Category Archives: Independent Practice

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

A Learning Support on Transition Words

Here is a learning support for transition words instruction if you do that sort of thing with your students. This was a hot item at the school in which I worked for ten years in Lower Manhattan. These are tricky words to teach, especially to English language learners.

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.

Looney Tunes

Their characters are American icons at this point, and people (well, at least I do) still watch them, so here is a reading on Looney Tunes and its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. For some reason, it still surprises me that this particular reading is of very high interest to students. In the ten years I’ve used this material in the classroom, kids regularly ask for 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.

Palate (n), Palette (n), and Pallet (n)

I’m not sure how fine any teacher wants to parse out vocabulary instructions, or what that same teacher considers an adequate high school lexicon. If your instructional plans call for sorting out the myriad homonyms in the English language, and you want to assist your students in building their own broad vocabularies, then these five worksheets on the nouns palate, palette, and pallet  may be of some utility to you.

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: Circum-

Here is a worksheet on the Latin word root circum. It means, unsurprisingly, around. This root is at the base of at least two key words–circumference and circumstance–from the high school lexicon. Moreover, because it derives from the Latin, it forms the basis of a number of cognates in the Romance languages, particularly Spanish.

-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: Burn the Midnight Oil

As students head off to college, teachers probably should explain to them the cognitive science research on “cramming” as a method of studying, i.e. that it is basically useless and mostly exhausting. Perhaps this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom burn the midnight oil would serve as an elegant way to kill two birds with one stone: teach students a new idiomatic expression, and urge them to pace themselves when studying.

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.

Graphic Novels

OK, moving right along, here are a reading on graphic novels and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Kids in my classrooms over the years have always asked for these documents, so I think based on my experience with them, I’ll designate this high interest material.

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: Copernicus

While I understand that an essential element of adolescence is thinking one is the center of the universe, I hold that this independent practice worksheet on Copernicus possesses utility in both the middle and high school classroom–if only to remind teenagers that the sun, not they, stands at the center of our universe. Also, Copernicus is a key figure in the history of science.

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 Learning Support on Pronouns and Case

While I’ve posted it elsewhere as part of a lesson plan, I’ll publish this learning support on pronouns and case as a stand-alone post so it is easily searchable.

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.

Smoking

If you’re looking for a short text on smoking that doesn’t in any way equivocate, than this short reading on that deadly habit should be more than adequate; here is the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet than accompanies 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: Burn the Candle at Both Ends

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom “to burn the candle at both ends.” It remains in sufficiently common usage in English, I think, that it might be worth taking the five or so minutes required to complete this short exercise to familiarize students with it.

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.