Monthly Archives: March 2023

Mabel Luhan Dodge

Posted on March 10, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Mabel Luhan Dodge: (1879-1962) American patroness of the arts and memoirist, Famous for her salons in Italy and New York in the early 20th century, Luhan cultivated close associations with D.H. Lawrence, John Reed, Gertrude Stein, and Carl Van Vechten. She had three husbands before she married a Pueblo Indian and settled in Taos, New Mexico, where she was a vital force behind the art colony there. She also wrote Lorenzo in Taos (1932) about her relationship with Lawrence, and a four-volume autobiography, Intimate Memories (1933-1937).”

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

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Cultural Literacy: Agatha Christie

Posted on March 10, 2023 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Agatha Christie. This is a half-page document with a reading of two sentences and three comprehension questions. A spare, but useful, introduction to this prolific and highly influential novelist. Your students might find it interesting, as I did after learning of it in, of all places, an episode of Doctor Who called “The Unicorn and the Wasp,” that Dame Agatha disappeared for eleven days in December of 1926.

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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Book of Answers: A Famous Quip from Dorothy Parker

Posted on March 10, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Who wrote ‘Men seldom make passes/At girls who wear glasses’? Dorothy Parker, known for her sharp wit, writer the famous couplet in the poem ‘News Item‘ in 1926.”

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

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The Weekly Text, 10 March 2023, Women’s History Month 2023 Week II: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Emily Dickinson

Posted on March 10, 2023 | Leave a comment

On this, the second of the five Fridays in March, which is Women’s History Month, here is a reading on Emily Dickinson with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Like so many of the readings from the Intellectual Devotional series that I’ve adapted for classroom use, this is a remarkably thorough biography–at only a page in length–of Emily Dickinson and her art.

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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Bessie Head

Posted on March 3, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Bessie Head (originally Bessie Amelia Emery): (1937-1986) South African-Botswanan writer. Born in South Africa of an illegal union between a white mother and a black father, she suffered rejection and alienation from an early age. She described the contradictions and shortcomings of pre-and postcolonial African society in morally didactic novels and stories, including When Rain Clouds Gather (1969), Maru (1971), A Question of Power (1973), The Collector of Treasures (1977), Serowe, Village of the Rainwind (1981), A Bewitched Crossroad (1984) and The Cardinals.”

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

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Cultural Literacy: Guinevere

Posted on March 3, 2023 | Leave a comment

OK, moving right along with Women’s History Month materials, here is a half-page Cultural Literacy worksheet on Guinevere, known, alas, mostly for being the wife of King Arthur. Perhaps this slim document–it contains a three-sentence reading and three comprehension questions–might spur a discussion about the autonomy of women and their accomplishments and identities separate from their male spouses?

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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Toni Morrison on Living

Posted on March 3, 2023 | Leave a comment

“I know what every colored woman in this country is doing…. Dying. Just like me. But the difference is they dying like a stump. Me, I’m going down like one of those redwoods. I sure did live in this world.”

Toni Morrison

Sula (1973)

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

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Cultural Literacy: Iphigenia

Posted on March 3, 2023 | Leave a comment

Depending on the depth of the dive your class takes into the Trojan War and its mythology, this Cultural Literacy worksheet on Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon, might be a useful short introduction to her. In any case, this is a half-page worksheet with a three-sentence reading and three 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.

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Louise Bennett

Posted on March 3, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Louise Bennett: (1919-2006) Jamaican poet and folklorist. Louise Bennett is a distinctive and challenging female presence in Jamaican literature. Writing in Jamaican creole, she was one of the first to challenge the cultural hegemony of the Caribbean elite, and has been a model for the experimentation in language and rhythms of contemporary Caribbean poetry. Her celebration of African-Jamaican culture and promotion of black cultural self-confidence is apparent in her major collections (Jamaica) Dialect Verses (1942), Jamaica Labrish (1966) and Selected Poems (1983). Aunty Roachy Seh (1993) is a more recently published work.”

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

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The Weekly Text, 3 March 2023, Women’s History Month 2023 Week I: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Sarah

Posted on March 3, 2023 | Leave a comment

For the first Friday of Women’s History Month 2023, here is a reading on Sarah, the biblical matriarch and prophetess, with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I’ll hazard a guess that this will prove to be neither high-demand or high-interest material. Nonetheless, Sarah, as a major figure in the Abrahamic religions, is a significant landmark in women’s history.

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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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Social Sciences, The Weekly Text, Worksheets

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