Tag Archives: building vocabulary/conceptual knowledge

A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “The $40,000 Raffle”

Last but not least this morning, here is a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “The $40,000 Raffle.” You’ll need this PDF of the illustration and questions to conduct your investigation of this case. To solve it, in the final analysis, you’ll want the typescript of the answer key.

I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom “Carry a Torch for.” Older people will recognize this as an expression meaning, in today’s parlance, “having a crush on,” or more succinctly, “crushing on.” I’ll let the great Louis Jordan (lyrics by the equally great Jon Hendricks) explain it:

“I’m the man for you and so you better start to face it
If you ever lose my love you know you never can replace it
I think it’s time for you to start to givin’ me some lovin’
‘Cause I’m carryin’ a torch for you that’s hotter than a oven
It’s time for you and me to do a little turtle-dovin'”

Enough said!

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.

Convey (vt)

Here is a context clues worksheet on the verb convey. It is used only transitively. This is, incidentally, for those teachers working with English language learners, one of those polysemous words that may require more than one run through for students. It can mean to move an object from one place to another, but also to communicate ideas and feelings. Helping students sort this out may require finesse; it’s easy enough to duplicate this document and use two worksheets to convey (if you will!) the two meanings of this word more carefully and completely.

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.

Erwin Schrodinger

Over the years there has been very little demand for this reading on Erwin Schrodinger and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. In fact, only one student in 17 years of teaching, who had somehow come across the concept of “Schrodinger’s Cat,” asked for it, which is why it exists. I wrote this for one particularly bright (and ineptly misplaced in a self-contained special needs classroom) and inquisitive student about 15 years ago, then forgot about it.

If you can use it, there it is.

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.

The Weekly Text, April 17, 2020 Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Week III: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Hokusai

This week’s Text is this reading on the influential Japanese artist known simply as Hokusai along with a vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet to accompany 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.

Word Root Exercise: Mort

OK, moving right along this morning, here is a worksheet on the Latin word root mort, which means dead and death. This is an extremely productive root in English and includes many words, alas, in use at this very sad and trying moment in human history.

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: Knee-Jerk Reflex

OK, moving right along this morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of the “knee-jerk reflex.” This squib that drives this worksheet does a nice, succinct job of showing the relationship between the literal and the metaphorical in this expression–so that’s a concept you might be able to explore in greater depth consequent to this document.

Just sayin’.

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.

Convince (vt)

Here’s a context clues worksheet on the verb convince; it is only used transitively. I’m sure I don’t need to nag teachers on the importance of students fully understanding the meaning and use of this word.

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.

Jesse James

Here, on a Friday morning, is a reading on Jesse James along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Somewhere along the line (for me it was probably consequent to seeing, when I was 12 years old, Philip Kaufman’s film “The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid“) Jesse James attained status as something of a folk hero. As this reading discloses, he was a nasty piece of work–a Confederate sympathizer, klansman, and cold-blooded murderer. In today’s Republican party, he could be a congressional candidate.

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 the Latin Word Roots Graph and Graphy

OK, last but not least this morning, before I head out to the grocery store (aside: don’t forget to thank the brave workers staffing our grocery stores–if there is any justice in this world, they will emerge from this pandemic among–to use another word deriving from. the Latin root pan–among the pantheon of heroes), here is a lesson plan on the Latin word roots graph and graphy. These mean writing, written, recording, drawing and science; you will recognize immediately, even before looking at the scaffolded worksheet at the center of this lesson, that these are two very productive roots in English.

I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the verb record, which is 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.

A Concluding Lesson Plan for the Nouns Unit Posted on this Site

OK, readers, I debated with myself about whether or not to publish this post. The documents below are the unit final assessment for my unit on nouns, which means I have posted all the previous lessons–12 of them, to be precise, since this one is lesson 13. You can actually find all the rest of this unit’s lessons underneath this hyperlink. In other words, for the first time, in almost 3,300 published posts, I have managed to get a complete unit published from my parts of speech units. Stay tuned, because there are more to come–and depending on how long social distancing lasts, and schools remain closed, these lessons will continue to appear here every couple of days.

So, here is the lesson plan for this final assessment; nota bene please that I built into this lesson some organizational activities for students who deal with executive skills and attentional challenges. The first do-now exercise for this lesson is this Everyday Edit worksheet on Aquarius, the Water Carrier (and please don’t forget that you can help yourself to a yearlong supply of these worksheets at Education World). The second do-now is this worksheet on the homophones there, their, and they’re. Finally, I’ll assume that this four page assessment speaks to the need for two do-now exercises for this lesson; in fact, in my experience (this is the first of seven units on the parts of speech), this assessment takes at least two days to complete, and may take a third. If that is the case, and you need another do-now, there are reams of them available on this 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.