Category Archives: Independent Practice

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

Stephanie Ericsson’s “The Ways We Lie”

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 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.

Word Root Exercise: Di, Diplo

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.

Common Errors in English Usage: Healthy (adj), Healthful (adj)

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.

Cultural Literacy: Coup de Grace

It’s a relatively commonly used Gallicism in English, so here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the noun coup de grace. It means “a deathblow or death shot administered to end the suffering of one mortally wounded.” and “a decisive finishing blow, act, or event.” The latter definition obtains in the vernacular, where this noun finds use most frequently to mean “a final blow.”

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.

Annual Health Exam

OK, health teachers, if you can use them, here is a reading on the importance of an annual health exam along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. For a one-page reading, this document pack in a lot of information–perhaps all that one needs to understand why one should get a physical every year.

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.

The Weekly Text, 5 November 2021: A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “False Alarm”

This week’s Text is a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “False Alarm.” I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Gallicism enfant terrible.

To conduct your investigation of this misdemeanor, you’ll need this PDF of the illustration and questions that serve as evidence and interrogative in the case. And here is the typescript of the answer key. And that’s it for another week.

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.

Common Errors in English Usage: Hadn’t Have, Hadn’t

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.

The Mississippi River

Here is a reading on the Mississippi River along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. This is a relatively short reading, but packs a lot of facts into a short introduction to the Mighty Mississippi, as do most of the one-page reading from the Intellectual Devotional series. It’s one of the reasons I developed so many of these, and why you find so many of them on this blog.

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: Cyt/o, -Cyte

Here is a worksheet on the Greek word roots cyt/o and -cyte. They mean, simply, cell. The most commonly used words to my eye on this worksheet (which also, if the book from which I adapted this is credible, tend to appear on the SAT and other high-stakes, college gatekeeping tests), are cytoplasm and lymphocyte. If you have students looking down the road at a career in the healthcare professions, this might be a useful document. If not, not (as Gertrude Stein once said).

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: Cossacks

Because I can’t ever remember hearing them mentioned once in 11 years of teaching global studies in New York State, I wonder if there exists any use at all, anywhere in the United States, for this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Cossacks. They are, or were, an important group of warriors and horsemen in Russia. Recently, they’ve made a comeback as part of a constellation of groups whose raison d’etre, as far as I can determine, is to extol the virtuous leadership Vladimir Putin and promote Great Russian cultural chauvinism.

This is a half-page worksheet with a symmetrical relationship between reading and comprehension questions: a three-sentence reading, and three 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.