Because one seldom has a chance to see real genius at work, this reading on The Three Stooges and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet might be a salutary antidote to that deficit.
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.
“Articulate the word ‘Sun’ and you soon find yourself thinking of the Moon. Man and Woman, Love and Hate, Right and Wrong, Farmer and Shepherd, Left and Right, Queen and King, North and South, Positive and Negative, Heaven and Hell, East and West, Life and Death, Victory and Defeat, Earth and Sky, Sunrise and Sunset. So, two is an inauspicious number in its cracking of unity.”
Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged literary oddities
This worksheet on the Greek roots nom-o and nomy can, if necessary, familiarize your students with this very productive root in English, particularly in the world of teaching and learning; it means law, system of laws, management, and rule. Taxonomy obviously grows from this root, and it is just as obviously a word learners really ought to know.
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.
“Small is Beautiful: An influential book (1973) by the German-born British economist E.F. Schumacher (1911-77), subtitled ‘A Study of Economics as if People Mattered.’ Schumacher argues in favor of small-scale institutions and sustainable development, and against capital-intensive, high-tech solutions, especially in the Third World. The title phrase has entered popular usage.”
Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.
If you can use it, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Sparta–you know, the ancient Greek city-state known for its, uh, Spartan characteristics.
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.
“trompe l’oeil: (Fr., deceives the eye) Painting that, through precise naturalism, the use of shade, perspective, or all of these, creates the illusion of being that which is depicted. Most often applied to small details, such as drops of dew on flower petals.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
In the early- to mid-1970s, they were all the rage among certain of my peers, but I mostly listened to Bob Dylan in those days. If you have students who are fans of heavy metal music, then this reading on Black Sabbath and the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that accompanies it will be, I expect, of high interest to those students. After all, Ozzy Osbourne still occupies a relatively prominent place in the culture.
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.
“A brief account of or a story about an individual or an incident. The anecdotal digression is a common feature of narrative in prose and verse. In the history of English literature and of literary characters the anecdote has a specific importance. In his Dictionary Samuel Johnson defined the term as “something yet unpublished; secret history”. During the 18th century and interest in “secret” histories increased steadily, and no doubt there is some connection between this and the growing popularity of –ana, table-talk and biography (qq.v) at that time. During the second half of the 18th century there was almost a craze for “secret” histories. In the last thirty years of it over a hundred books of anecdotage were published in England. Isaac Disraeli, father of Benjamin, became one of the best known and most assiduous gleaners of anecdotes. In 1791 he published three volumes titled Curiosities of Literature, consisting of Anecdotes, Characters, Sketches, and Observations, Literary, Historical, and Critical. These he followed with other collections: Calamities of Authors (1812-1813) in two volumes, and Quarrels of Authors (1814) in three volumes. In 1812 John Nichols published the first of nine volumes in a series titled Literary Anecdotes of the 18th Century. Such works remained popular during the Victorian period. Nor is the appetite for collections of anecdotes assuaged. In 1975 there was The Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes.”
Excerpted from: Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New York: Penguin, 1992.
I don’t know if high school students really need to know the word (though it wouldn’t hurt, I submit), but if you think they do, here is a context clues worksheet on the noun polyglot for you.
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.
“Why do you think these prehistoric people painted animals on the walls of caves? Just for decoration? That doesn’t seem likely, because the caves were so dark. Of course we can’t be sure, but we think they may have been trying to make magic, that they believed that painting pictures of animals on the walls would make those animals appear. Rather like when we say ‘Talk of the devil’ (‘look who’s here’) when someone we’ve been talking about turns up unexpectedly. After all, these animals were their prey, and without them they would starve. So, they may have been trying to invent a magic spell. It would ne nice to think that such things work. But they never have yet.”
Excerpted from: Gombrich, E.H. Trans. Caroline Mustill. A Little History of the World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.
Posted in Essays/Readings, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
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