“I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.
“The same man cannot be skilled in everything, each has his own special excellence.”
Euripides (480-406 B.C.)
Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.
“…In his books The Disappearance of Childhood (1982) and Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985), Postman makes the case that as society moves away from print culture–wherein knowledge is amassed in stages, sequentially, forcing greater levels of rigor, maturity, and comprehension upon the reader–and toward mass media, we begin to lose the mechanism for civic life. Indeed,Postman contends that greater literacy is inextricably linked with the core defining traits of adult cognition and discourse: ‘A child evolves toward adulthood by acquiring the sort of intellect we expect of a good reader: a vigorous sense of individuality, the capacity to think logically and sequentially, the capacity to distance oneself from symbols, the capacity to manipulate high orders of abstraction, the capacity to defer gratification,'”
Excerpted from: Natasha Vargas-Cooper. “Childhood’s End: Which Disney Princess Is Neil Postman?” The Baffler No. 35 (Summer 2017)
Here is a short Cultural Literacy exercise on understatement. I use these to get class periods started, as well as to help those students who struggle with transitions between classes to settle themselves and focus on the work at hand.
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.
“A book seemingly intended to sap the foundation of that morality which it is the duty of parents and all public instructors to inculcate in the minds of young people.”
Sir John Hawkins, Life of Samuel Johnson 1787
“I scarcely know a more corrupt work.”
Samuel Johnson, quoted in Memoirs, Hannah More 1780
Excerpted from: Bernard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, literary oddities
Here’s a short exercise on the Greek word root latry which your students will quickly figure out means, when it appears in word, worship of something. I use these exercises at the beginning of lessons to get students settled and thinking in terms of patterns in knowledge.
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.
“Anybody that wants the presidency so much that he’ll spend two years organizing and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.
Because I work in a high school, I hear a lot of foul language. I’ve tried to take the high road on this, teaching students about how certain linguistic registers apply to certain social situations, and vice versa. One way I’ve tried to do this is to introduce, by way of this context clues worksheet on the adjective risque, the idea that there are some things–and I emphasize that things are represented by words we call nouns–that are just too, well, risque to utter in certain company (e.g. teachers) and some circumstances (e.g. schools).
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.
“From the first pages of this novel to the last we are conscious that the author is straining for strangeness. He will say nothing simply. His paragraphs are so long and so involved that it is hard to remember who is talking or the subject which began the paragraph… We doubt the story just as we doubt the conclusion… We do not doubt the existence of decadence, but we do doubt that it is the most important or the most interesting feature in American life, or even Mississippi life.”
Boston Evening Transcript
“The final blowup of what was once a remarkable, if minor, talent.”
Excerpted from: Bernard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, literary oddities
“Despite Mr. Faulkner’s great gifts and deep sensitivity, what he is actually offering us is a flight from reality. It’s horrors and obscenities in no way contradict this, for many persons, tired of ordinary life, have been known to seek amusement courting nightmares.”
The Bookman
Excerpted from: Bernard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
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