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.

A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Buried Gold”

It was 52 degrees at 5:00 this morning here in southwestern Vermont, which sure felt like an harbinger of fall. It’s warming up slowly. I feel like, as I did in my late teens and early twenties, that I should be preparing to begin a six-week apple harvest. I can’t imagine, at my age, what picking 120 bushels of apples a day would do to my body and mind.

Ok, that said, here is a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “Buried Gold.” I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the proverb “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” This is often attributed to Shakespeare; in fact, it comes from the pen of the Restoration dramatist William Congreve from his play The Mourning BrideI actually posted this short exercise with a parts of speech lesson elsewhere on this blog, so be on the lookout.

Here is the scan with the illustration, reading, and questions that you’ll need to conduct your investigation and therefore teach this lesson. And here, at last, is the typescript of the answer key so you can solve your case and bring the offender to the bar of justice–so to speak.

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.

Dulcet (adj)

It’s another Word of the Day from Merriam-Webster that I originally thought I’d let pass; but while I was at the laundromat this morning with my notebook, I figured well, why not? So here is a context clues worksheet on the adjective dulcetIt carries a trio a meanings which are loosely related by connotation: 1. sweet to the taste; 2. pleasing to the ear <~ tones>; 3. generally pleasing or agreeable.

The word arrives in English from the Latin dulcis, which isn’t particularly productive in English. But it does show up in Spanish, and if you teach students whose first language is Spanish they will recognize this word fairly quickly–one of the meanings of dulce in Spanish is candy, and a dulceria is a candy store. Teaching Latin roots to students whose first tongue is one of the Romance Languages offers students a bridge between their native languages and English.

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.

John D. Rockefeller

It’s nearly impossible, as awful as he may have been, to underestimate his influence on American industrial capitalism, so I think this reading on John D Rockefeller and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet are relevant in a number of places across the social sciences curriculum.

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: Stationary (adj), Stationery (n)

If you can use it, here is an English usage worksheet on understanding the difference between stationary and stationery and their use. The second, with the e, is the stuff you use to prepare correspondence and birthday cards, i.e. paper, envelopes, and cards.

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: Jesuits

This Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Jesuits is a full-page document, so it would serve well as an independent practice–i.e. homework–assignment if you think kids should know about this order.

It might be worth keeping in mind the adjective jesuitical, meaning  “practicing casuistry or equivocation; using subtle or oversubtle reasoning; crafty; sly; intriguing.” This turns up in academic and scholarly prose, and might help students understand why the Jesuits animated the Counter-Reformation and are today regarded, in some circles and to some degree, with suspicion.

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.

Ovary

This reading on human ovaries and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet are the last two things, at least for the moment, that I have to post on the human reproductive system. Anyway, health teachers take note if you need something like this.

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.

A Lesson Plan on Human Bodily Systems from The Order of Things

Moving right along, after a very unpleasant phone conversation with a charter school recruiter, here is a lesson plan on human bodily systems, another informed from text culled from Barbara Ann Kipfer’s fascinating book The Order of Things.

Here’s the list as a reading and comprehension questions that are the 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.

Lightening, (pp), Lightning (n)

If I were to guess, I would say that the present participle of to lighten, lightening, is not much used in everyday discourse. That said, I heard a report earlier this summer on NPR about how the  Black Lives Matter movement in the United States has inspired a discussion about colorism and skin lightening potions in India, where colorism apparently runs rampant. Also, if you ever teach Julia Alvarez’s superb novel In the Time of the Butterfliesit makes at least one specific reference to relatively well-known fact that the dictator of the Dominican Republic from from 1930 to 1961, Rafael Trujillo, used skin-lightening cream and was, unsurprisingly, a virulent racist who slaughtered thousands of Haitians in the infamous Parsley Massacre. In fact, there is even a Wikipedia page on Colorism in the Caribbean if you are interested.

Such are the wages, I’m afraid, of the valorization and privileging of white skin.

So, this set of five worksheets on the homophones lightening and lightning might be more of an exercise in ensuring students understand what the lightning is as a meteorological and electrical phenomenon and how properly to spell the word. Still, there is room in these worksheets for fooling around with the verb to lighten, used both intransitively and transitively.

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.

Braggadocio (n)

As this pandemic drags on, and I wonder what will happen with our public schools, my mind, like many I suppose, wanders. One way I try to snap it into focus is by writing a context clues worksheet every day, or nearly every day. I let Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day guide my choices. I pass only on words that are far outside routine educated discourse (yesterday was cognizable, an adjective which means “capable of being judicially heard and determined”–so I let it go by).

Inevitably, I suppose, some words end up here that might not be immediately recognizable as routine vocabulary words, One might say that about this context clues worksheet on the noun braggadocio. Maybe, but it’s a word that has a stout Middle English verb behind it–brag–and is the creation of Edmund Spenser, one of the great English poets.

In any case, where verbal acuity is concerned, we ought to aim high for our students. Braggadocio doesn’t necessarily arise in polite conversation, but it shows up in academic prose and fiction often enough to be worth knowing.

Finally, though, it is a word for our time–today, August 18, 2020. There is a disturbing amount of braggadocio in our midst.

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: Suspect (n), Suspicious (adj)

Last but not least on this stunningly beautiful summer afternoon, here is an English usage worksheet on the noun suspect and the adjective suspicious and differentiating their use in declarative sentences.

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.