Monthly Archives: March 2021

Jeanette Rankin

“Jeanette Rankin: (1880-1973) U.S. reformer, first woman member of the U.S. Congress (1917-1919, 1941-1943). Born in Missoula, Montana, she was social worker from 1909 and became active in women’s suffrage work. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1916, she introduced the first bill to give women the vote. A pacifist, she voted against declaring war on Germany (1917). She lost her bid for a U.S. Senate seat (1918) and returned to social work. In 1940 she won reelection to the House, where she became the only legislator to vote against declaration of war on Japan. Declining to seek reelection, she continued to lecture on social reform. In 1968, at 87, she led 5,000 women, the “Jeanette Rankin Brigade,” to protest the Vietnam War.”

­­­­­­­­­Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

Cultural Literacy: Madeleine Albright

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Madeleine Albright. This is a full-page document, with a paragraph-length reading and eight questions. As always, however, you may adapt this document, because it is in Microsoft Word, to your students’ needs.

Secretary Albright–the first woman in United States history, incidentally, to serve as Secretary of State–requires little introduction. In her retirement from government service, she has remained active as a scholar of and commentator on world affairs. Most recently, observing (as any sentient person has, I hope) the rise of far right-wing strongmen around the globe, she published a book on fascism, a notoriously slippery subject. The book was well received, so it probably merits a look at some point.

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.

Book of Answers: The First Novel to Sell a Million Copies

“What was the first novel to sell a million copies? Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852).”

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

Cultural Literacy: Louisa May Alcott

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Louisa May Alcott. This is a half-page worksheet with two questions; in other words, for every page you print, you’ll produce two worksheets.  

Which doesn’t really do justice to the interest the subject of the document, Louisa May Alcott, seems to generate. For example, Little Women has been produced for stage and screen repeatedly, once even as an anime series. Two of the film adaptations of the novel appeared just a little over a generation apart, with esteemed Australian director Gillian Armstrong’s 1994 adaptation and Greta Gerwig’s highly praised 2019 production appearing within 25 years of each other. 

One thing not well known about Ms. Alcott is the fact that along with such examples of 19th-century New England rectitude as Little Women and Little Men (also adapted as a film three times as well as a Canadian television series) she also wrote racy novels, proto-pulp fiction, really, under the name A.M. Barnard, a fact uncovered by the fascinating antiquarian booksellers Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine B. Stern

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

Margaret Mead on Her Epistemological Obligation

“I was brought up to believe that the only thing worth doing was to add to the sum of accurate information in this world.”

Margaret Mead, Quote in N.Y. Times, 9 Aug. 1964

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

Cultural Literacy: Clara Barton

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Clara Barton. This is a half-page worksheet–in other words there are two copies on a single piece of paper. There are three questions.

Ms. Barton, who lived a very long life, is well known as the founder of the American Red Cross. She was a self-educated nurse during the Civil War, long before nursing became an academic discipline and the practice assumed professional standards. She was a friend to Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass, upon making whose acquaintance she became, respectively an activist for women’s suffrage and for civil rights. Her accomplishments are many, which is why her name is memorialized around the United States in the names of streets, schools, and medical institutions, and why in 1973 the National Women’s Hall of Fame inducted her into its ranks.

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.

Florence Nightingale on the Definitions of Men

“No man, not even a doctor, ever gives any other definition of what a nurse should be than this—‘devoted and obedient.’ This definition would do just as well for a porter. It might even do for a horse. It would not do for a policeman.”

Florence Nightingale, Notes on Nursing (1860)

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

The Weekly Text, 19 March 2021, Women’s History Month 2021 Week III: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Marie Curie and Radium

This week’s Text, in observance of Women’s History Month 2021, is a reading on Marie Curie and radium with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Over time, there will be a variety of Marie Curie-related material on this blog: I have several things in a Women’s History Month folder, and there is already a brief biography of her posted on Mark’s Text Terminal.

This reading concerns Madame Curie’s work with radium, and the extent to which her discoveries about the element drove innovations in medical care, particularly the x-ray and radiotherapy for cancer treatment, as well as radium’s utility as a way to understand the structure of the atom. The reading also contains a brief biography of Madame Curie and her husband. I hadn’t realized that Marie Curie coined the term “radioactive.”

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.

Fran Lebowitz on Rearing Children

“Your responsibility as a parent is not as great as you might imagine. You need not supply the world with the next conqueror of disease or a major movie star. If your child simply grows up to be someone who does not use the word ‘collectible’ as a noun, you can consider yourself an unqualified success.”

Fran Lebowitz, Social Studies “Parental Guidance” (1981)

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

Cultural Literacy: Isadora Duncan

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Isadora Duncan. This is a short worksheet, three questions, that could be expanded to include a couple more. I expect this would be high-interest material to certain students, so I’ve tagged it as such.

And, of course, Ms. Duncan’s rich life, in the hands of an interested student, is the stuff of a variety of avenues of inquiry, from modern dance to the life of a bohemian, and beyond. Incidentally, did you know that her sister Elizabeth Duncan was also a dancer? Or that her brother Raymond Duncan was as well? Finally, a second brother, Augustin Duncan was an actor and theatrical director who continued to perform and direct even after he had gone blind.

So, a couple of big questions that come out of even this cursory knowledge of the Duncan family are What is an artistic family? and How does an “artistic family” become artistic?

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.