Monthly Archives: April 2019

John Dewey Dissects Teaching “Content”

Posted on April 30, 2019 | Leave a comment

“From the standpoint of the educator…the various studies represent working resources, available capital. Their remoteness from the experience of the young…is real. The subject matter of the learner…cannot be identical with the formulated, crystallized knowledge of the adult…. Failure to bear in mind the difference…is responsible for most of the mistakes made in the use of texts and other expressions of preexisting knowledge.”

John Dewey

Democracy and Education

Excerpted from: Wiggins, Grant, and Jay McTighe. Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 1998.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Essays/Readings, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

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Independent Practice: Ivan the Terrible

Posted on April 30, 2019 | Leave a comment

As I work to clear off my desktop for the start of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2019, which begins tomorrow, here is an independent practice worksheet on Ivan the Terrible. And since parts of Russia are geographically in Asia, this is a perfect place to conclude this morning’s publishing orgy.

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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Jerome Bruner on Understanding and Interpretation

Posted on April 30, 2019 | Leave a comment

I. “Understanding unlike explaining, is not preemptive; for example, one way of construing the fall of Rome narratively does not rule out other interpretations. For narratives and their interpretations traffic in meaning, and meanings are intransigently multiple…. Since no one narrative construal rules out alternatives, narratives pose a very special issue of criteria.”

II. “In a word, narrative accounts can be principled or not but do not rest on stark verification alone, as with scientific explanations. Any constitutional lawyer worth his salt can tell you how Justice Taney’s way of construing history in the Dred Scott decision was excruciatingly tunnel-visioned, unmindful of competing perspective, and therefore lethal in its consequences.”

Jerome Bruner

The Culture of Education

Excerpted from: Wiggins, Grant, and Jay McTighe. Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 1998.

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Posted in Essays/Readings, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

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Word Root Exercise: Carp/o

Posted on April 30, 2019 | Leave a comment

OK, here is a word root worksheet on the Greek root carp/o; it means fruit. This is a tough root to puzzle out; it turns up in a lot of words related to the life sciences, so it may be useful in that respect.

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 Algonquin Wits: Robert Benchley Requests a Taxi

Posted on April 30, 2019 | Leave a comment

“Coming out of a midtown restaurant, Benchley spotted a uniformed man at the door. ‘Would you get us a taxi, please,’ he asked the man. ‘I’m sorry,’ the man said coldly, ‘I happen to be a rear admiral in the United States Navy.’ ‘All right then,’ said Benchley, ‘get us a battleship.'”

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

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Posted in English Language Arts, New York City, Quotes, Reference

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Robert De Niro

Posted on April 30, 2019 | Leave a comment

Moving right along, I’ll close out this morning’s publication schedule with this short reading on Robert De Niro and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

This has been, to my surprise, high interest material for several groups of kids I’ve served over the years. Then again, on some level, De Niro is definitely a tough guy, a “gangsta,” as the young men I work with like to say.

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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Tarzan

Posted on April 30, 2019 | Leave a comment

“The famous foundling reared by apes in the African jungle was created in 1912 by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950), Tarzan has had countless adventures in novels and films, in which he communes with animals, rescues damsels in distress and discovers long lost civilizations. The first novel of 24 in which he appears is Tarzan of the Apes (1914). In the ‘monkey language’ that Burroughs invented for him, his name means ‘white’ from tar, and zan, ‘skin.’ He is given this name by his foster-mother, Kala the ape. The name came to be adopted for any apparent ‘he-man’ and was bestowed by the media on the Conservative politician Michael Heseltine (b. 1933), not only for his height and blond hair but also with reference to an incident of 1976 when he brandished the House of Commons mace to protect it. Tarzana, now a suburban residential section of Los Angeles, was named in honour of Tarzan.”

Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

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Vague (adj)

Posted on April 30, 2019 | Leave a comment

Since it’s a word in heavy use in English, this context clues worksheet on the adjective vague is probably overdue. This is a heavily used word, and a frequent concept in play, in the English language.

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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Book of Answers: C. Auguste Dupin

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“What detective did Edgar Allen Poe invent? C. Auguste Dupin, the coolly logical amateur sleuth of three stories published in the 1840s: ‘The Murders in the Rue Morque,’ ‘The Mystery of Marie Roget,’ and ‘The Purloined Letter.’”

Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

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A DBQ on Ancient Egypt

Posted on April 30, 2019 | Leave a comment

How the “document-based question” came by its unwieldy bureaucratic designation mystified me in the years I worked in New York City schools. Known to teachers by its initialism, “DBQ,” it always seemed to me to describe a cornerstone of any humanities curriculum. Indeed, much of what we asked students to do in history and English classes at the secondary level is to read and interpret a variety of documents.

In any case, in order to appease administrators, I developed a couple of social studies”DBQ” units that called upon students to read and interpret primary and key secondary documents. This worksheet on ancient Egypt endeavors to school kids in this practice. If you need or want it, here is the teacher’s copy of the same document.

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, Social Sciences, Worksheets

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