Tag Archives: science literacy

Word Root Exercise: Lite, Ite

Posted on December 7, 2020 | Leave a comment

OK, I haven’t published one in some time, so here is a worksheet on the Greek word roots lite and ite. They mean mineral, rock, stone, and fossil, which why you find them at the base of words like granite and bauxite.

In other words these are words used in the sciences–and are therefore important for literacy in science classes.

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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A Short Exercise on the Greek Word Root Iatr/o

Posted on November 9, 2020 | Leave a comment

Here is a short worksheet on the Greek word root iatr/o. It means healing and medical treatment. You’ll find it at the base of words like psychiatry and pediatrics. This is another word root students interested in careers in healthcare ought to know.

Not bene, please, that this is a short exercise designed to open a class period. While it could be expanded to fill a class period, it won’t do so like the longer word root exercises found on Mark’s Text Terminal.

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: -Ics

Posted on November 6, 2020 | Leave a comment

Alright: here is a worksheet on the Greek root ics, which is enormously productive in English. It means study of, science, skill, practice,  and knowledge. You’ll find it in words like physics, phonics, and analytics among many, many other English words used across the domains of the common branch curriculum.

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, November 6, 2020: A Lesson Plan on Areas and Surfaces from The Order of Things

Posted on November 6, 2020 | Leave a comment

Okay, folks, it’s Friday again. This week’s Text is this lesson plan on areas or surfaces, contrived from Barbara Ann Kipfer’s excellent reference book The Order of Things. You’ll need this list as reading and its comprehension questions to deliver this lesson.

Incidentally, this is one of fifty of these I’ve written since this pandemic began last March. For years I’d perused Ms. Kipfer’s book, recognizing in it the potential for a wide variety of lessons to build literacy and procedural knowledge in working with a variety of symbolic systems. I’ve also worked up a unit plan and users’ manual (both of which I’ll post on the “About Posts & Texts” page) to explain and rationalize the use of these lessons.

So be on the lookout for those materials. About half of the unit is already posted on this site–just search “The Order of Things.”

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, Reference, The Weekly Text

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Common Errors in English Usage: Seasonable (adj), Seasonal (adj), Unseasonable (adj), Unseasonal (adj)

Posted on October 27, 2020 | Leave a comment

I just returned from a CVS store, where the “seasonal” aisle, already freighted with Christmas merchandise, kind got me down. I assure you that my post of this English usage worksheet on the adjectives seasonable, seasonal, unseasonable, and unseasonal is purely coincidental.

That said, these are solid, commonly used words that students probably ought to be able to use. If nothing else, though, this document meets the Common Core standard on teaching English usage.

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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Sun Spots and Solar Flares

Posted on October 23, 2020 | Leave a comment

Just now, I was asked in a Zoom meeting job interview if I could teach science. Like everything else I do in the classroom, I would and have used the subject to build literacy in general and literacy in the content area in particular. One example of that, if you can use it, is this reading on sunspots and solar flares and 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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A Lesson Plan on the Decibel Scale from The Order of Things

Posted on October 22, 2020 | Leave a comment

This lesson plan on the decibel scale and its accompanying reading and comprehension worksheet are another of the 50 lessons I have prepared using text from Barbara Ann Kipfer’s The Order of Things. If you have students interested in audio engineering or music production, this is something for them.

Otherwise, this is a simple literacy lesson that calls upon students to work with numbers and words in one document. I’ve been working on both the unit plan for these lessons and a user’s manual for their documents. I struggle to articulate why I developed these lessons and how I would use them. For now, think of the documents above as a rehearsal for word problems in math–one of the things that so often bedevil emergent and struggling readers.

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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Write It Right: Avoirdupois for Weight

Posted on October 18, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Avoirdupois for Weight. Mere slang.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.

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Word Root Exercise: Bar/o

Posted on October 18, 2020 | Leave a comment

This  worksheet on the Greek word root bar/o yields in English, as Greek roots tend to, a number of words related to the physical sciences. In this case, bar/o means pressure and weight. You find it at the base of weather-related words like barometer and millibar.

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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Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Posted on October 18, 2020 | Leave a comment

By posting this reading on Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that it is appropriate for high-schoolers (it might be, for the right ones), or of particularly high interest (again, it might be, for the right one) or demand. I actually wrote this for one student who was very interested in philosophy, but not otherwise interested in school.

Anyway, any reading on Liebniz can complement a calculus class, particularly if you want students to know something about the history of the field. More broadly, if you are conducting inquiry into the Enlightenment, or teaching Voltaire’s Candide, this material will provide some context for that novella.

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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