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, June 21, 2019: Five Worksheets on Differentiating and Using the Nouns Capital and Capitol

OK, here, very simply, because I am exhausted on this first Friday of the summer break, are five homophone worksheets on the nouns capital and capitol. Right off the top of my head, looking at these, I can see a number of ways to edit and revise them to take students more deeply into these words and the concepts they represent.

That’s it. I hope you’re enjoying nice weather and the free time to get out in 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.

Word Root Exercise: Dyn, Dyna, Dynam/o

Here, on a rainy Thursday morning, is a worksheet on the Greek word roots dyn, dyna, and dynam/o. They mean power, energy, and strength. These are, as the worksheet shows, some very productive roots in English. A number of STEM-related words start with this root, among others.

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.

Anxiety

This morning seems as good a time as any to post this reading on anxiety and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. If you work with anxious kids, and if the statistics on anxiety in kids are true, I suspect you’ll find a use for this 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.

Word Root Exercise: Rupt

If there is a better time, for obvious reasons, to post this worksheet on the Latin word root rupt, I can’t imagine it. It means “to break, burst,” and is at the basis of the English adjective, very much in the news of late, corrupt.

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: Vatican City-State

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Vatican as a city-state. I’ve used it, among other materials, to illustrate the concept of city-states in freshman global studies classes.

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: Franz Kafka

Last fall, while unpacking some boxes of books for my classroom library, I learned with considerable pleasure that Peter Kuper has rendered Franz Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis as a graphic novel. Personally, I like what Mr. Kuper has done with that staple of Mad Magazine, Antonio Prohias’s Cold War allegory as comic strip, “Spy vs. Spy.” Mr. Prohias was a hard act to follow, and Mr. Kuper has done so respectably, indeed even admirably. Professionally, that the students I teach–who have neither particular nor general interest in reading for pleasure–all read The Metamorphosis amazed me. Needless to say, I recommend this book for your classroom.

To complement The Metamorphosis, should you come by a copy, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Franz Kafka.

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.

Alcohol

Moving right along: here are a reading on alcohol and its attendant vocabulary building and comprehension worksheet if your practice and students would benefit from them.

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: Extrapolation

Finally, on this Friday morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on extrapolation. I am hard pressed to imagine why high schoolers shouldn’t know this noun, and, indeed, its attendant verb, extrapolate.

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.

Word Root Exercise: Matr, Matri, Mater

Ok, it’s a long story, but a prompt from the AFT’s Share My Lesson Plan website made me aware that I had not, despite my best intentions, ever published this worksheet on the Latin word roots matr, matri, and mater. They mean, you have probably already inferred, mother.

This is an extremely productive root in English, showing up in words like maternal, alma mater, and the like.

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, June 14, 2019: A Lesson Plan on Trade and Commercial Interaction

Today is the final Friday of the 2018-2019 school year, probably the most challenging year I have faced in my career. Enough said. Let’s move on.

Here is a complete lesson plan on trade and commercial interaction as a cause of history. I opened this lesson, when I was using it, with this context clues worksheet on the adjective efficient; I wanted students to use this word to understand that one of the many benefits the earliest human civilizations derived from the rivers next to which they were situated was the use of that water to increase efficiency in trade. Finally, here is worksheet and note-taking blank for student use in this lesson. Nota bene, please, that this is a brainstorming lesson that calls upon the teacher to serve as an active Socratic foil. You’ll need to prepare to ask a lot of broad questions about how trade increased human contact, created the concept of cosmopolitanism, fostered the rise of social class distinctions, changed diets, religion, languages clothing–hell, really, trade made the world what it is today.

And remember: in spite of all the talk in the last generation or so about “the rise of “globalization,” the global economy really begins with the Silk Road.

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.