Category Archives: Independent Practice

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

The Solar System

Posted on July 3, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on the solar system along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. This is a short reading with the standard eight-by-eight (i.e. eight vocabulary words to define, eight comprehension questions ) worksheet that I composed for all these readings.

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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Word Root Exercise: Spor/o, Spori

Posted on July 3, 2022 | Leave a comment

Moving along this morning, here is a worksheet on the Greek word roots spor/o and spori. These mean spore and to sow. What does one sow? Why seeds, of course, and even though that doesn’t turn up so simply as the definition in the standard lexicon of Mark’s Text Terminal, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition, a spore is basically a seed.

Anyway, this root sprouts such scientific nouns as sporophyll, sporozoan, and zoospore.

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: Separation of Church and State

Posted on July 3, 2022 | Leave a comment

Given the zeitgeist, particularly as defined by the current Supreme Court of the United States, now seems like a good time to post this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of the separation of church and state. This is a full-page document with a reading of five sentences, two of them longish compounds, and seven comprehension questions. The reading does a nice job of explaining the ambiguity of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment (which I, like other First Amendment absolutists, I expect, wish weren’t there) without ever mentioning the term.

So there might be a way of turning this document into something of a treasure hunt for the term “Establishment Clause.” Or something else entirely.

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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Word Root Exercise: Tract

Posted on July 1, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the Latin word root tract. It means draw and pull. You will recognize this as a particularly productive root in English: attract, contract, detract, extract, and retract all grow from this root, and all are included in this document (and I haven’t mentioned distract–to pull attention away from–which is not on this worksheet).

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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Athanasius Kircher

Posted on July 1, 2022 | Leave a comment

In keeping with this morning’s apparent theme of arcane and forbidden knowledge, here is a reading on Athanasius Kircher along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Do you know about Kircher? He is in many respects the representative Renaissance man; he wanted to know everything. This reading, in the “Additional Facts” section does observe that Kircher at one point was in possession of the Voynich Manuscript, one of European intellectual history’s great enigmas and the kind of thing that would have fascinated me in middle or high school.

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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Cultural Literacy: Rasputin

Posted on July 1, 2022 | Leave a comment

OK, moving right along on this already very warm Friday morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Grigori Rasputin. This is a full-page worksheet with a six-sentence reading and seven comprehension questions. It pretty much covers all the bases for this particular charlatan, even his influence on Russian statecraft. It does not include the grisly details of his murder, which may be apocryphal in any case. They are, however, the kind of thing that interests students–though I caution you that this material is probably best–if only–presented to high school students.

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, 1 July 2022: A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “The Great Diamond Heist”

Posted on July 1, 2022 | Leave a comment

The Weekly Text from Mark’s Text Terminal for the first of July 2022 is a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “The Great Diamond Heist.” I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on allusion (a half-page document with a three-sentence reading and three comprehension questions–just the basics). To conduct your investigation into this act of larceny, you will need the PDF of the illustration and questions that serve as the evidence in this case. Finally, for your students to bring the culprit or culprits to the bar of justice, here is the typescript of the answer key.

And that’s it for another week. I hope you are enjoying a relaxing summer.

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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Common English Verbs Followed by Gerunds: Dislike

Posted on June 28, 2022 | Leave a comment

Finally this morning, here is a worksheet on the use of the verb dislike as it is used with a gerund. I dislike working on things that might be useless.

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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Word Root Exercise: Soph, Sophy

Posted on June 28, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on on the Greek word roots soph and sophy. They mean wise and wisdom. As you probably see, these are productive roots in English that yield words such as sophisticated, theosophy, sophistry (a good word, I would argue, for high school graduates to know in our intellectually benighted age) and, of course, philosophy.

In fact, philosophy is one of those exemplars of ancient Greek culture, containing both sophy and philo, which means love, attracted to, affinity for, and a natural liking. Philosophy, then, means “love of wisdom.”

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: Feudalism

Posted on June 28, 2022 | Leave a comment

On a cool, gray morning in Brooklyn, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on feudalism. This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of five sentences, four of them longish, but relatively uncomplicated compounds, and six comprehension questions. This is one of the more cogent readings from The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy (Hirsch, E.D., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2002), and that’s saying something, because the editors of this book are experts in concision.

It is this sentence, though, that brings home the conceptual bacon (so to speak) on feudalism: “Under feudalism, people were born with a permanent position in society.”

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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