While I fear it falls far short of the standards to which I like to think this blog conforms, here, nonetheless, is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Tin Pan Alley. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences–the first a compound separated by a semicolon, the second a longish declarative sentence–and three questions. The reading presents the term “Tin Pan Alley” as metaphorical and notes that it is “not used as much today as it was a generation or two ago” to refer, generally, “to the popular music industry in the United States.”
My problem is this: Tin Pan Alley is a metaphor, yes, but it was also a real place in Manhattan. So, and I think this especially true for those of us who teach in the Five Boroughs, our students ought to know about the literal (to use an overworked adjective) Tin Pan Alley.
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.
Mark's Text Terminal 