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.

Independent Practice: Christianity

Here is an independent practice worksheet on Christianity that I wrote at some point for a freshman global studies class in New York City.

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.

Satrap (n)

Because I got stuck on the word as an undergraduate (which in turn–getting stuck, that is–happened because I have a hamster wheel for a mind), when it turned up in several things I was reading for a couple of different history courses, I couldn’t resist to compose this context clues worksheet on the noun satrap. For the record, its primary meaning is the governor of a province in ancient Persia. But it can also mean ruler, subordinate official, and, weirdly, henchman.

Can you hear the dialogue in a pulp novel? “Louie! Rocco! Get on the horn and find us some satraps for the bank job.”

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.

Louis XIV

Let’s begin this morning with this reading on Louis XIV, the Sun King, and add the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that attends it. Remember that this is a key figure in European history, if only as an exemplar of the absurdity and excess of absolute monarchy, particularly as this self-serving, greedy, vain, and arrogant sovereign practiced it.

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.

Learning Support: The Muses

Here is a learning support on the 9 muses that I contrived to use with a unit on the History of Hip-Hop unit I began assembling in my second or third year of teaching. (OK, yes, I admit I don’t know what I was thinking here; let’s just say I was a neophyte teacher attempting to find a way to synthesize a broad of content into a high-interest unit that would attract highly alienated and challenging students in the South Bronx.)

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.

Boycott (vt)

One thing you can say about Merriam-Webster: they know how to match their Words of the Day to the zeitgeist. Here is a context clues worksheet on the verb boycott the publisher’s choice from a couple of days ago. It is used transitively. Don’t forget your direct object: one must boycott something–a store, an agricultural commodity, the idiocy of loudmouthed politician–you get the picture.

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: Aesop’s Fables

Given the stunning decline in introspection and the pursuit of virtue in American culture, I wonder if anyone anywhere needs or wants this Cultural Literacy worksheet on Aesop’s Fables . If so, there it is.

Also, if you want to teach Aesop’s Fables, there are several lesson plans posted on this blog: just use Aesop’s Fables as a search term on the home page and you’ll find them.

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.

Jack the Ripper

A student just asked for it yesterday, so here today, hot off the press (or at least mildly warm off the inkjet printer) is a reading on Jack the Ripper and the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that attends it. Creepy stuff, which of course makes it very interesting for students.

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.

Liaison (n)

Lately, I’ve been using Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day to guide my writing of context clues worksheets. Here is a context clues worksheet on the noun liaison which was yesterday’s word. Did you know the verb, used intransitively, is liaise?

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.

Mea Culpa (n)

Because it was Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day yesterday, and because it is arguably a term–and definitely a concept–students should understand, here is a context clues worksheet on the noun mea culpa. As it sounds, it is a Latin phrase and is an acknowledgement of one’s fault or error. Another way of thinking about is to remember that if you do something wrong, you are culpable for your action and its consequence.

If you find typos in  and 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 Great Gatsby

Several students in the school in which I serve expressed interest in the literature of the Jazz Age and Gatsby in particular, so here is a short reading on The Great Gatsby along with the vocabulary building and comprehension worksheet that attends it.

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.