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: Thirteen Colonies

Posted on October 28, 2026 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the original thirteen colonies of what would become the United States. This is a half-page worksheet with a one–longish, with the first clause separated by a colon from the list of the thirteen colonies–sentence reading and two 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.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Social Sciences, Worksheets

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The Weekly Text, 30 October 2026: A Lesson Plan on the Greek Word Root Chron/o.

Posted on October 28, 2026 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is this lesson plan on the Greek word root chron/o. It means, of course, time. This is a very productive root in English, and its offshoots include such high-frequency English words as chronicle, chronology, synchronize, chronic, and, for those of us involved in online learning, asynchronous. I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the noun interval in the hope that it will point the way to the meaning of this Greek root; in any case, interval is a word I think students ought to know before graduating high school.

Finally, here is the scaffolded worksheet that is the principal 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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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Lesson Plans, The Weekly Text, Worksheets

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Bespoke (adj)

Posted on October 23, 2026 | Leave a comment

Here is a half-page context clues worksheet on the adjective bespoke. For some reason, this adjective, which means custom-made, found its way into everyday discourse a few years ago, about the same time curate did, I think. I whipped up this context clues sheet and then, of course, never used it. Maybe someone can find something to do with it. It certainly doesn’t strike me as a word students in secondary school–provided they’re not planning to go to work on Savile Row or its equivalent–need to know.

Honestly, some of the uses of this word I encountered made me cringe.

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: Take-Home Pay

Posted on October 23, 2026 | Leave a comment

Given that most wage-earners have seen it shrink consistently over the past 18 or so months (not to mention over the past two or three generations), now strikes me as a propitious time to publish this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the term take-home pay and the concept it represents. This is a half-page worksheet with a one-sentence reading and two comprehension questions. This document, obviously, could be dilated to move an inquiry on the effect of inflation on take-home pay, something we’re all dealing with (unless your income is derived from invested capital, and even then you might be taking a haircut) right now.

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, 23 October 2026: A Pair of Learning Supports on Annotating Text

Posted on October 23, 2026 | Leave a comment

In my final couple years of co-teaching high school English Language Arts class, I was disappointed that students rarely read entire books (although I had the good fortune to work with two English teachers who did assign entire books), and therefore seldom performed any substantial interpretive work on what they did read–which was and is, I expect, short passages from novels. Students annotate these texts, but don’t really write anything insightful about them. Still, given how little students read these days, they struggled with adding interpretive notes–i.e. annotating–even these short texts.

So I developed this learning support on annotating for analogy, allusion, metaphor and tone, and this one on rhetorical analysis for ethos, pathos, and logos.

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, Independent Practice, Reference, The Weekly Text

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William Carlos Williams

Posted on October 9, 2026 | Leave a comment

“William Carlos Williams: (1883-1963) U.S. poet. Trained as a pediatrician, Williams spent a lifetime writing poetry and practicing medicine in his hometown of Rutherford, New Jersey. He is noted for making the ordinary appear extraordinary through clear and discrete imagery and powerful evocation of the world of common objects, as in the fresh impressions of the sensuous world expressed in ‘The Red Wheelbarrow,’ from Spring and All (1923). Paterson (1946-58), a five-part long poem, evokes a complex vision of modern American life. His other poetry includes Pictures from Brueghel (1962; Pulitzer Prize). His numerous prose works include essays, a trilogy of novels, short stories, drama, and autobiography.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Quotes, Reference

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Common Errors in English Usage: Nevertheless and Notwithstanding

Posted on October 9, 2026 | Leave a comment

From the pages of Paul Brians’ book Common Errors in English Usage (Sherwood, Oregon: William James 2013, to which he allows unfettered access at no charge at his Washington State University web page, here is a worksheet worksheet on the adverb nevertheless and the adverb and preposition notwithstanding. This document stresses that these word are always spelled as one, not, therefore, as never the less or not withstanding.

My own contribution to this material involves defining these words–which mean basically the same thing–and stressing their use as transition words in prose. This is an unstructured worksheet; in other words, there are no cloze exercises here. Students will write declarative sentences from subject to period using nevertheless and notwithstanding.

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: T.S. Eliot

Posted on October 9, 2026 | Leave a comment

Although I expect he is not much taught at the secondary level (where, nonetheless, I first encountered him), here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on T.S. Eliot. This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of four sentences and four comprehension questions. A short, symmetrical, and almost thorough introduction to this important, if controversial, twentieth-century poet.

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: Tariff

Posted on October 9, 2026 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the tariff as a means of raising revenue for governments. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of one sentence and one comprehension question. Under the circumstances, I think it might be useful to press this document into service as the initial step in answering the question “Who really pays tariffs on a good, in the final analysis?”

I should have posted this a year or eighteen months ago.

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 Writing Tools Quick List from Roy Peter Clark

Posted on October 9, 2026 | Leave a comment

OK, here is a learning support in the form of a a Writing Tools Quick List from legendary journalist and journalism teacher, Roy Peter Clark. This material, which is adapted from Mr. Clark’s book Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer (New York: Little Brown, 2008), is a simple two-page outline. This is a book that is heavily covered–and generally astutely–in a variety of blogs across the Internet. So if this post is inadequate, simply search the book’s title in your favorite search engine.

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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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Reference

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