Category Archives: Independent Practice

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

A Lesson Plan on the Scale and Chronology of Evolution from The Order of Things

Here’s another lesson plan from Barbara Ann Kipfer’s book The Order of Things, this one on the scale and chronology of evolution. You’ll need this list and comprehension questions worksheet to complete this lesson in your classroom.

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.

Howard Hughes

Somehow, about six years ago, a struggling student I served improbably found her way to the late Jonathan Demme’s early and critically acclaimed film “Melvin and Howard.” The film is a fictionalized account of Melvin Dummar’s account of encountering Howard Hughes in the Utah desert and giving him a ride to Las Vegas. You can click through on the links to read more about this implausible story.

Anyway, my student, an inquisitive young woman, wanted to know more about Howard Hughes. I worked up this reading on Howard Hughes and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet to supply her with some context for understanding the story in “Melvin and Howard.” Incidentally, I watched the movie myself and didn’t care much for it. Having since seen several of his films, I learned that Jonathan Demme just wasn’t my kind of filmmaker, though I did think his rendition of “The Silence of the Lambs” was the best of the various productions around the legend of the brilliant serial killer, cannibal, and psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter.

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.

A Concluding Lesson Plan on Verbs

If you are a user of this blog, then you may know that I have been, over time, posting all the materials I’ve developed for using the parts of speech to bolster literacy. Since the COVID19 pandemic began, I’ve posted a series of lesson plans on verbs. In fact, with this post, I will have published the entire twelve-lesson unit on verbs that I used in the classroom for several years.

So, if you have accumulated the other eleven lessons, then here is the final lesson plan on verbs, the assessment, for this verbs unit. I open this lesson with this worksheet on the homophones there, their, and they’re. If this lesson continues into a second day (and you’ll see that it is almost inevitable that it will), then here is an Everyday Edit worksheet on National Poetry Month. (If you and your students like the procedural knowledge practice the Everyday Edit worksheets offer you, then you will be pleased to hear that the good people at Education World give away an entire year’s supply of these short exercises.)

Here is the worksheet that serves as a final assessment for the verbs unit posted on this blog.

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.

Atlanta

Here is a reading on Atlanta and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. It’s a short history of the city if you have students interested.

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.

A Lesson Plan on the Fall of Rome

OK! This lesson plan on the Fall of Rome, as below, is the tenth of ten lessons, logically and chronologically, from a global studies unit on ancient Rome.

This lesson opens, if you are so inclined, with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on, unsurprisingly, the fall of Rome. If the lesson continues into a second day, then you might want this context clues worksheet on the verb submit, which is used both intransitively and transitively.

And, lastly for this, the tenth of ten posts (see below), here is the short reading and comprehension questions that are the principal work of this lesson.

That’s it. I hope this material is useful.

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.

A Lesson Plan on Constantine I

Moving along to number nine in a global studies unit of ten lessons on ancient Rome, here is a lesson plan on Constantine I, the first Christian emperor of Rome.

I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the noun wrath; if the lesson goes into a second day as you use it (and as I intended for my own use), then here is another context clues worksheet on the noun legacy.

This is the reading on Constantine I and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that are 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.

A Lesson Plan on Rome and Christianity

As above and below, this lesson plan on Rome and Christianity is number eight of a ten-lesson global studies unit on ancient Rome.

This lesson opens with this context clues worksheet on the noun treaty as well as a on the verb unite (it’s used both intransitively and transitively) if the lesson, as I intended for my own use, continues into a second day. And here is the reading and comprehension questions that are at the center 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.

A Lesson Plan on the Pax Romana

This lesson plan on the Pax Romana is the seventh of a ten-lesson global studies unit on ancient Rome (as above and below–a run, all told, of twenty posts, ten of them documents posts).

Here’s a context clues worksheet on the noun orator and a second on the noun truce for opening this lesson. And here is the short reading with comprehension questions that is the primary 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.

A Lesson Plan on Roman Law

Alright, moving right along, as above and below, here is a lesson plan on Roman Law, the sixth of ten in a global studies unit on ancient Rome in this run of posts.

I set up two context clues worksheets on two commonly used Latinisms in English for this lesson, both used as adjectives and adverbs, the first on de facto and the second on de jure. Finally, here is the worksheet with a short reading and several comprehension questions that constitutes 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.

A Lesson Plan on the Roman Empire

This lesson plan on the Roman Empire, as above and below, is the fifth part of a ten-lesson unit on ancient Rome.

This context clues worksheet on the noun patriarch opens this lesson, and here is another on the adjective supreme for this lesson’s second day, should you choose to take it beyond one day of instruction, which I basically recommend. The primary work of this guided-reading lesson (as all ten of them are, incidentally) is this worksheet with its  reading and comprehension questions.

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.