Monthly Archives: September 2021

Book of Answers: Mario Vargas Llosa

“From what country does Mario Vargas Llosa hail? Peru.”

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

Cultural Literacy: Bay of Pigs

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba in 1961. This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of four relatively dense compound sentences and five comprehension questions. The Bay of Pigs debacle, as the reading observes, was an embarrassment to the administration of President John F. Kennedy. It is also a significant moment in the history of the Cold War.

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.

Jose Bonifacio de Andrada e Silva

“Jose Bonifacio de Andrada e Silva: Known as Jose Bonifacio (1763?-1838) Chief architect of Brazil’s independence from Portugal. Andrada was born in Brazil but educated in Portugal, where he became a distinguished scholar. On returning to Brazil in 1819, he became chief minister of the Portuguese prince regent (later the emperor Pedro I), who had fled Portugal with the rest of the royal family to escape Napoleon. He became the leading intellectual advocate of independence. After Pedro I declared Brazil independent in 1822, Andrada served as prime minister and as tutor to the child emperor, Pedro II, who became an effective and enlightened monarch.”

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

Cultural Literacy: Alamo

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Alamo. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three dense compound sentences and three questions. I am tempted to explain why I take issue with the use of the word “heroic” in the text, but perhaps that is best left to the students reading it.

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.

Manuel Puig on the Psychology of Oppression

“Outside of this cell we may have our oppressors, yes, but not one inside. Here one oppresses the other. The only thing that seems to disturb me…because I’m exhausted, or conditioned, or perverted…is that someone wants to be nice to me, without asking anything back for it.”

Manuel Puig, Kiss of the Spider Woman ch. 11 (1976)

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

Cultural Literacy: Guatemala

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Guatemala. This is a full-page worksheet with a four-sentence reading and eight comprehension questions. I contrived the questions for this text with an eye toward assisting students in developing their own understanding of how to tease out relatively complex details in a text. In this case, that work involves situating Guatemala in relation to its neighboring nations in Central America.

Editorially (if I may), I think Guatemala ought to be a subject of deeper inquiry in our world history or global studies (or whatever your district calls these kinds of courses), especially the dreadful consequences of United States foreign policy in this sovereign nation. Reading the primary documents from this period leads to the inescapable conclusion that the United States government was complicit in genocide.

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.

Ariel

“Ariel: (1900) An essay by Jose Enrique Rod, which had a tremendous impact on Hispanic American Intellectuals. Rodo appealed to the youth of Spanish American to aspire to be the spirituality, idealism, and rationality symbolized by Shakespeare’s Ariel and to reject the brutishness and sensuality represented by Caliban. Because Rodo censured U.S. materialism and utilitarianism in the essay, many readers erroneously assumed that he was pitting Anglo-Saxon crassness against Latin idealism. A later essay by Fernandes Retamar made a quite different interpretation of Caliban, as the native and victim of imperialism.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

Cultural Literacy: Carlos Fuentes

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Carlos Fuentes. This is a half-page worksheet with a one-sentence reading (the sentence is longish and might require editing for some readers) and two short comprehension questions. It’s the barest of introductions to this eminent Mexican novelist and essayist; enough to help students gain knowledge of Carlos Fuentes, a significant figure in world literature. In other words, students will gain passing cultural literacy from this document, but little more.

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.

Gaston Baquero y Diaz

“Gaston Baquero y Diaz: (1916-1997) Cuban poet, literary critic, and journalist. Although from a scientific background, he quickly gravitated toward the “Origines” group and became chief editor of the El Diario de la Marina newspaper for fifteen years. He left Cuba for political reasons in 1959, settling in Spain. Baquero’s poetry, collected in Poemas (1942) and Memorial de un testigo (1966), has a magical, visionary quality, laced with humor and sensuality. It is rich in sonorities and is strongly metaphysical, but also explores the intimate details of daily life, qualities more clearly seen in later works such as Magias e invenciones (1984) and Poemas invisibles (1991).”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

The Weekly Text, 1 October 2021, Hispanic Heritage Month 2021 Week III: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Don Quixote

For the third Friday of Hispanic Heritage Month 2021, here is a reading on Don Quixote with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I don’t know if you’ve read Miguel de Cervantes’ magisterial novel–I finally read it during the pandemic, and now want to read it again–but I must extol the virtues and richness of this landmark of world literature.

Otherwise, I have nothing to say, and I certainly wouldn’t presume to editorialize upon or criticize this novel. If that’s what you seek, I recommend Harold Bloom or someone of his ilk. It goes without saying, I assume, that a lot of ink has been spilled in seeking a deeper understanding of Don Quixote.

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.