Category Archives: Independent Practice

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

Common Errors in English Usage: Here’s/Here are

Posted on November 19, 2021 | Leave a comment

From Paul Brians’ fine book Common Errors in English Usage (which he, amazingly, gives away at no charge at the Washington State University website, among other places), here is a worksheet on the proper use of here’s (the contraction of here is) and here are. This is full-page worksheet with a short reading explaining how to use these words and phrases (the predicate noun, plural or singular, governs the verb number) and ten modified cloze exercises.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Worksheets

Tagged ,

The Weekly Text, 19 November 2021: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on the Interstate Highway System

Posted on November 19, 2021 | Leave a comment

The passage of President Biden’s signature legislation, the Build Back Better Bill, strikes me as a perfect occasion to post as this week’s Text this reading on interstate highways in the United States, along with its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I think it’s important to note that a Republican president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, advanced the legislation enabling the construction of a national highway system of the scope our our interstates. What I mean to say here is that once upon a time, Republicans didn’t march in lockstep with each other in holding the idea that government investments in public works is “socialism.”

We take these highways for granted now, but when they were built, they eased shipping and leisure travel to an extent I think we now find difficult to imagine. They also homogenized American commercial culture and, over time, reduced regionalism, which as anyone familiar with the phrase “The Old Weird America” will understand and probably regret. Can I buy you lunch at Perkins/Stuckeys/McDonald’s/Cracker Barrel/Burger King ad nauseam (in some cases literally)?

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Social Sciences, The Weekly Text, Worksheets

Tagged , , , ,

Word Root Exercise: Dia-

Posted on November 19, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the Greek word root dia-. It means through, apart, and cross. This is a productive root in English, yielding such high-frequency words as diameter, diagonal, dialogue, and diaspora; these are words that, respectively, will turn up in mathematics, English, and social studies classes, as well as many other places in students’ primary and secondary educational lives.

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.

Leave a comment

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

Tagged , , ,

Cultural Literacy: Cybernetics

Posted on November 19, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on cybernetics. It appears that this noun remains in general use as a term of art in its own field of study–which strikes me as complex. But math and science, as I expect this blog shows, are not my strong suits. In any case, this is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two longish sentences 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.

Leave a comment

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

Tagged , , ,

Common Errors in English Usage: Heavily (adv), Strongly (adv)

Posted on November 12, 2021 | Leave a comment

OK, finally this afternoon (and once again from Paul Brians’ magisterial usage manual, Common Errors in English Usage, which he very generously gives away in a variety of places), here is a worksheet on differentiating the adverbs heavily and strongly. This is a one-page worksheet with ten modified cloze exercises to supply students with structured practice in using these two words.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Worksheets

Tagged ,

Word Root Exercise: Gress, Grad, Gradi, and Grade

Posted on November 12, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the Latin word roots gress, grad, gradi, and grade. They mean to step and to go. Unsurprisingly, they are at the base of such high-frequency words in English as egress, digress, graduate, and regress, and the many parts of speech in which these words end up –e.g. regressive, graduation, regressive and aggressive.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Worksheets

Tagged , , ,

Iran Hostage Crisis

Posted on November 12, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on the Iran hostage crisis in 1979 and 1980 along with its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I remember these years vividly–I saw the first headlines about the crisis as I was passing a newsstand in the Miami airport en route to Jamaica. It was a fraught time. I have a minor quibble with this reading in that it minimizes the brutality of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, who was a genuinely nasty piece of work. And even though it is perhaps beyond the ken of this reading, it would have required little more than a sentence to mention that the Shah came to power subsequent to the 1953 coup d’etat in Iran, which deposed the democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh.

The 1953 coup was engineered by both the United States Central Intelligence and the British MI6. In other words, as Dee Dee Ramone once put it, “Commando, involved again.”

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.

Leave a comment

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

Tagged , , , , ,

The Weekly Text, 12 November 2021: A Review Lesson on the Use of Pronouns in Declarative Sentences

Posted on November 11, 2021 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is the penultimate lesson in the 13-lesson unit on pronouns I engineered several years ago, and have been working on ever since. It is basically a pre-assessment review lesson to prepare student for the final lesson, a guided mastery exercise in which they review and recapitulate all the foregoing lessons.

I open this lesson with this Everyday Edit worksheet on “Women Get the Vote.” If the lesson enters a second day for whatever reason, here is another Everyday Edit, this one on Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Here is the scaffolded worksheet for this lesson that is its primary work. Finally, here is the teacher’s copy of same. I’ll put up the final lesson soon, and then there will be a 13-lesson unit on pronouns available in its entirety on Mark’s Text Terminal.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Lesson Plans, Social Sciences, The Weekly Text, Worksheets

Tagged , , , ,

Stephanie Ericsson’s “The Ways We Lie”

Posted on November 10, 2021 | Leave a comment

When the English teacher with whom I work recently introduced Stephanie Ericsson’s essay “The Ways We Lie” late last week, I’d never previously seen it. If you search it, you’ll see that it is evidently in use in a number of schools around the country. It’s not especially profound, but it does touch on some of the my philosophical issues that lying and truth-telling raise. Ms. Ericsson has enjoyed a successful career as a writer and and actor, the latter of which surprised me.

In any case, here is a copy of the essay itself along with a contextual and learning support that I composed to attend it. The essay is in Microsoft Word, though I didn’t render it so, so I cannot vouch for it accuracy or fidelity; the contextual and learning support I did write, and, as below, if you find any problems with it, please advise. I copy-edited it twice, which doesn’t mean it doesn’t contain lapses or errors. There is a reason why professional writers–which I am not, alas–use the services of their publishers’ copy-editing offices.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Essays/Readings, Independent Practice, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

Tagged , ,

Word Root Exercise: Di, Diplo

Posted on November 10, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the Greek word roots di and diplo. They mean two and double. You’ll find these roots underneath an everyday word like dilemma, but on this worksheet (which, if the book from which it is adapted is to be believed, contains words commonly found on the SAT), you’ll find it at the base of linguistic terms like digraph and diphthong, and scientific words like dichloride and dichromate.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Worksheets

Tagged , , , ,