Tag Archives: building vocabulary/conceptual knowledge

Word Root Exercise: Per

Posted on May 18, 2020 | Leave a comment

Let’s get started on a Monday morning. Here is a worksheet on the Latin word root per. It means through, thoroughly, and wrong–a strange melange of meanings, I know. I have not taught this explicitly; it may be better to teach it in reverse, writing up a bunch of context clues worksheets of words that stem from this root, then present the root.

In other words, if I were to teach this, I would devote some time to planning its best delivery. This is not, therefore, I suppose, a complete document.

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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Brooklyn Bridge

Posted on May 15, 2020 | Leave a comment

It was the biggest civil engineering project in the history of the world when it was built, so it has global significance. But whenever I post something like this reading on the Brooklyn Bridge and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet, I do so with my erstwhile New York City colleagues in mind. This is as much about the Roebling family, father and son, who designed and built the bridge–did you know that the day-to-day superintendency of the project fell to Emily Warren Roebling, the daughter-in-law of John Roebling, who began construction of the Brooklyn Bridge? There’s some women’s history to be extracted from this material for the right learner.

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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The Weekly Text, May 15, 2020: A Lesson Plan on the Simple Present Tense of Verbs

Posted on May 15, 2020 | Leave a comment

OK, I think this lesson plan on using the simple present tense of verbs speaks for itself and therefore doesn’t require much comment.

I open this lesson with this worksheet on the homophones who’s and whose. These two words (well, a contraction and a word) are quite easily confused, so the explanation for their use is extensive. Students will walk away, after completing this, with a page from a grammar and usage manual. In the event the lesson goes into a second day, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the term and concept expletive.

This scaffolded worksheet is the centerpiece of this unit for students. You might need this word bank to support completion of the worksheet. Finally, here is the teachers’ copy of the worksheet to make getting through the lesson a little easier for you.

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, The Weekly Text, Worksheets

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Enlighten (vt), Enlightenment (n)

Posted on May 15, 2020 | Leave a comment

When I co-taught global studies classes in New York City, the fact that the deeper conceptual processes of history were ignored in favor of a pedagogy of discrete, decontextualized facts greatly troubled me. This was a particular problem–and I am confident it remains so, particularly in the classroom in which I served during the final two years of my tenure in New York–in teaching the French Revolution and its animating intellectual ideology, the Enlightenment. Students in the classroom I shared could walk away from the unit on this period with absolutely no sense of the enormity of its epochal influence. Therefore, they could not understand that in many respects, the world, especially the Western world, continues to argue over and contest the legacy of the Enlightenment.

In an attempt to convey the significance of the Enlightenment in my own classroom, I started with these two context clues worksheets on the verb enlighten and the noun enlightenment. The verb, incidentally, is only used 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.

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Morphine

Posted on May 14, 2020 | Leave a comment

When I left Vermont in August of 1996 to seek my fortune as a doctoral candidate in history, I intended to return posthaste–if not to Vermont, than as near to the state as possible. Last August (of 2019) I finally made it back here to work in a public school system. I’d visited every summer for many years, but as I learned slowly and the hard way (like the way I learn everything in my life, alas), living in a place is quite a bit different than visiting it.

Of course I was aware of the opioid crisis in the state–it has been national news–and a national problem, after all–but I hadn’t had a chance to see it up close.

Now I have, and I can tell you that in the 23 years I was away, opioids cut a wide swath through the social and economic fabric of this fine state. So, for any young person who thinks that trying opioids won’t necessarily lead to personal disaster, here is a reading on morphine along with 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: Affect, Effect

Posted on May 14, 2020 | Leave a comment

Here is an English usage worksheet on the complications of using the words affect and effect, both as verbs and nouns.

As a verb, affect is used both intransitively and transitively; its use is complicated by the fact that this verb can have two meanings. Effect as a verb also carries complicated usage rules which are mitigated by the fact that it only is used transitively.

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, Worksheets

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Led Zeppelin

Posted on May 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

OK parents and teachers, if you have headbangers in the house, literally and metaphorically in your respective cases, then you might have use for this reading on Led Zeppelin and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I just wrote this yesterday. That said, I suspect that for the right kind of learner, this will be high-interest material, so I’ve tagged it as such.

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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A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “The Night of the Crabs”

Posted on May 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

Here is a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “The Night of the Crabs.”

This Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of survivor’s guilt opens the lesson. You’ll need the PDF of the illustration and questions to investigate this crime. Finally, here is the typescript of the answer key to close the case and bring a culprit to justice.

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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Engage (vi/vt), Engagement (n)

Posted on May 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

Alright, let’s get started on this bright, sunny morning with two context clues worksheets on the verb engage–used both intransitively and transitively–and the noun engagement. These are a couple of heavily used words in English, and these documents presented as a a pair will help students, in addition to developing their own understanding of these words, differentiate between verbs and nouns.

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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Cerebral Cortex

Posted on May 12, 2020 | Leave a comment

Although I prepared this reading on the cerebral cortex and wrote its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet for a specific student and purpose, I cannot remember who and what they were. I don’t know if this has any use in a high school classroom, but there it is if you need it. This might be a set of documents, properly revised, for a professional development workshop.

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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