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.

Central Park in New York City

Posted on October 27, 2020 | Leave a comment

OK, for my erstwhile and possibly future colleagues in New York City, or anyone with students interested in plants, gardening, landscape architecture, the history of leisure time, the concept of public goods or the philosophy of the commons–or any of the numerous areas of inquiry it might stimulate, here is a reading on Central Park and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension 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.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, New York City, Social Sciences, Worksheets

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Cultural Literacy: Profit Motive

Posted on October 26, 2020 | Leave a comment

Although I’ve posted it elsewhere on this blog–along with context clues worksheet on the nouns motive and motivation–here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the profit motive. About five weeks ago I sorted through my library of Cultural Literacy worksheets and selected a group I thought it appropriate to post before the election. This is the penultimate document; I’ll post the final worksheet in the next couple of days.

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.

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

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Emissary (n)

Posted on October 26, 2020 | Leave a comment

It has been some time since Merriam-Webster has posted of the Word of the Day that I though high school students must know. For example, today’s word is repine, an intransitive verb meaning “to feel or express dejection or discontent.” My guess, unless you plan to have your students reading or writing on Victorian literature, or unless you seek to have them assume literary pretentiousness in common discourse, they won’t need to know this verb.

Yesterday produced, after several dry days, this context clues worksheet on the noun emissary. This is, I think, a word in common enough use that students will need to know it in high school, particularly in social studies courses.

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.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Essays/Readings, Worksheets

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Sun Spots and Solar Flares

Posted on October 23, 2020 | Leave a comment

Just now, I was asked in a Zoom meeting job interview if I could teach science. Like everything else I do in the classroom, I would and have used the subject to build literacy in general and literacy in the content area in particular. One example of that, if you can use it, is this reading on sunspots and solar flares and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension 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.

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Common Errors in English Usage: Sarcastic (adj), Ironic (adj)

Posted on October 23, 2020 | Leave a comment

Moving right along on this sunny, autumnal morning, here is an English usage worksheet on the adjectives sarcastic and ironic and differentiating their use. I hear these words misused frequently; they strike me as a pair of adjectives that represent abstractions (the nouns, and you know, are sarcasm and irony) that students should understand deeply and use correctly.

If nothing else, understanding these two words and concepts might help students produce solid literary exegesis.

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.

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

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Oasis (n)

Posted on October 23, 2020 | Leave a comment

I wrote this context clues worksheet on the noun oasis to use with global studies lessons on either the Trans-Saharan Gold Trade or the biography of Mansa Musa, the king of Mali who lived between c. 1280 and c. 1337. In any case, this is a word students ought to know in both its denotative and connotative senses.

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.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Social Sciences, Worksheets

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Salman Rushdie

Posted on October 22, 2020 | Leave a comment

In memory of Samuel Paty, and in honor of teachers everywhere struggling to promote and conduct free and open inquiry, and as a cautionary tale about religious orthodoxy and extremism across the globe, I offer without further comment this reading on Salman Rushdie and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension 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.

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Cultural Literacy: Passive Resistance

Posted on October 22, 2020 | Leave a comment

This Cultural Literacy worksheet on passive resistance as a means of protest ought to have great currency at the moment, especially when elected officials imply they will not participate in a peaceful transfer of governmental authority. The reading in this short exercise mentions Gandhi, but I don’t think teachers should let the opportunity pass to invoke the name of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., another practitioner of passive resistance who acknowledged his debt to Gandhi.

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.

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

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A Lesson Plan on the Decibel Scale from The Order of Things

Posted on October 22, 2020 | Leave a comment

This lesson plan on the decibel scale and its accompanying reading and comprehension worksheet are another of the 50 lessons I have prepared using text from Barbara Ann Kipfer’s The Order of Things. If you have students interested in audio engineering or music production, this is something for them.

Otherwise, this is a simple literacy lesson that calls upon students to work with numbers and words in one document. I’ve been working on both the unit plan for these lessons and a user’s manual for their documents. I struggle to articulate why I developed these lessons and how I would use them. For now, think of the documents above as a rehearsal for word problems in math–one of the things that so often bedevil emergent and struggling readers.

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.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Lesson Plans, Worksheets

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Nuance (n)

Posted on October 22, 2020 | Leave a comment

If you listen to the general day-to-day discourse in our society, particularly political discourse, you have probably noticed that while it is often forthrightly counterfactual and mendacious, it is also coarse and myopic. For that reason, I offer this context clues worksheet on the noun nuance. Everybody should know this abstract noun and the concept it represents–you know, subtlety, shades of meaning, thoughtfulness, and the gradations of the analysis that follow these approaches to understanding something deeply.

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.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Social Sciences, Worksheets

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