Category Archives: Independent Practice

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

Homosexuality

When I started working with troubled adolescents in 1990, I was surprised to see that the the clinical professionals with whom I worked, tread very lightly, if at all, around the issue of sexual identity in the kids we saw. In fact, on the only occasion I saw it addressed directly, one of the more highly placed professionals in the program angrily denied that it was a precipitant to or a factor in other clinical issues.

I’m not qualified to speak deeply about clinical pathology, but at the same time I knew that gay kids coming of age in a deeply homophobic society faced challenges that I clearly hadn’t experience and therefore didn’t understand. I did know that gay kids suffered a very high rate of suicidality.

Things have changed, fortunately. Here is a reading on homosexuality along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. This has, along the way in my time as a teacher, become a high-interest item, so I have tagged it as such.

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.

Word Root Exercise: Sphere

OK: finally, on this rainy April morning, here is a worksheet on the Greek word root sphere. It means ball. I’ll assume I needn’t belabor the point that students should know this root, which is also, per se, a noun in the English language as well as combining to make a variety of nouns in the sciences and mathematics.

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 the Crime and Puzzlement Case “The Awesome Treasure”

Because they are, so to speak, flying off the shelf, here is a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “The Awesome Treasure.”

I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom “Any Port in a Storm.” This scan of the illustration and questions drives the case; this typescript of the answer key helps you solve it.

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: Enfant Terrible

I can think of no better time to post this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the term and concept enfant terrible, since we seem to have so many of them at the moment in our culture and society.

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.

Everyday Edit: Japan’s “Coming of Age Day”

Here is an Everyday Edit worksheet on Japan’s “Coming of Age Day.” If you like these worksheets then you are in luck! The generous people at Education World give away a yearlong supply of them, and if you dig a little deeper over there, you’ll find the answer keys as well.

Independent Practice: Indus Civilization

In the ongoing observation of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2020, here is an independent practice worksheet on Indus Civilization. This was key material in the global studies curriculum in New York City; it is integral, I would think, to understanding the rise of civilizations in river valleys around 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.

Lucky Luciano

Here is a relatively high-interest reading on Lucky Luciano along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. As I say tirelessly–and probably tiresomely as well–this material is in Microsoft Word so there is plenty of room to expand, contract, or otherwise manipulate it for your needs.

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 Latin Word Root Cred

Before I move on to other things today, here is a lesson plan on the Latin word root cred, which means believe. Other than to observe that this is an extremely productive root in English, and forms the basis of words–credit, credibility, incredible–we use pretty much constantly, I won’t belabor the point, even though, in fact, I just did.

Anyway, I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the noun tenet. Finally, here is the word root worksheet that is the centerpiece 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.

Independent Practice: Hammurabi

Moving right along, and continuing with the observation of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2020 at Mark’s Text Terminal, here is an independent practice worksheet on Hammurabi, history’s first lawgiver.

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.

Everyday Edit: Islamic Hajj

Here is an Everyday Edit worksheet on the Islamic Hajj to get kids thinking about our newest neighbors and to help them learn to revise prose. Don’t forget, please, that the good people at Education World give away a yearlong supply of these, free for the taking. I’ve used these to good effect for many years in my classrooms.

And if you find typos in this document, well, repair them! That is the point, after all, of an exercise such as this one.