Text Analysis Worksheet - NLP Lesson 10

📋 Instructions: In this activity, you will manually perform the same tasks that Natural Language Processing (NLP) systems do automatically. Work carefully through each task, analyzing the text passage provided below. You may work with a partner, but each person should complete their own worksheet. Use different colored highlighters or underlining for different tasks as indicated.

💡 Helpful Tips:

Read the entire passage first before starting the tasks
Use pencil so you can make corrections
If using highlighters, use different colors for each task
Work systematically through each word - don't rush!
When in doubt, think about how a computer with no human understanding would approach the text

📄 Text Passage for Analysis

Passage A (Grades 6-8):

Last Tuesday, Emma Rodriguez visited the new Artificial Intelligence Museum in San Francisco. She was amazed by the interactive exhibits showcasing how computers can understand human language. "This technology is incredible!" Emma exclaimed to her friend Marcus. The museum opened three months ago and has already welcomed over 50,000 visitors. One exhibit demonstrated how chatbots use Natural Language Processing to answer questions. Emma learned that AI systems break down sentences into smaller parts called tokens. She found it fascinating that computers need step-by-step instructions to understand what humans grasp naturally. Before leaving, Emma purchased a robotics kit for $45.99 at the gift shop. She can't wait to explore more about AI technology!

🔍 Analysis Tasks

Tokenization - Breaking Text into Words

Instructions: In the passage above, circle or underline each individual word (token). Remember that punctuation marks can be separate tokens. Then count the total number of tokens.

Questions:

a) Total number of tokens (words) in the passage:

b) How many tokens include punctuation marks? (like "incredible!" or "can't"):

c) List 3 examples of challenging tokens (contractions, hyphenated words, or numbers):

d) Why might tokenization be difficult for computers? Explain in your own words:

Part-of-Speech (POS) Tagging - Identifying Word Types

Instructions: Select 15 different words from the passage and identify their part of speech. Use the abbreviations provided in the table below.

Part of Speech Key:

N = Noun
V = Verb
Adj = Adjective
Adv = Adverb
Pro = Pronoun
Prep = Preposition
Conj = Conjunction
Det = Determiner (a, an, the)

#	Word from Passage	Part of Speech	Why? (Brief explanation)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15

Reflection Questions:

a) Were any words difficult to categorize? Which ones and why?

b) Can the same word be different parts of speech in different sentences? Give an example:

Named Entity Recognition (NER) - Finding Key Information

Instructions: In the passage, highlight or categorize all named entities you find. Use different colors or labels for each category.

PERSON - People's names

LOCATION - Places

ORGANIZATION - Companies, institutions

DATE/TIME - When things happen

MONEY - Currency amounts

QUANTITY - Numbers, measurements

List all entities you found:

Entity (word/phrase from passage)	Category	Why is this important?

Analysis Questions:

a) Total number of named entities found:

b) Which category had the most entities?

c) How might NER be useful in real-world applications? Give 2 examples:

d) What challenges might a computer face in identifying entities? Explain:

Sentiment Analysis - Understanding Emotional Tone

Instructions: Analyze the emotional tone and sentiment expressed in the passage.

Overall Sentiment Assessment:

a) What is the overall sentiment of this passage?

☐ Very Positive ☐ Positive ☐ Neutral ☐ Negative ☐ Very Negative

b) Explain why you chose this sentiment rating:

Emotion Words and Phrases:

Words/phrases that indicate POSITIVE emotion	Words/phrases that indicate NEGATIVE emotion

Sentiment Analysis Questions:

a) Are there any neutral statements (facts with no emotion)? List them:

b) If you read this text with sarcasm, would the sentiment change? Explain:

c) What challenges would a computer face in detecting sentiment in this passage?

d) Give an example of how sentiment analysis is used in the real world:

Key Phrase Extraction & Summary

Instructions: Identify the most important concepts and information from the passage.

Main Topic and Key Phrases:

a) What is the main topic of this passage in one sentence?

b) List 5 key phrases or concepts that are most important in this text:

c) If you had to summarize this passage in 20 words or less, what would you say?

Semantic Understanding:

a) Who is "She" referring to in the sentence "She found it fascinating..."?

b) How did you know? What clues did you use?

c) Why might this be difficult for a computer to understand?

Reflection - Connecting to NLP Concepts

Critical Thinking Questions:

1. Which task was easiest for you? Why do you think that was?

2. Which task was most challenging? What made it difficult?

3. How is analyzing text manually different from how a computer would do it?

4. Based on this activity, what do you think is the biggest challenge in teaching computers to understand human language?

5. How might NLP technology improve your daily life? Give a specific example:

6. If you could design an NLP application to solve a problem, what would it do?

💾 Printing Instructions: This worksheet is designed to print clearly on standard 8.5" x 11" paper. Use your browser's print function (Ctrl+P or Cmd+P) and select "Print" to get a clean copy without navigation elements.