Category Archives: Lesson Plans

This category identifies a post with several documents, which will include a lesson plan, and may include a short exercise to being the class (known in the New York City Department of Education as a “do-now”) a worksheet, often scaffolded, a teacher’s copy of the worksheet, and a learning support of some kind.

The Weekly Text, 17 October 2025: A Lesson Plan on the Greek Word Roots Gen/o, Gen, and Genesis.

This week’s Text is a lesson plan on the Greek word roots gen/o, -gene, and -genesis. These, as you have probably inferred, carry several meanings: “production,” “formation,” “generation,” “origin,” “cause,” “birth,” “kind,” and “race.” These roots grow into such high-frequency English words as carcinogen, congenital, and genocide, all of which are included in this scaffolded worksheet.

I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the adjective prenatal, which I hoped, perhaps vainly and foolishly, would point the way toward the meanings of these word roots.

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, 26 September 2025: A Lesson Plan on William Blake’s Poem “The Chimney Sweeper”

This week’s Text is a lesson plan on William Blake’s poem, from his book Songs of Innocence and Experience, “The Chimney Sweeper.” I started with Blake in high school, after learning of Allen Ginsberg’s (I was seriously into The Beats in those years) affinity for Blake and hearing The Fugs sing “How Sweet I Roam’d” and “Ah! Sunflower,” and have read him ever since.

Blake’s lyrics lend themselves to music, so Greg Brown’s record of Songs and Innocence and Experience came as little surprise to me when he released it in 1986. In researching this post, I was also not surprised to learn that Benjamin Britten composed a song cycle of Blake’s texts, Songs and Proverbs of William Blake.

In this suite of poems, to my mind, “The Chimney Sweeper” has always stood out. It still nearly brings me to tears every time I encounter it.

This Cultural Literacy worksheet on William Blake (half-page, four-sentence reading, three comprehension questions) opens this lesson. Of course you’ll need a copy the poem itself; and finally, here is the analysis and comprehension worksheet I prepared for the lesson.

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, 12 September 2025: A Lesson on the Latin Word Roots Duc and Duct

This week’s Text is a lesson on the Latin word roots duc and duct. They mean “to lead” and grow such high-frequency English words as abduct, aqueduct, induct, deduct, deduce, and seduce, all of which are included on the scaffolded worksheet, complete with Romance language cognates. I open this lesson with this context clues on the verb guide. I’d like to think that short do-now points toward the meaning of the two Latin roots under analysis in this lesson.

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, 22 August 2025: A Lesson on the Latin Word Root Pel

This week’s Text is a lesson plan on the Latin word root pel. It means “drive” and can be found in such high-frequency English words as compel, dispel, expel, propel, and repel, all included, of course, on this scaffolded worksheet, which includes cognates from the Romance languages.

I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the verb animateIt’s used transitively, and in this document it means “to move to action.” I hope it points the way to the meaning of pel.

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, 8 August 2025: Lesson Seven of a Unit on Writing Reviews

OK–after eight weeks of drafting these posts, this week’s Text is seventh and final lesson plan of a unit on writing reviews. Since this lesson concludes the unit and turns students loose to write their reviews, I have included four Cultural Literacy worksheets as do-now exercises with the idea that students will need at least four days to write and revise their compositions. So here are those documents on hyperbole, nuance, analogy, and paraphrase. Each of these worksheet is a half-page long with short readings and three or fewer comprehension questions.

At this point in the unit, students should have their thoughts on their review outlined, and, therefore, in a final state of organization. So this short organizer is the worksheet for this lesson, and simply asks students a few final clarifying questions on their planned paper. This is for their benefit, and one final clarifying exercise.

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, 1 August 2025: Lesson Six of a Unit on Writing Reviews

Here, in this Weekly Text, is sixth lesson plan, the penultimate lesson of the a seven-lesson unit on writing reviews. This lesson opens with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on cliche, the utility of which in a lesson on writing reviews I’ll assume needs no explanation. There are two worksheets for this lesson: the first is a mentor text on outlining; the second is a structured outlining worksheet.

And that it’s for this week. Come back next week for the final lesson in this unit.

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 Post, 25 July 2025: Lesson Five of a Unit on Writing Reviews

This week’s Text, as you probably expected if you are a regular user of this blog, is the fifth lesson plan of a seven-lesson unit on writing reviews. This lesson opens with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the fine arts. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of one simple sentence and two comprehension questions. As this lesson is a brainstorming activity, this reading as worksheet is designed to get students thinking about what they will include in their review, and how they would go about it.

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, 18 July 2025: Lesson Four of a Unit on Writing Reviews

This week’s Text, as headlined above, is the fourth lesson plan of seven lessons and planning materials, for a total of eight consecutive Weekly Texts. This is a lesson on aesthetics and establishing aesthetic criteria for preparing reviews. So, unsurprisingly, the do-now exercise for this lesson is this Cultural worksheet on aesthetics. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences (the second one of which is a longish compound that might best be turned into two sentences for emerging readings and users of English as a second language) and three comprehension questions. It is a short but effective introduction to the concept of aesthetics.

This reading as worksheet is basically a summary of the procedures outlined in the lesson plan. This graphic organizer blank in landscape layout helps students organize their aesthetic criteria for reviews; you might find the teacher’s copy of same useful. Finally, here are six glossaries of aesthetic terms for movies, music, video games, books, graphic novels, and television shows.

And that’s it for another week. I hope you’re enjoying the 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.

The Weekly Text, 11 July 2025: Lesson Three of a Unit on Writing Reviews

OK, moving right along, here is the third lesson plan of the Writing Reviews Unit, this one on gathering and judiciously using evidence in a piece of argumentative writing. The do-now exercise for this lesson is this Cultural Literacy worksheet on genre: This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of four simple sentences four questions. Finally, this structured note-taking and outlining worksheet is the primary work of this lesson.

The worksheet is longish by design, and can, as can all the documents in this post, can be easily edited. Like just about everything on this blog, these documents are formatted in Microsoft Word, so fully manipulable.

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, 4 July 2025: Lesson Two of the Writing Reviews Unit

The second lesson plan of the Writing Reviews Unit is about argumentation, which any review will need to do well to convince its readers. In fact, when I first began working on these materials in 2006 or so, I conceived them as an introduction to the kind of academic writing kids really need to know how to do before they graduate high school.

So this scaffolded worksheet seeks to assist students in developing their own understanding of the difference between a quarrel and an argument in order to clarify the rhetorical and epistemological purpose of an argument. You might find the the teacher’s copy of the worksheet useful.

This lesson opens with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of to damn with faint praise, the use of which in a review I will take as a given.

Happy Fourth of July! I bid you a restful day and evening.

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.