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.

The Weekly Text, 10 September 2021: A Lesson Plan on the Number of Characters Used in Writing Systems from The Order of Things

This week’s Text is a lesson plan on the number of characters used in writing systems. Like all of the lessons and other materials under the heading of The Order of Things, this lesson and its list as reading and comprehension questions are adapted from Barbara Ann Kipfer’s magisterial reference book of the same name.

Nota bene, please, that I adapted these materials to assist students who struggle to work with two symbolic systems–i.e., in this case, numbers and letters–at the same time. Needless to say, these documents can be adapted for your use; they are, like almost everything else here, in Microsoft Word. In other words, they are open source.

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.

On the Road

Here is a reading on Jack Kerouac’s novel On the Road along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Kerouac, and particularly this novel, influenced me greatly as a very young man. I probably read On the Road five times, and The Dharma Bums another five.

I recently listened to some recording of William S. Burroughs on the streaming music service I use, and some of Kerouac’s recordings popped up as recommendations. So I listened, and realized that Jack Kerouac (and all the Beats, really) will probably always be in my life.

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: Conspicuous Consumption

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of conspicuous consumption–an idea which requires attention, I submit, in our benighted age. This is a simple, half-page worksheet with a two-sentence reading and two comprehension questions.

Which includes a reference to Thorstein Veblen, the progenitor of the idea of conspicuous consumption, as well as conspicuous leisure. Veblen is, I think, an important figure in the history of American thought. I’ve posted several quotes from him on this blog, which you can find simply by searching his name in the search bar above.

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.

Word Root Exercise: Fid

Here is a worksheet on the Latin word root fid. It means faith, but as it made its way into English words, it began to connote “truth” as well. You’ll find this root in such commonly used words as confide, fidelity, affidavit, and confidant.

In fact, when you see the United States Marine Corps motto Semper Fi, what you see is an abbreviation of semper fidelis, the Latin for “always faithful.”

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: God, god (n)

Here, once again informed by Paul Brians’ book Common Errors in English Usage, is a worksheet on knowing when to capitalize the noun god and when not to. This is a full-page worksheet with a short, informative reading and ten modified cloze exercises.

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.

Supersede (vt)

Because it kept showing up in a social studies course one year I co-taught that subject, I wrote this context clues worksheet on the verb supersede. It means, variously, “to cause to be set aside,” “to force out of use as inferior,”   2 “to take the place or position of,” and “to displace in favor of another.” The clues embedded in the context of the sentences on this worksheet seek mostly to elicit from students the latter two meanings.

Nota bene, please, that this is a transitive verb only, so don’t forget your grammatically required direct object. Something must supersede something else, syntactically speaking.

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.

Anarchism

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

This is a relatively short reading, but nonetheless a good general introduction to anarchist philosophy. It also effectively introduces some key figures in the history of anarchism, and allows that this was a political movement that often used violence as a means to achieve its ends. Because many of the teenagers I have served over the years have been what I guess I would call “natural anarchists,” certain students in my classes have taken a relatively high interest in this material.

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: Green Revolution

Now seems like a good time to post this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the green revolution. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two longish sentences and three comprehension questions.

For the record, this document deals with the increase in the 1960s and 1970s in the production of cereals like wheat and rice due to advances in the productivity in seeds and innovations in agricultural technology, and not any kind of political revolution.

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.

Word Root Exercise: Centr/o, Centri

Here is a worksheet on the Greek word roots centr-o and centri. They mean, fairly obviously, center. Also obvious from the beginning is that this is a very productive root in English, showing up at the base of a number of high-frequency words in both the vernacular and scholarly language.

To name just three that show up in the high school curriculum, we have (on this worksheet) ethnocentric, eccentric, and anthropocentric.

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.

Stun (vt)

Here is a context clues worksheet on the verb stun. It’s used only transitively, so don’t forget you direct object: the subject of the sentence must stun someone or something.

The verb means, variously, “to make senseless, groggy, or dizzy by or as if by a blow,” “daze,”  “to shock with noise,” and “to overcome especially with paralyzing astonishment or disbelief.” In other words, this is a nice solid verb with a wide but coherent range of meanings that students, by the time they graduate high school, I submit, should know and be able to use proficiently.

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.