in the realm of the classroom teacher, individuation means that students have begun the process of discovering the self, or themselves, if you prefer. In any case, identity is important. To whatever extent we can, I think we are intellectually and morally obliged to abet this process in kids.

Especially now, when social media appear, as an emerging scholarly discourse indicates, to erode individuation. If you’re interested, this stylish and literate blog post from The Literary Blues supplies a nice basic outline of the means by which social media diminishes individualism. A lesson or unit on personal identity would proceed most effectively, I submit, if it addressed these critical issues of identity and social media.

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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Posted in English Language Arts, Essays/Readings, Independent Practice, Social Sciences, Worksheets

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Cultural Literacy: Lost Generation

Posted on October 6, 2020 | Leave a comment

Because there has been a surge of interest in the United States in, well, leaving the United States, now seems like a perfect time to post this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Lost Generation, that group of American writers and artists who spend the 1920s in Paris. Among this group, as you may know, was Ernest Hemingway.

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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