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.

Word Root Exercise: Pyr-o

Posted on May 2, 2022 | Leave a comment

Moving right along this morning, here is a worksheet on the Greek word root pyr-o . It means, as you already know, fire; but it also means heat and fever. This root yields the high-frequency English word pyromaniac, which does not appear on this document. Lower frequency words in use by educated people, however abound here: you’ll find empyrean, as well as pyre, and the solid scientific adjective pyrophoric.

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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Common English Verbs that Are Followed by Gerunds: Acknowledge

Posted on May 2, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here’s something new from Mark’s Text Terminal: a worksheet on using the verb acknowledge with a gerund. This material (these materials, rather, as I have over a hundred of these documents) arrives here after rolling around in my current work folder for about 15 years.

I started developing these during state testing in June one year, and chipped away at them each year as I waited around at work to take my turn proctoring tests. Their source is a small book I purchased on Amazon, Mastering Gerunds and Infinitives (Honolulu: Focus on English, 2008) by someone named Tom Celentano. On several occasions, I almost tossed this enterprise into the digital dumpster. But each time I opened the folder, I ended up working further with them. So, when I opened it last January, while quarantining for COVID (the second time), I opened the folder and finished these.

Anyway, for more on these, see their section in the About Posts and Texts page, where a fuller explanation of these, with supporting documents, is available.

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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Common Errors in English Usage: Impertinent (adj), Irrelevant (adj)

Posted on May 2, 2022 | Leave a comment

Once again, from Paul Brians’ book Common Errors in English Usage (to which he generously allows access at no cost at the Washington State University website, and which has now also become a podcast), here is a worksheet on differentiating the use of the adjectives impertinent and irrelevant in prose. This is a full-page document with a reading of two longish (both containing clauses separated by a semicolon) compound sentences 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.

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Cultural Literacy: Woodstock

Posted on May 2, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Woodstock. This is a half-page worksheet with a nicely symmetrical three-question reading followed by three comprehension questions. Even with this brevity, as is typical of so many of the squibs found in The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, this is a surprisingly thorough general introduction to both the Woodstock Festival and its cultural legacy.

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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Boom (n)

Posted on May 2, 2022 | Leave a comment

Let me begin this post, on this rainy Monday morning, with wishes of Eid Mubarak to my Muslim friends, neighbors, and students. Then let me offer you this context clues on the noun boom. I wrote this while serving in an economics- and finance-themed high school in the Financial District of Manhattan, so it goes without saying, mostly, that the clues in the five sentences in this worksheet point students toward inferring a definition of “a rapid expansion or increase,” “a rapid widespread expansion of economic activity,” and “an upsurge in activity, interest, or popularity.”

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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Word Root Exercise: Semi

Posted on April 29, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the Latin word root semi. It means “half” and “partly.” This root finds its way into common discourse in English–it can be used as a prefix to just about any adjective or noun to attenuate the full force of a word. So, in addition to the number of words this root grows in casual discourse (i.e. being attached to nouns and adjectives in everyday conversation), this root yields such high-frequency English words as semiannual, semicolon, semiconductor, and semifinal.

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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Cultural Literacy: Once in a Blue Moon

Posted on April 29, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom “Once in a Blue Moon.” This is a half-page worksheet with a three-sentence reading followed by three comprehension questions. As the reading explains that a blue moon occurs only “about every thirty-two months,” students will be able to understand that this expression means the same thing, where people are concerned, as “Long time, no see,” or “I haven’t seen you in a month of Sundays.” Where events are concerned, students will infer that something that happens “once in a blue moon” doesn’t happen very often, and is, arguably, a rare event.

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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Audacious (adj)

Posted on April 29, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a context clues worksheet on the adjective audacious. It means, variously, “intrepidly daring,” “adventurous,” “recklessly bold,” “rash,” “contemptuous of law, religion, or decorum,” “insolent,” and “marked by originality and verve.” Because this word tends to cluster its meaning around the commonality of “rash,” or “bold,” which all the words and phrases above mean to some extent, this worksheet is keyed to all of the definitions above.

And if it somehow falls short, I would be very interested in your thoughts as to why–so I can improve it.

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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The Weekly Text, 29 April 2022: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Sound Waves

Posted on April 29, 2022 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is a reading on sound waves along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Over the years, I’ve crossed paths with several students interested in careers as recording engineers or producers. I know that music is played on instruments that have evolved over centuries by persons with enviable talent; that, however, is the extent of my knowledge of music production. I hoped these documents would help students gain some understanding about the actual physics of sound. These materials have been of sufficiently high interest in my classroom that I have tagged them as such.

So this might be thin gruel where the subject is concerned. As with many of the documents I prepared over the years to engage alienated students, these were prepared in haste. So they are very likely, uh, less than perfect. Fortunately, they are both formatted in Microsoft Word, so exporting them to a word processor of your preference and tailoring them to your students’ needs will be relatively effortless.

May is Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. I’ve already prepared a batch of posts for the month, so if you need material on topics related to American of Asian and Pacific Island descent, or Asia and the Pacific Islands themselves, trundle on by the site.

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: Vladimir Putin, National Self-Determination

Posted on April 20, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here a pair of Cultural Literacy worksheets that I hope are timely. The first is on Vladimir Putin. This is a full-page worksheet with a five-sentence reading and six comprehension questions. The second is on national self-determination; its a half-page worksheet with a two-sentence reading and two comprehension questions. Nota bene, please, that this second document at its end asks the reader to “See Fourteen Points.” If you want students to follow up on that point, you’ll find a credible reading under this hyperlink.

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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