Category Archives: Independent Practice

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

Word Root Exercise: Flori

Posted on October 22, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the Latin root flori. As you probably know, because you have probably visited a florist at least once in your life, this productive root in English (it gives us, in addition to florist, flora, efflorescence and its verb effloresce, as well as the relatively commonly used adjective florid) means flower.

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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Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts

Posted on October 22, 2021 | Leave a comment

While I concede that this reading on Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet may not have compelling utility in our mostly arts-free schools, here they are nonetheless.

I’m old enough to remember the broadcasts of Maestro Bernstein–who was an eminent figure in the American Culture of my youth–and his Young People’s Concerts. The New York Philharmonic, then as now, stood as one of the world’s great orchestras. I can’t say these television shows inculcated a lifelong love of classical music in me, but they did introduce me to it and help me understand it. Fortunately, Wynton Marsalis, a figure as vital to American culture as Leonard Bernstein, continues the tradition of introducing young people to a genuinely American art form with his “Jazz for Young People” concerts. Mr. Marsalis leads the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, perhaps the greatest large ensemble playing jazz these days.

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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The Weekly Text, 22 October 2021: A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Water Bed”

Posted on October 22, 2021 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is a on the Crime and Puzzlement case “Water Bed.” I begin this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Latinism caveat emptor. As you probably know, this locution means “let the buyer beware.” However, in everyday discourse one will often hear someone say “there is a caveat” or “there are several caveats” in any given situation. Caveat by itself means (by  Merriam-Webster’s reckoning) “a warning enjoining one from certain acts or practices.” All of this is a roundabout way of saying that caveat emptor in particular, and caveat in general, are arguable words high school students should know by their graduation.

Anyway, you’ll need this PDF scan of the illustration and questions related to the evidence in this case to investigate it. And here is the answer key to solve the case and bring your culprit to the bar of justice.

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: The Communist Manifesto

Posted on October 20, 2021 | Leave a comment

As long as I have my computer on this afternoon, let me offer readers this Cultural Literacy worksheet on The Communist Manifesto. This is a half-page worksheet with a two-sentence reading and two comprehension questions. In other words, the most basic of introductions to this world-changing book.

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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Temperance (n), Temperate (adj)

Posted on October 19, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a context clues worksheet on the noun temperance. I’m fairly confident I wrote this for a United States history class to help students understand the word as an adjective in the historical term Temperance Movement. You will note in these sentences that I tried to write context that also defines temperance to mean “habitual moderation in the indulgence of the appetites or passions.”

And here also is another context clues worksheet on the adjective temperate. This is a moderately complicated word whose essential meaning is “marked by moderation, “keeping or held within limits,” and “not extreme or excessive.” It’s worth remembering that this adjective attaches to nouns dealing with everything from drinking alcohol (as above), to climates, to one’s habits.

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 Errors in English Usage: Gone, Went (v)

Posted on October 17, 2021 | Leave a comment

OK, last but not least on this cool Sunday morning, here is an English usage worksheet on understanding the difference between gone and went and how to use, respectively, this past participle and simple past tense of the verb go. This is a full-page worksheet with a short reading and ten modified cloze exercises. But, as it is formatted in Microsoft Word, it is yours to modify as you wish.

Like all the documents under the above header, this one is based on text from Paul Brians’ excellent book Common Errors in English Usage, which he has posted on the Washington State University website for free.

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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Summary (n)

Posted on October 17, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here are two context clues worksheets on the noun summary. Why I produced two of them, I can’t say. I need not belabor the importance of this noun in the vocabulary of high school students, so I won’t. Incidentally, since I haven’t mentioned it lately, these documents, like almost everything on Mark’s Text Terminal, are formatted in Microsoft Word. Thus they are easily exportable into a word processor of your preference, and you may edit them for the needs of your 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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Word Root Exercise: Crypt/o

Posted on October 17, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the Greek word root crypt-o. It means, as you probably already know, “secret” and “hidden.” In fact, given the need for the encryption on the digital devices that are now ubiquitous and even omnipresent in the lives of most people, this is a word root very much in common parlance in English.

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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Leave It to Beaver

Posted on October 15, 2021 | Leave a comment

OK, for some reason, here is a reading on “Leave It to Beaver” along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I haven’t the faintest idea why I produced these documents on this late-1950s and early 1960s television show. A friend of mine extolled its virtues in the past; the one episode I saw nauseated me–a sitcom vision of a placid, indeed complacent, ultra-White America produced during the depths of Jim Crow–and I never watched another episode.

So again, I can’t imagine why I wrote this worksheet other than, perhaps, to help students understand how often popular media, particularly fictional narratives, are at variance with reality.

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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The Weekly Text, 15 October 2021, Hispanic Heritage Month 2021 Week V: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Cesar Chavez

Posted on October 15, 2021 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text, for the final Friday of Hispanic Heritage Month 2021, is a reading on Cesar Chavez along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. The reading comes from one of the Intellectual Devotional books; there is another reading and comprehension worksheet from one of those volumes. Entries on him appeared in two of them–Biographies and American History–and both are now available on this blog.

In fact, to use the boilerplate for this circumstance on Mark’s Text Terminal, these documents join a growing body of material on Mr. Chavez, one of the heroes of my youth.

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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