Category Archives: Worksheets

Classroom documents for student use. Most are structured and scaffolded, and most are pitched at a fundamental level in terms of the questions they ask and the work and understandings they require of students.

Three Documents to Support Written Analyses of Like Water for Chocolate

Continuing with a mishmash of documents I developed to support students, here are, again from the senior English Language Arts class I co-taught with Jason Zanitsch, some documents to support student work for a reading of Laura Esquivel’s novel Like Water for Chocolate. Jason’s goals for this unit were twofold and well focused: to introduce students to the genre of magical realism, and to use the story to induce students to write in a lively way about food–with a goal, of course, to arouse their thinking about lively descriptive writing in general. Over the years, I enjoyed watching Jason elicit some excellent prose from students using this unit.

So, here is a graphic organizer to track chapters, a brainstorming worksheet (consisting of ten modified cloze exercises) for using lively words to describe food with a lexicon of food-related words attached. Finally, here is the lexicon of lively words to describe food as a freestanding document.

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.

Cultural Literacy: Dog Eat Dog

Moving on through my differentiated and supported materials folder, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom dog eat dog. I suspect you can find this document, in a simpler version, elsewhere on this blog. I developed this version of this worksheet to accompany a reading of the Langston Hughes poem “Let America Be America Again” which puts this idiom to work.

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.

Three Documents for a Study of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible

I am very quickly headed to retirement. Do you know I’m relieved? As I remove myself and my possessions from my final school, I realized I have some odds and ends in my folder that I developed for classes I co-taught over the past couple of years.

For the past couple of years, in the autumn, the teacher for the Junior English Language Arts class I co-taught started the year with a unit on Arthur Miller’s play on the Salem Witch Trials, The Crucible. So, here are a list of questions to drive discussion of the play as well as to arouse ideas for writing essays; this list of sentence stems similarly aims to get students thinking about the play as well as how to write about it. Finally, since The Crucible is an allegory on the McCarthy Era, here is a list of analytical questions to accompany an article on the Red Scare.

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: Meantime/Meanwhile

Here is a worksheet on the use of meantime and meanwhile. As Paul Brians, the author of Common Errors in English Usage (to which he generously allows access at no charge at his Washington State University web page), from which this worksheet is adapted, observes, most people use these words interchangeably. Merriam-Webster appears to think so, identifying them as synonyms to each other in the electronic version of its Collegiate Encyclopedia (11th Edition). At the same time, Merriam-Webster designates both words, when separated by dashes (i.e. mean-time and mean-while) as nouns.

Yet, as Professor Brians also points out, some usage experts designated specific uses for each of these adverbs and nouns. It is that designation that drives this worksheet, which is a full page and features a reading of two longish sentences and five modified cloze exercises. This might be a useful exercise for opening a discussion about, well, English usage; that in turn might lead to a review of a usage manual to familiarize students with the, well, usefulness, of such a 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.

Cultural Literacy: Irregular Verb

As below with the counterpart to this document, a Cultural Literacy worksheet on regular verbs, I am confident that this document appears elsewhere on this blog. Nonetheless, I think it’s not a bad idea to have this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the irregular verb adjacent to a run of 17 lessons on writing sentences.

This is a half-page worksheet with a two-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.

The Weekly Text, 17 July 2026: Introduction to Writing Sentences Lesson 6, Writing the Declarative Sentence

Mark’s Text Terminal offers you the sixth lesson plan, from the Introduction to Writing Sentences unit, as the Weekly Text for 17 July 2026, this one on writing the declarative sentence. This lesson opens with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the intransitive verb. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of four sentences and three comprehension questions.

And here is the scaffolded worksheet that is the primary work of 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.

Common Errors in English Usage: Mean and Median

We’re in the middle of a long run of posts that offer worksheets adapted from Paul Brians‘ excellent usage manual Common Errors in English Usage–which, as I always point out, Professor Brians allows free access to at his Washington State University web page.

This one is on the use of the words mean and median. While this is ostensibly a usage exercise (in a full-page worksheet with a reading of four sentences and five modified cloze exercises) that aims to assist students in differentiating these two nouns and using them properly, it also includes basic instructions on how to calculate a mean.

So there is a bit numeracy work here as well.

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: Regular Verb

Although I am fairly confident that this this half-page Cultural Literacy worksheet on the regular verb (with a two-sentence reading and three comprehension questions), can stand by itself, placing it as a post adjacent to lessons on writing sentences strikes me, this morning, as a good idea.

So there you are.

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 Weekly Text, 10 July 2026: Introduction to Writing Sentences Lesson 5, Writing the Compound Sentence

This week’s Text is the fifth lesson plan (of 17 lessons) of the Introduction to Writing Sentences Unit, this one on writing compound sentences. This lesson begins with a do-now, if you’re so inclined, this one a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the compound sentence; this is a half-page worksheet with a reading of one longish sentence and two comprehension questions.

This scaffolded worksheet is the primary work of this lesson. Here is a learning support on coordinating conjunctions to help students understand their use in compound sentences.

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: Me Either/Me Neither

Alright, last but not least this morning here is a worksheet on the proper use of the locutions me either and me neither. There are rules for this, but I doubt they are as vital to our students’ ability to write well as other things you’ll find on this blog under the Common Errors in English Usage header.

This is full-page worksheet with reading of reading of two sentences and two short reading prompts. Perhaps I misspoke above: this may be the least of the six posts published today.

And please don’t forget that Professor Paul Brians, the author of Common Errors in English Usage, allows access to the book at his web page at Washington State University.

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.