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: Mongolia

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Mongolia. This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of six sentences–the first one is a bit complicated, but otherwise these are relatively simple declarative sentences–and eight comprehension questions. Most of the work in reading and interpretation on this document involves answering questions to form a mental picture of where exactly Mongolia is in the world.

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, 30 May 2025, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Week V: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on The Battle of Midway

For the final Friday of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2025, here is a reading on the Battle of Midway along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. This is solid material on one of the turning points in the Pacific Theater of World War II.

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: Mahatma Gandhi

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Mahatma Gandhi. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of four sentences–two of which are compounds that aren’t difficult, but may need revision for certain readers–and five comprehension questions.

A good basic introduction to Gandhi, which joins a growing body of material on him 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.

Cultural Literacy: Baghdad

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Baghdad. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three short sentences–one of which succinctly states that “Baghdad has long been one of the great cities of the Muslim world”–and three comprehension questions.

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, 23 May 2025, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Week IV: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Yasir Arafat

This week’s Text, in observance of the fourth Friday of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2025, is this reading on Yasir Arafat along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

I’m hard pressed to imagine there is much, if any, demand for these documents; moreover, I understand that Yasir Arafat is a controversial figure. But I also understand that however one perceives Arafat and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), he is an important figure in the the history of part of the world we, after the ancient Greeks and Romans, call Asia.

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 Mikado

Strictly speaking, this Cultural Literacy worksheet on The Mikado has little or nothing to do with Asian Pacific History, either locally or globally. I should have known this, because as a middle school student, I served as an usher for a production of the play by my city’s Gilbert and Sullivan repertory company.

But if we think of this play as an attempt at representation, then there is something juicy to talk about here. I doubt Gilbert and Sullivan are exactly au courant in classrooms these days, so I also doubt that this document has much use or currency. Rather than throw it away, however…. Well, enough said.

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.

Haiku

Haiku: A form of Japanese poetry, composed of seventeen syllables in a 5/7/5 pattern. The haiku evokes a complete impression or mood through the juxtaposition of a natural physical element such as a sound or sight, with a phrase to suggest a season or emotion. It developed from the nonstandard linked verse (haikai no renga) popular in the 16th and 17th centuries—the “opening verse” (hokku) of which eventually was treated as in independent form, known today as haiku. Its greatest practitioner was Matsuo Basho, followed by the painter Yosa Buson, Kobayashi Issa, and Masaoka Shiki. Haiku’s emphasis on the immediate and concrete influenced early 20th century Imagism in Europe and America, especially through the influence of Ezra Pound.

Two well-known examples by Basho are the ‘summer grasses’ verse composed on a visit to the site where Yoshitsune was vanquished, and the following:

Furuike ya                                           An ancient pond—

Kawazu tobikomu                           Then the sound of water

Mizu no oto                                        Where a frog plops in”

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

Cultural Literacy: The Taj Mahal

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Taj Mahal. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences and two comprehension questions. Somehow, it is at once a spare and thorough introduction to this important piece of global cultural heritage.

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, 16 May 2025, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Week III: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Mohandas Gandhi

This week’s Text, for week three of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2025, is this reading on Mohandas Gandhi with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

I think it’s safe to assume that I needn’t belabor the world historical importance of the man the world knows by his honorific, Mahatma.

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: Siberia

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Siberia, that vast area of the Eurasian, or Asian, continent, depending on how you parse these things.

This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences and four comprehension questions. Let me extend the usual warning about the reading: these are long, complicated compound sentences that really will need to be separated and made simpler for emergent or struggling readers. There is a clause about the metaphor “sent to Siberia” as a form of punishment by isolation that could be omitted–or not, if you are interested in assisting your students make connections between the concrete and the abstract.

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.