Monthly Archives: February 2023

Bernard Coard on the Middle-Class Bias

“The Middle Class Bias: In most cases, the teacher and the educational psychologist are middle class, in a middle class institution (which is what a school is), viewing the child through middle-class tinted glasses, the child being working class in most cases. Both on the basis of class and culture, they believe their standards to be the right and superior ones. They may do this in the most casual and unconscious ways, which may make the effect on the child even more devastating. The child may, therefore, not only because of problems with language but also because of feeling that he is somehow inferior, and bound to fail, refuse to communicate or to try his best in the tests for assessment….”

Excerpted from: Coard, Bernard. How the West Indian Child Is Made Educationally Sub-Normal in the British School System: 50th Anniversary Expanded Fifth Edition. Kingston, Jamaica: McDermott Publishing, 2021.

Cultural Literacy: Booker T. Washington

Alright, let’s wrap up Black History Month 2023 with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on Booker T. Washington. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences (two of them longish compounds) and three comprehension questions. A solid, if basic, introduction to this important figure in United States history.

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.

W.E.B. Du Bois on Poverty

“To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.”

W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk ch. 1 (1903)

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

Cultural Literacy: Alex Haley

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Alex Haley. This is a full-page document with a reading of three sentences and six comprehension questions. The reading doesn’t mention Mr. Haley’s role in the production of The Autobiography of Malcolm X (a salient fact in any writer’s career, I would think), focusing instead on Roots: The Saga of an American Family and its commercial and artistic success.

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.

Charlie Parker

Charlie Parker (originally Charles Christopher): (1920-1955) U.S. saxophonist and composer, one of the originators of bebop and among the greatest improvisers in jazz. Born in Kansas City, Parker played with Jay McShann’s big band (1940-42) and those or Earl Hines (1942-44) and Billy Eckstine (1944) before leading his own small groups in New York. (A nickname acquired in the early 1940s, Yardbird, was shortened to Bird and used throughout his career.) Parker frequently worked with Dizzy Gillespie in the mid-1940s, making a series of small-group recordings that heralded the arrival of bebop as a mature outgrowth of the improvisation of the late swing era. His direct, cutting tone and unprecedented dexterity on the alto saxophone made rapid tempos and fast flurries of notes trademarks of bebop, and his complex, subtle harmonic understanding brought and altogether new sound to the music. Easily the most influential jazz musician of his generation, his chronic drug addiction and early death contributed to making him a tragic legend.

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

Cultural Literacy: Jamaica

Moving right along this morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Jamaica. This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of six sentences and six comprehension questions.

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.

The Weekly Text, 24 February 2023, Black History Month 2023 Week IV: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Miles Davis

For the final Friday of Black History Month 2023, here is a reading on Miles Davis along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I don’t know what more I need to say about Miles–but that’s because I assume that most people know who he is.

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.

Alice Childress

“Alice Childress: (1917-1994) American novelist, playwright, and actress. Born in Charleston, South Carolina, Childress was well aware of racism and used her writing as an attempt to change social conditions. Childress joined the American Negro Theater as a young woman and became a prolific playwright. In the 1950s, she wrote Trouble in Mind, one of the first plays with black themes to be produced, and was a peer of such notable black writers as Richard Wright and Lorraine Hansberry. Other notable plays by Childress include Florence, Gold Through the Trees, and Wedding Band (collected, 1971), which was produced at the New York Shakespeare Festival and later broadcast on television. Childress’s novels include When the Rattlesnake Sounds (1975), Rainbow Jordan (1882), and Those Other People (1989). She is best known for the young adult novel A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ But a Sandwich (1973), a blistering account of black urban life.”

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

Cultural Literacy: Native Son

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Richard Wright’s novel Native Son. This is a half-page document with a one-sentence reading and one comprehension question. A tiny document, of limited utility, I suppose–unless you are teaching the novel and need something to use as a do-now to settle the class after a change of periods. If that.

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.

Frantz Fanon on National Liberation

“National liberation, national renaissance, the restoration of nationhood to the people, commonwealth: whatever may be the headings used or the new formulas introduced, decolonization is always a violent phenomenon.”

Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth “Concerning Violence” (1961) (translation by Constance Farrington)

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