Category Archives: Independent Practice

Here is a English usage worksheet on distinguishing between the adjectives healthy and healthful when deploying these words in prose. This is a full-page worksheet with a one-paragraph reading and ten modified cloze exercises. Like all the materials under the masthead “Common Errors in English Usage,” this one is adapted from Paul Brians’ excellent book of the same name; did you know he allows access to it for free at the Washington State University website?

In this reading, Professor Brians subtly argues that the difference between healthy and healthful has eroded to such a degree that the words are indistinguishable now. So, after working with them in these exercises, students can debate whether or not we need both of these words in our lexicons.

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.

Here is an worksheet on the the usage lapse that hadn’t have is, and how the simple hadn’t is the better choice for standard English prose. Having spend a lot of time trying to figure out the best ways to teach the use of auxiliary verbs like had, I appreciate this worksheet. At the same time, I don’t think I have ever heard any of my students here in New York City use the solecism of hadn’t have.

So, I’m not sure how useful this worksheet will be, or, therefore, why I wrote it. It is a full-page Microsoft Word Document with a short reading and five copy-editing/sentence-correction exercises; in other words, you can alter it to your needs. Finally, to give credit where it is so abundantly due, let me remind you that this worksheet, like every one of them under the Common Errors in English Usage banner, is based on material adapted from Paul Brians’ book of the same name, which he gives away at the Washington State University website.

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.

Once again, from Paul Brians’ book Common Errors in English Usage, here is a worksheet on subject-verb agreement when using the noun group. Did you know you know it is used as both a plural and singular, depending on what one needs to say about a group? I did not before preparing 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.