Monthly Archives: March 2024

Grace Abbot

Posted on March 29, 2024 | Leave a comment

“Grace Abbot: (1878-1939) U.S. social worker, public administrator, educator, and reformer. Born in Grand Island, Nebraska, she did graduate work at the University of Chicago and began working at Jane Addams’ Hull House in 1908. That same year she cofounded the Immigrant’s Protective League in Chicago. As director of the U.S. Children’s Bureau 1921-1934, she fought to end child labor through legislation and federal contract policies, and proposed a constitutional amendment prohibiting child labor. Her best-known book is book is The Child and the State (2 volumes, 1938).”

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

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Cultural Literacy: Annie Oakley

Posted on March 29, 2024 | Leave a comment

This Cultural Literacy worksheet on Annie Oakley seems like kind of an odd place to end this year’s Women’s History Month, but she is a woman and part of United States history, so here we are. This is a half-page document with a three-sentence reading, all of them of reasonable simplicity, 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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Fran Lebowitz on Sleep

Posted on March 29, 2024 | Leave a comment

“Sleep is death without the responsibility.”

Fran Lebowitz, Metropolitan Life “Why I Love Sleep” (1978)

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

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Cultural Literacy: Julia Ward Howe

Posted on March 29, 2024 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Julia Ward Howe, who wrote the the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” This is a half-page document with a reading of two sentences, the first of which is long and might needed to be edited to a more manageable length for English language learners and emergent readers, and three comprehension questions.

Ms. Ward was an abolitionist and social reformer–a significant figure in her time. So I mean no respect when I say that when I hear the the melody of “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” I hear Allan Sherman’s rendition of it, i.e. “Harry Lewis.”

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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Women’s Liberation Movement

Posted on March 29, 2024 | Leave a comment

“Women’s liberation movement: Revival of feminism in the 1960s by U.S. women. A coalition of American women’s groups, including the National Organization of Women, sought to overturn laws that enforced discrimination in matters such as contract and property rights and employment and pay. The movement also sought to broaden women’s self-awareness and challenge traditional stereotypes of women as passive, dependent, and irrational. An effort in the 1970s to pass the Equal Rights Amendment failed, but its aims had been largely achieved by other means by the end of the century.”

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

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The Weekly Text, 29 March 2024, Women’s History Month Week 5: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Emmeline Pankhurst

Posted on March 29, 2024 | Leave a comment

For this, the final Friday of Women’s History Month 2024, here is a reading on Emmeline Pankhurst with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. This is a surprisingly thorough account, for a single page of text, of the legendary suffragist and social reformer.

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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Mary Wollstonecraft

Posted on March 21, 2024 | Leave a comment

“Mary Wollstonecraft: (1759-1797) English writer. She taught school and worked as a governess and for a London publisher. In 1797 she married William Godwin; she died days after the birth of their daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, that same year, at the age of 38. She is noted as a passionate advocate of educational and social equality for women. Her early Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787) foreshadowed her mature work on the place of women in society. A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792), whose core is a plea for equality of education between men and women. The Vindication is widely regarded as the founding document of modern feminism.”

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

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Cultural Literacy: Sarah Bernhardt

Posted on March 21, 2024 | Leave a comment

OK, it’s just about time to leave for school, but finally this morning here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Sarah Bernhardt. This is a half-page document with a reading of two sentences and two comprehension questions. In other words, the sparest of introductions to this major figure in French culture.

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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Margaret Mead on Sex and Gender

Posted on March 21, 2024 | Leave a comment

“Historically our own culture has relied for the creation of rich and contrasting values upon many artificial distinctions, the most striking of which is sex…. If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.”

Margaret Mead, Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies conclusion (1935)

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

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Cultural Literacy: Jane Eyre

Posted on March 21, 2024 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Jane Eyre. This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of four simple sentences and four comprehension questions. A basic, symmetrical, introduction to this landmark novel by Charlotte Bronte.

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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