“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Oslo, Norway, 10 December 1964
Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Posted in Quotes, Social Sciences
Tagged black history, philosophy/religion, united states history
OK, moving right along on this chilly morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Senegal. This is a full-page document with a reading of four sentences and eight comprehension questions. The first sentence, like many of the Cultural Literacy readings on nation-states, contains a list of countries bordering Senegal and their direction separated by serial commas. This sentence might need to be edited a bit for emergent readers or new users of English.
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.
Harold Washington: (1922-1987) U.S. politician and mayor of Chicago (1983-87). Born in Chicago, he practiced law and served as a city attorney 1954-58). He was elected successively to the Illinois legislature (1965-78), state senate (1976-80), and U.S. House of Representatives (1980-83). After a hard-fought campaign for reform and an end to city patronage, he was elected mayor of Chicago, becoming the first black to hold that office. He was elected to a second term in 1987, but died soon after.
Excerpted/Adapted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
Posted in Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged black history, professional development, united states history
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the television miniseries Roots. I admit with mild to moderate chagrin that I have never seen this highly acclaimed series–nor read the book. They were both au courant at a time in my life (high school) when I had other things on my mind, had given up television as a vast wasteland, and was in general alienated from the mainstream of American culture. Roots was part of that mainstream, I am happy to say in retrospect, and I need to read it, watch it, or both.
In any event, this is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two modestly complex sentences and two comprehension questions. Just the basics in a low-key, symmetrical introduction.
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.
“In a study done in London, epileptic children were given an IQ test. Their teachers, not knowing the result of the test, were then asked to give their assessment of the children’s intelligence by stating whether the child was ‘average’, ‘above average’, ‘well above average’, etcetera, from their knowledge of each child. It is important to mention at this state that epileptic children suffer a lot of prejudice directed against them by the general society, similar to that Black children face—but obviously not as great. Teachers also tend to think of them as being less intelligent than ordinary children—again similar to what the Black child faces.
In 28 cases, the teachers seriously underestimated the child’s true ability. That means that a quarter of the children were wrongly assessed! In one case, a thirteen-year-old girl with an IQ of 120 (which is university level!) had failed her 11+ examination and was in the ‘D’ stream of a secondary modern school. Her teacher considered that she was of ‘below average’ intelligence! (Average intelligence= 100.) Another child with family problems and very low income got an IQ score of 132 (which is exceedingly high). Her teachers, however, all rated her as ‘low-stream’ material.”
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.
For the fifth and final Friday of Black History Month 2024, here is the fifth and final lesson of a unit on the life and times of Alex Wheatle. I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on social class.
This unit final assessment is the principal work for this lesson, and for the unit itself. You will note that it is a broad melange of tasks. I prepared this document with the idea that I would rarely, if ever, use it in its entirety. Rather, I would pick and choose among the questions and writing imperatives for what best suited the needs and abilities of a whole class in general and single students in particular. In other words, this document was prepared for ease of differentiation.
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.
“Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.”
Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged black history, poetry, professional development, united states history
Moving right along this morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Mali. This is a full-page document with a reading of five sentences–and beware that first sentence with a long list of border states to Mali and their directions separated by serial commas–and nine 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.
“Denmark Vesey: (1767?-1822) U.S. insurrectionist. Born in the West Indies, he was sold to a Bermuda slaver captain, with whom he sailed on numerous voyages. They settled in Charleston, South Carolina, and Vesey was allowed to purchase his freedom for $600 in 1800. After reading antislavery literature, he determined to relieve the oppression of slaves. He organized city and plantation blacks (up to 9,000 by some estimates) for an uprising in which they would attack arsenals, seize the arms, kill all whites, burn Charleston, and free the slaves on surrounding plantations. After a house servant warned the authorities, the insurrection was forestalled and 130 blacks were arrested; Vesey was tried and hanged with 35 others.”
Excerpted/Adapted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
If you can use it, and there are related materials elsewhere on this blog, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Black Power Movement. This is a full-page document with a reading of four sentences (the last one a long compound separated by a colon) and five 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.
Mark's Text Terminal 
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