Monthly Archives: April 2020

William James on the Philosopher’s Primary Task

Posted on April 27, 2020 | Leave a comment

“There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and this is to contradict other philosophers.”

William James

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

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Aeschylus

Posted on April 27, 2020 | Leave a comment

OK, last but not least this morning, here is a reading on Aeschylus and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet for all the budding classicists out there.

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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Surrealism

Posted on April 27, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Surrealism: Originally a literary movement, officially inaugurated in 1924, it incorporated stylistic and theoretical aspects of Cubism and Dada. Seeking to reveal the reality behind appearances, especially in a psychological sense, surrealism drew heavily on Freudian theories about the unconscious, dreams, irrationality, sexuality, and fantasy. Hence, the use of dream imagery, automatism, and symbolism, Some major figures: Joan Miro, Salvador Dali, Yves Tanguy, Max Ernst.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

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A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Over the Cliffs and Down We Go”

Posted on April 27, 2020 | Leave a comment

OK, moving right along on this grey, damp morning in southwestern Vermont, here is a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “Over the Cliffs and Down We Go.”

I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom, derived from a longer proverb, “For Want of a Nail.” You’ll need this PDF of the illustration and questions that constitute the evidence of this case to conduct your investigation. Finally, here is the typescript of the answer key so that you can complete the investigation and bring the suspect to justice.

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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Term of Art: Onomatopoeia

Posted on April 27, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Onomatopoeia (noun): The forming of or use of a word that imitates in sound what it denotes; use of imitative or echoic words; echoic word. Adjective: onomatopoeic, onomatopoeical, onomatopoetic, onomatopoeian; adverb: onomatopoeically, onomatopoetically; noun: onomatope, onomatopy.”

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

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Word Root Exercise: Path, Pathy

Posted on April 27, 2020 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the Greek word roots path-o and pathy. They mean both disease and feeling. As you can probably see from looking at them, these are extremely productive roots in English, giving us words like pathology, sympathy, and empathy. There might be something to be done, using this worksheet, in helping students understand the mind-body connection in medicine and, indeed, in life.

In any case, this is another word root students looking at careers in healthcare 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.

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Term of Art: Tautology

Posted on April 27, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Tautology: The use of words to repeat (unnecessarily) the same statement or meaning. For example, the statement that ‘Britain is an island and surrounded by water’ is a tautology, since islands are by definition so described. Tautological explanations are similarly true by definition, or circular, and therefore unfalsifiable. Sociological explanations which located the origins of social institutions in their effects tend to take this form. Thus, for example, some early functionalist anthropologists (including Bronislaw Malinowski) were prone to argue that, because certain (exotic) social practices (such as witchcraft) existed, then they must have a social function—and one that could assume they had that function precisely because the practices themselves existed.”

Excerpted from: Marshall, Gordon, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

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

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A Lesson Plan on Continents’ Population and Surface Area from The Order of Things

Posted on April 27, 2020 | Leave a comment

Here is yet another lesson from The Order of Things, this one on Continents’ Population and Surface Area. You’ll need this worksheet with the list and comprehension questions to complete this lesson.

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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Matsuo Basho II

Posted on April 24, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Refinement’s origin:

The remote north country’s

Rice-planting song.”

Matsuo Basho

Poem (translation by Bernard Lionel Einbond)

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

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The Weekly Text, April 24, 2020, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Week IV: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on the World War II Era Internment Camps

Posted on April 24, 2020 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text, in the continuing–but premature–observation of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2020–returns to the subject with which I began the month, to wit, this reading on the internment camps in which American citizens of Asian Pacific descent were held during World War II along with its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. We Americans think ourselves exceptional, but nationalism, tyranny, and bigotry are anything but exceptional–they are the tedious crap to which we as a species have subscribed for centuries.

That’s something worth remembering as our idiot president uses locutions like “Chinese virus” and violence against Americans of Asian descent is on the rise.

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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