Here is a reading on Babe Ruth and the comprehension worksheet that accompanies it. Not much to say about this other than it tends to be high-interest 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.
Because the weekly mandated “professional development” sessions at my school are at bottom an intellectually vacant bureaucratic ritual, I’ve spend a fair amount of time over the years seeking inspiration to teach in my own, self-directed professional development. Any time I hear John Wooden’s mentioned I pay attention.
A legendary basketball coach, Mr. Wooden was every inch a teacher, and produced real results. He ought to be of interest to our students, it seems to me. To that end, here is a reading on John Wooden with a 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.
Lou Gehrig was born, to reiterate, on June 19, 1903–115 years ago. You may know that he was felled by the same disease that recently claimed Stephen Hawking, to wit Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which, not coincidentally, is known as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease.” Mr. Gehrig famously delivered what is known as “baseball’s Gettysburg Address” on July 4, 1939, making a dignified exit from the game, and cementing his legend with that simple, eloquent address.
Here is a reading on Lou Gehrig along with a 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.
Over the past couple of days, and after a couple of decades, I reread William Zinsser’s fine book Writing to Learn; it was every bit as good as I remembered it. William Zinsser was a superlative prose stylist himself. Reading him on writing, quite simply, is a glimpse inside the workshop of a master.
And I found a passage in it, which Mr. Zinsser excerpted from something Norman Mailer wrote about the infamous Benny Paret vs. Emile Griffith III fight in 1962. Because I have a student this year involved and interested in boxing, I grabbed the passage and worked up, just now, this short exercise on identifying active verbs in a passage of text. Nota bene that there are two pages in this document; the second is the teacher’s copy/answer key with the active verbs in bold. I’m still trying to figure out lesson plans for these one-off differentiated worksheets. If you can use it, here is a lesson plan template to accompany the worksheet, which you can complete as you see fit (obviously).
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.
Springfield, Massachusetts, is the home of The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. I lived in Northern New England on and off for years, and I went to college in Amherst, Massachusetts, so I passed through Springfield many times in my travels. Each time, I noticed the Basketball Hall of Fame and wondered how it ended up in Springfield–of all places–and not in one of the bigger cities on the East Coast.
As it happens, the game was invented in Springfield by a man named James Naismith. Most of the young men I teach are interested in basketball, so your students may be as well. In any case, this week’s Text is a reading on James Naismith along with this comprehension worksheet to complement it. You might also find useful this Everday Edit worksheet on Basketball’s Beginnings (courtesy of the good people at Education World). Finally, and to risk making this whole post ephemeral by its tangents, here is a Culture Literacy exercise on the noun expletive, because it is used in the third Additional Fact in the reading.
Incidentally (and as the reading will explain to you and your students), the game of basketball in its original form prescribed 13 rules. A couple of years ago, I noticed that Sotheby’s had auctioned off James Naismith’s holograph manuscript of those original 13 rules for $4.3 million.
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.
Here is a short word root exercise on the Greek root cryo; it means cold. Now you can explain what it means that baseball legend Ted Williams is in cryogenic storage.
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.
Hispanic Heritage Month begins today, so for the next five Fridays, I’ll post readings and comprehension worksheets in its honor. To kick off the month, here are an Intellectual Devotional reading on Pele, the legendary Brazilian soccer star, and a comprehension worksheet to complement it. This should be relatively high interest material, particularly for kids from Latin America who follow soccer–as so many of the students I serve do.
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.
OK: It has been some time since I posted an entire lesson plan, so for this week’s Text I offer a complete lesson that introduces students to prepositions. This lesson begins with two (the second one in the event that the lesson runs to two days) do-now exercises, namely Everyday Edits worksheets, the first one on the Surrender at Appomattox and the the second one on the Modern Olympic Games. (Incidentally, if you like these Everyday Edit Worksheets, the good people at Education World give them away at their site, and you will find the answer keys to them there as well.)
The mainstay of this lesson is this scaffolded proofreading and cloze exercise worksheet that introduces students to prepositions and their uses. Here is a learning support on prepositions that accompanies this lesson (and all six lessons in this unit, which I will post over time, I suppose). Finally, here is a teacher’s copy and answer key to assist you as you deliver this lesson.
That’s 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.
I meant to post this Intellectual Devotional reading on Cy Young and this reading comprehension worksheet to accompany it several weeks ago, closer to Major League Baseball’s Opening Day. Better late than never, I guess: here is this week’s Text on the legendary pitcher.
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.
It’s the second Friday of Black History Month. This week’s Text is a reading on basketball legend Bill Russell with a reading comprehension worksheet to accompany it. Mr. Russell was one of the first NBA superstars of African descent. Therefore he is no stranger to racism. This is likely to be a high-interest reading for a variety of students. I hope it is useful in your classroom.
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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