Category Archives: Independent Practice

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

The Weekly Text, July 17, 2020: A Lesson Plan on the Simple Future Tense of Verbs

This week’s Text is a lesson plan on the simple future tense of verbs. I open this lesson with this worksheet on differentiating the homophones veracious and voracious, which are both adjectives. It always pays to prepare for a lesson to spill over into a second day. So here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of nuance, which is really something students ought to know before they graduate high school.

You’ll need the scaffolded worksheet that is the mainstay of this lesson to do its work. You might also find this learning support and word bank useful in presenting this lesson and completing its work. Finally, here is the teacher’s copy of the worksheet.

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.

Ulysses S. Grant

If you teach United States history, I imagine this reading on Ulysses S. Grant along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I guess there is not much to say about this other than to reiterate that the day General Grant took the surrender of the Confederate Army at Appomattox Court House was the last day the Confederate Flag should have flown anywhere in this nation.

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 Errors in English Usage: Systematic and Systemic

Here is an English usage worksheet on the adjectives systematic and systemic and how to differentiate their. By any measure I recognize, these are a couple of important words for educated citizens to know, understand, and deploy properly. Systemic is an especially important word and concept for teaching and learning in the sciences.

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.

A Lesson Plan on Alexander the Great and Hellenism

If you’ve been following along from top to bottom, you’ll know that this is the eleventh (twenty-second if you count the interstitial quotes) and final post of an eleven-lesson global studies unit on the ancient world. Just to remind you, the first lesson in this run is “The First of Two Lessons on Sumer.”

So, now let’s move on to the last, which is this lesson on Alexander the Great and Hellenism. I think this is another two-day lesson, so I include two context clues worksheets, the first on the verb dominate (it’s used both intransitively and transitively), and the the second on the noun dominion.

Here is the reading on Alexander the Great and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that are the primary work of this lesson. If you have English language learners or emergent readers in your class, this differentiated version of the work for this lesson might be more appropriate for you use. The reading is a bit shorter and I’ve edited it to include more familiar words for students.

OK! That’s it. Eleven global studies lessons on the ancient world. I hope they serve you well.

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 Athens and Sparta’s Contest for Control of the Ancient World

Here is a lesson plan on the contest between Sparta and Athens for control of the ancient world, the penultimate lesson in the eleven-lesson unit I currently endeavor to get out for distribution on Mark’s Text Terminal. Because I anticipated this lesson enduring for two days, I included two Cultural Literacy worksheets in the folder, one on the Peloponnesian War and another on pantheism.

There are also two sets of readings and worksheets for this lesson, which means I needed at some point to differentiate of a student or even a whole class. In any case, here are the primary reading and its worksheet; and, finally, here are secondary reading (slightly shortened) and the second, differentiated worksheet.

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 Periclean Athens

Moving right along, here is a lesson plan on Periclean Athens. Because, like many of the lessons in this run of posts, I anticipated this going into a second day, I included two context clues worksheets with this lesson, the first on the noun architecture and the second on the noun legacy. Here is the worksheet with a reading and comprehension questions that stands as the work central to 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 Origins of Greece

Here is a lesson plan on the origins of Greece. Because (I must assume–again, it has been some time since I’ve used these documents) I included two do-now exercises in this lesson, I think this must be a two-day lesson. So, here are a pair of Cultural Literacy worksheets, the first on Alexander the Great and the second on Alexandria, the Egyptian city. Lastly, here is the worksheet with reading and comprehension questions on the origins of civilization on the Greek peninsula.

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 Phoenicians

Another day, back at it. Here is a lesson plan on the Phoenicians those (vanished) traders and explorers par excellence.

I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the verb accumulate, and N.B. that it is used both intransitively and transitively. In the event the lesson spills into a second day, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Carthage, the city of the Phoenicians, for round 2.

As in many of these global studies lesson, I accumulated at least a secondary worksheet for the lesson. So, here is the primary version of the worksheet and here is the secondary version, edited for length and complexity.

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 Cyrus the Great and the Persian Empire

Next up: a lesson plan on Cyrus the Great and the Persian Empire. Like the previous lesson on Hammurabi’s Code, this one includes a trove of differentiated documents.

Let’s start with the do-now exercises, which for this lesson are two Cultural Literacy worksheets: the first is first is on xenophobia and the second is on the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Now onto the documents that constitute the principal work of this lesson–there are two sets. Here the primary reading on Cyrus the Great along with its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. There is only the slightest difference between the primary reading and this version of it, but this worksheet is shorter to attend it. I imagine (it has been a while) that I prepared the second versions of these documents for one student, but I cannot say that for sure.

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 Hammurabi’s Code

OK, here is a lesson plan on Hammurabi’s Code. It looks like every version of this lesson I wrote is in this folder, so here are all the documents I’ve used to teach this material over time.

First the do-now exercises: here is a context clues worksheet on the verb censure and another on the noun chaos.

Next, the primary documents. Here is first reading on Hammurabi’s Code along with its accompanying worksheet. This is same reading in a second, edited and simpler version of the same reading with its similarly simplified worksheet. Finally, here is a third and even shorter reading and worksheet.

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.