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, 17 September 2021, Hispanic Heritage Month 2021 Week IV: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on the Gadsden Purchase

Posted on September 17, 2021 | Leave a comment

For the first Friday of Hispanic Heritage Month 2021, this week’s Text is a reading on the Gadsden Purchase with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. The Gadsden Purchase brought territory in the far southern reaches of the present-day Arizona and New Mexico into the United States, and was concluded in 1854, six years after the Mexican-American War, which was arguably an imperialist move by the United States to seize territory that rightfully belonged to Mexico.

To clear up any confusion (mostly my own, I guess), the Gadsden Purchase was concluded by Ambassador James Gadsden. He is not the namesake of the Gadsden Flag, which has become a symbol of far-right political movements in the United States, including the perpetrators of the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capital. Rather, the Gadsden Flag is named for its designer, Christopher Gadsden, who was, among other things, a delegate to the Continental Congress in colonial North America. Unsurprisingly, though, James Gadsden was the grandson of Christopher Gadsden.

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: Lima, Peru

Posted on September 16, 2021 | 3 comments

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Lima, Peru. This is a half-page worksheet with a two-sentence reading and three comprehension questions. In other words, the sparest of introductions to the capital of Peru and a world capital as well.

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: Salvador Allende

Posted on September 15, 2021 | Leave a comment

Today begins Hispanic Heritage Month 2021. So let’s begin with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on Salvador Allende. This is a half-page worksheet with a four-sentence reading and four comprehension questions.

Allende was overthrown in a United States-sponsored coup in 1973. This was a particularly disgraceful moment in the history of United States foreign policy–though a similar event, the coup that overthrew President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala, certainly competes. But so do so many other covert U.S. interventions in sovereign states around the world.

In fact, if you’re interested in learning more about how anti-communism informed a variety of political and social disasters across seven continents, I highly recommend Vincent Bevins’ recent book, The Jakarta Method. Mr. Bevins is a skilled journalist, and his book is a masterful synthesis of how United States foreign policy has distorted global development–and caused the deaths of over a million people guilty only of having a communitarian vision of a more just world.

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

Posted on September 10, 2021 | Leave a comment

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.

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On the Road

Posted on September 6, 2021 | Leave a comment

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.

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Cultural Literacy: Conspicuous Consumption

Posted on September 6, 2021 | Leave a comment

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.

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Word Root Exercise: Fid

Posted on September 6, 2021 | Leave a comment

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.

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Common Errors in English Usage: God, god (n)

Posted on September 6, 2021 | Leave a comment

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.

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Supersede (vt)

Posted on September 6, 2021 | Leave a comment

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.

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Anarchism

Posted on September 5, 2021 | Leave a comment

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.

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