“Mozarabe Style: Describes a tradition of art developed by the Christians (mozarabes) who lived in those parts of Spain under Muslim rule from the 8th to the 15th centuries. The Mozarabe style was primarily associated with church architecture and was often characterized by the horseshoe arch, a holdover from Visigothic times.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged art/architecture/design
Given the rise of tyranny around the world, and given the dismal state of United States’ foreign policy, I think now is the time to post this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Allies in both World War I (opposed, in that conflict, to the Central Powers that arose in turn out of the Triple Alliance in Europe) and World War II (opposed, in that global war, to the Axis powers).
This might make a handy learning support for students with less than adequate funds of memory. Questions about the members of alliances are the kinds things that pop up on standardized tests. In any case, you might find these two context clues worksheets on ally as a noun and a verb complements the Cultural Literacy document above.
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.
“Periodic Sentence: A sentence that expresses the main idea at the end. With or without their parents’ consent, and whether or not they receive the assignment relocation they requested, they are determined to get married.”
Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
It’s the Word of the Day at Merriam-Webster’s, so here is a context clues worksheet on the adjective limpid. It means “marked by transparency,” “clear and simple in style,” and “absolutely serene and untroubled.” I’ve used it in the first two senses, but not in the third, in this worksheet.
I understand that this is a word students can probably live without. But what would it look like if we asked them to live with it? This is a word commonly used in poetry. If you read any amount of fiction, or even the blurbs on novels, you’ve almost certainly encountered the locution “limpid prose,” as in “In limpid [and feel free to add ‘crystalline’ here] prose, Hiram Famauthor tells the story of Stanley, who overcomes adversity to triumph in life.” So, if you have advanced English language arts students, or kids struggling with literacy, there are at least of couple of reasons to teach them this word.
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.
“Aristocracy of Labor The skilled section of the 19th– and early 20th-century British working class in the staple industries, economically and consciously culturally distinct from the mass of workers, which provided the core and leadership of the trade union movement. A Marxist view that its influence held the Labor movement back from revolutionary politics is widely disputed.”
Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998
Posted in Essays/Readings, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged philosophy/religion, professional development, term of art
Some time ago, I put up a series of independent research assignments I’d developed for students whom I sought to reach with differentiated instruction. This work had everything to do with motivating students by supplying them with high interest material. All of these documents represent my first efforts at developing differentiating instruction for as many students as possible.
However, I held back two from that original release of documents, to wit this independent research assignment on the Bloods as well as this one on the Crips. I can’t remember now why I didn’t throw them up with the rest, and that leads me to believe I had some misguided notions of propriety. So, let me say that one of the things that animated the development of these documents was the 2008 Independent Lens documentary Crips and Bloods: Made in America. The film does an excellent job of tracing the history of the Crips and the Bloods, explaining along the way the complex sociological and economic forces that move young men to join gangs.
These assignments are structured to follow closely the Wikipedia articles about the Bloods and about the Crips.
Another thing that moved the creation of these documents was the fact that I was working with some students who were themselves either considering joining either the Crips or the Bloods, were already involved, or had family members involved in either group. In any case, if one lives or works (or both) in a tough neighborhood in one of New York City’s Five Boroughs, there is a good chance one sees members of the Crips or Bloods operating daily in one’s neighborhood.
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.
“Arawak: At the time of Columbus, Arawak speakers inhabited the Greater Antilles and parts of mainland South America. Since languages of the Arawakan family are not found in North or Mesoamerica, it is likely that these people reached the islands from the south. In support of this view, pottery of the Saladoid type is found in a great arc from western Venezuela to the West Indies, and in the northern islands there seems to be a ceramic continuity from Saladoid ware to insular Arawak. Spanish sources describe the island Arawaks as settled farmers with an elaborate religion based on a Zemi cult.”
Excerpted from: Bray, Warwick, and David Trump. The Penguin Dictionary of Archaeology. New York: Penguin, 1984.
Today begins National Hispanic Heritage Month 2020. For the next four Fridays, for The Weekly Text, Mark’s Text Terminal will observe the month by posting readings and comprehension worksheets related to the history of LatinX people in the United States and Elsewhere.
Here is Cultural Literacy worksheet on colonialism to start off the month. As I said to an interview committee the other day, we live in a pregnant moment that can, with (if you’ll allow me to play out this metaphor ad nauseum) proper prenatal care, yield real social change. If we are going to talk seriously about the injustices visited on non-white people the world over, we need to discuss colonialism seriously. In just about every respect, we are all dealing with the legacy of colonialism–and the time has come–now–to reckon with it. We neglect to do so at our intellectual and moral peril.
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 bureaucrat is a Democrat who holds some office that a Republican wants.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged humor, literary oddities, united states history
OK, folks, there is a lot of traffic on Mark’s Text Terminal today (which is cool!), so I’ll publish one more post before moving on to other things for the afternoon. From Barbara Anne Kipfer’s fascinating book (to me, anyway), The Order of Things, here is a lesson plan on the Big Bang sequence along with its reading and comprehension worksheet.
This is a relatively short exercise. However, like just about everything here, these are Microsoft Word documents, so you may manipulate them for your students’ needs.
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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