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.

Common Errors in English Usage: Garner (vt), Garnish (vt)

Posted on August 28, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on differentiating the use of the verbs garner and garnish, two verbs that sound alike but mean very different things (here is a context clues worksheet on garnish I wrote a few days back because it was Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day.) This is a full-page worksheet with a five-sentence reading and ten modified cloze exercises.

For the purposes of this worksheet, garner means “to acquire by effort,” “earn.” “accumulate”, and “collect.” Garnish, on the other hand, means “to add decorative or savory touches to (food or drink).” Both of these verbs are used only transitively, so don’t forget your direct object. You must garner something (praise, awards, evidence, sympathy) just as you must garnish something–a pork chop, a hot fudge sundae, a birthday cake).

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Worksheets

Tagged , ,

Word Root Exercise: E-

Posted on August 28, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the Latin word root e-, a tiny morpheme that means, simply, out. If you’ve used other word root worksheets on this blog, you’ll quickly see that this is not among the strongest of them I’ve assembled. At the same time, words like egress, eject, and elude–not to mention educate (in the sense of “drawing out of”) to carry connotations, if not outright denotations, of out.

Still, this is a tough inferential nut to crack.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Worksheets

Tagged , , ,

The Weekly Text, 27 August 2021: A Lesson Plan on Using the Reciprocal Pronouns

Posted on August 27, 2021 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is a lesson plan on using the reciprocal pronoun. In addition to the broad use of language the lesson aims to help students develop, the narrow objective of this lesson is to help students understand usage, in this case that the two reciprocal pronouns are, each other, which refers to two people, and one another, which refers to more than two people. 

I generally open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Latinism mea culpa (i.e. “my fault” or “I’m to blame,” or, as I’ve heard some students say, “my bad”; you can probably see the root of culpability in this phrase). This is a half-page worksheet with a two-sentence reading and three comprehension questions. If the lesson goes into a second day, or if you simply prefer it, here is a homophones worksheet on you’re and your. This is also a half-page worksheet, with six modified cloze exercises.

This scaffolded worksheet is the principal work of this lesson. It starts with a series of modified cloze exercises, then calls upon students, to practice independently (i.e. homework) by writing sentences demonstrating they can align the proper number of subject with its proper reciprocal pronoun. To make teaching this a little easier, here is the teacher’s copy of the worksheet.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Lesson Plans, The Weekly Text, Worksheets

Tagged , , , ,

Cultural Literacy: Golden Parachute

Posted on August 27, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of a “golden parachute.” This is a half-page worksheet with a short, dense reading of three compound sentences and three comprehension questions.

I haven’t heard the expression “golden parachute” in some time, and I tend to listen often to economics and finance radio programs and podcasts. People my age will remember this term as a part of the vernacular, particularly in the 1980s, when they became increasingly common, as The Business Professor explains. The word is still in use, at least as recently as five years ago, as this 2016 Harvard Business Review article demonstrates. In any event, paying executives to leave companies (especially if there is malfeasance, failure, or both) is so commonplace now that the concept remains, whatever term describes it–as this one aptly does.

I don’t know if your students need to know about this. I worked for some time in a business- and finance-themed high school, so I must assume I wrote this worksheet for my work there. In any case, you can do what you want with this document as it is formatted in Microsoft Word (as just about everything on this site is–ergo open source).

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Social Sciences, Worksheets

Tagged , , ,

Amenable (adj)

Posted on August 27, 2021 | Leave a comment

It’s Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day today, so here is a context clues worksheet on the adjective amenable. It means “willing to agree to or accept something that is wanted or asked for,” and that is what the context in the worksheet seeks to elicit.

There is more to this word, however. As Merriam-Webster emphasizes, the “Collegiate Definition” of this word carries a bit more nuance: “liable to be brought to account,” “answerable,” “capable of submission (as to judgment or test)” “suited,” “readily brought to yield, submit, or cooperate,” and, as above, “willing.”

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Worksheets

Tagged , ,

States of Matter

Posted on August 26, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on states of matter along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

Once again from the Intellectual Devotional series, this is a good general introduction to solids, liquids, and gases, and their molecular behavior. The reading and worksheet are in Microsoft Word, so you can edit and manipulate them for your needs. I’m not a science teacher, so I’m not sure why I wrote this. Probably because I had a couple of, uh, free days during the pandemic.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Worksheets

Tagged , , , ,

Common Errors in English Usage: Freshman (n), Freshmen (n)

Posted on August 23, 2021 | Leave a comment

Moving right along on a damp, post-tropical-storm morning in New York, here is a worksheet on the nouns freshman and freshmen. They are, respectively, singular and plural nouns. This is a full-page worksheet with a three-sentence reading and ten modified cloze exercises.

In the last school in which I served in Lower Manhattan, students frequently used freshmans as the plural (and, interestingly, WordPress’s spell checker doesn’t indicate that “freshmans” is a spelling error) of “freshman.” Students understand the difference in number between man and men, but couldn’t extend or apply that knowledge when the word fresh preceded them. In any event, the reading for this worksheet points out that only freshman—singular–is the adjectival form.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Worksheets

Tagged ,

Word Root Exercise: Anth/o

Posted on August 23, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the Greek root anth/o. It means, simply, flower. And while it is at the root of anthology for some reason, this worksheet uses words like anther, chrysanthemum, perianth, and polyanthus. In other words, all nice, solid, Greek, flower-related words.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Worksheets

Tagged , , , ,

Cultural Literacy: Gilded Cage

Posted on August 23, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of a gilded cage, i.e. “to live in luxury but without freedom.” This is a half-page worksheet with a long, one-sentence reading and three comprehension questions. In other words, a short, punchy means of introducing students to this commonly used idiom in the English language.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Social Sciences, Worksheets

Tagged , , , ,

Sovereign (adj), Sovereignty (n)

Posted on August 23, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a context clues worksheet on sovereign as an adjective and another on sovereignty as a noun. These are a couple of words central to just about any instructional endeavor in social studies.

For the record, sovereign as an adjective, as it is pitched in the first worksheet, means “enjoying autonomy” and “independent.” As it happens, as an adjective, sovereign carries several meanings. As a noun, it means “one possessing or held to possess sovereignty,” “one possessing or held to possess supreme political power or sovereignty,” “one that exercises supreme authority within a limited sphere,” and “an acknowledged leader.”  When we use this word in English, particularly in social studies courses, we mean king or queen.

You have no doubt noted that a sovereign is “held to possess sovereignty.” What does sovereignty, the subject of the second document, mean? For the purposes of the second worksheet, on sovereignty, it means “supreme power, especially over a body politic,” “freedom from external control,” “autonomy,” “controlling influence.” But again, this is a complicated word that isn’t exactly polysemous, but close to it.

You might ask students, if you’ve taught them the verb and noun reign, if they recognize a word they know inside sovereign or sovereignty. It’s a nice way to help students build the kind of semantic web that leads to transfer of learning.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Worksheets

Tagged , , ,