Monthly Archives: October 2024

12 Signs of the Zodiac

Posted on October 18, 2024 | Leave a comment

Aries (Ram) * Taurus (Bull) * Gemini (Twins) * Cancer (Crab) * Leo (Lion) * Virgo (Virgin) * Libra (Scales) * Scorpio (Scorpion) * Sagittarius (Archer) * Capricorn (Goat) * Aquarius (Water Carrier) * Pisces (Fish)

The Zodiac is a very old concept, which has impregnated our thought patterns for thousands of years. In essence it was the observation of the sun’s circular path through the heavens (as viewed from the earth) and the division of this into twelve equal sections of 30 degrees to make a complete circuit of 360 degrees. Like so much of our world, the start date is spring, the vernal equinox of 21 March, so Aries (21 March-20 April) must always start the cycle.

The symbols chosen by the Sumerian astrologers and their imaginative pattern-making of sacred shapes from the most prominent stars passed seamlessly into Babylonian, Egyptian, Hindu, and Greek thought—notably through the teachings of a pair of well-traveled Greeks, Eudoxus of Cnidus and from the Egyptian-Greek scholar Ptolemy, whose Almagest colonized the imagination of both Islam and Christendom.

But just to read the Sumerian names is to stand in witness of an impressive piece of 5,000-year-old living continuity: Luhunga (Farmer) is Aries; Gu Anna (Bull of Heaven) is Taurus; Mastabba Bagal (Great Twins) is Gemini; Al-Lul (Crayfish) is Cancer; Urgula (Lion) is Leo; Ab Sin (virgin land) is Virgo; Zib Baanna (scales) is Libra; Girtab (Scorpion) is Scorpio; Pabilsag (soldier) is Sagittarius; Suhurmas (goat-fish) is Capricorn; Gu La (‘Great One) is Aquarius, the water bearer during the winter rains; and Dununu (fish cord) is Pisces.

Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.

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The Weekly Text, 18 October 2024: A Lesson Plan on the Zodiac from The Order of Things

Posted on October 18, 2024 | Leave a comment

Once again, adapted from the pages of Barbara Ann Kipfer’s fascinating reference book The Order of Things, here is a lesson plan on the Zodiac with its accompanying worksheet with a list of the Zodiac Signs as a reading and five comprehension questions.

As I do when I post these lessons, I want to emphasize that I designed them for struggling and emergent readers, or for students for whom English is not a first language. This work calls upon students to perform an analysis in two symbolic systems–numbers and words–of the material on the worksheet, something with which many students I have served over the years struggled.

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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Jacobo Arbenz Guzman

Posted on October 11, 2024 | Leave a comment

“Jacobo Arbenz Guzman: (1913-1971) Soldier and president of Guatemala (1951-54). The son of a Swiss émigré, Arbenz joined the leftist army officers who overthrew the dictator Jorge Ubico (1878-1946) in 1944. Elected president in 1951, he made land reform his central project. His efforts to expropriate idle land owned by the United Fruit Company and his alleged Communist links led to an invasion sponsored by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. When the army refused to defend Arbenz against what appeared to be a superior force, he resigned and went into exile, and the CIA installed the leader of the proxy army, Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas (1914-1957), as president.”

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

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Cultural Literacy: Yucatan

Posted on October 11, 2024 | Leave a comment

OK, last but not least in documents posts for Hispanic Heritage Month 2024, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Yucatan. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences and three comprehension questions. The document does note that the Yucatan is the site of “many Mayan ruins.”

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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The Labyrinth of Solitude

Posted on October 11, 2024 | Leave a comment

“The Labyrinth of Solitude (El laberinto de la soledad, 1950; tr 1961): A book by Octavio Paz. This penetrating essay on Mexican history has probably been more widely read and is thus more influential than any of Paz’s other essays or poetry. In search of the meaning of the Mexican and, by extension, the Latin American experience, Paz singles out the conquest of the Indians by Spanish invaders as the moment the true Mexico became isolated and obscured by masks. Silence, dissimulation, machismo, hermeticism, violence, and the cult of death are the masks adopted by the Mexican to disguise his fundamental historical solitude. Paz argues, however, that solitude has become a universal part of the human condition and that all men, like the poet himself, must become conscious of this condition in order to find, in the plentitude of love and creative work, a glimpse of the way out of the labyrinth of solitude.

In the revised and supplemented edition of 1985, Paz clarifies his view of Mexican culture and history, and deals with U.S.-Mexico relations. He also reexamines the dichotomy between the “two Mexicos,” the “developed” and the “underdeveloped,” and finds that the distinction is itself an imposition of the former upon the latter. He discusses the “other” Mexico as not only a tradition and a culture, but as representing a philosophical “Other,” like the other within.

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

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Cultural Literacy: Uruguay

Posted on October 11, 2024 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Uruguay. This is a full-page worksheet with a three-sentence reading and four comprehension questions.

Incidentally, should you be interested in delving deeper into Uruguayan politics and society, I published this blog post on Tupac Amaru II, who was the namesake of a Uruguayan revolutionary group the Tupamaros, whose work resisting a repressive governments led the way to Uruguay becoming a “full democracy,” indeed, one of the strongest democracies in the Americas.

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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Spanish Language

Posted on October 11, 2024 | Leave a comment

“Spanish language: Romance language spoken in Spain and in large parts of the New World. It has more that 332 million speakers, including over 23 million in the U.S. Its earliest written materials date from the 10th century, its first literary works from c.1150. The Castilian dialect, the source of modern standard Spanish, arose in the 9th century in north central Spain (Old Castile) and spread to central Spain (New Castile) by the 11th century. In the late 15th century, the kingdoms of Castile, Leon, and Aragon merged, and Castilian became the official language of all Spain, with Catalan and Galician (effectively a dialect of Portuguese) becoming regional languages and Aragonese and Leonese reduced to a fraction of their original speech areas. Latin-American regional dialects are derived from Castilian differ from it in phonology. Spanish has almost completely lost the case system of Latin. Nouns and adjectives show masculine or feminine gender, and the verb system is generally regular, but complex.”

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

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The Weekly Text, 11 October 2024, Hispanic Heritage Month Week IV: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on the World’s Columbian Exhibition of 1893

Posted on October 11, 2024 | Leave a comment

For the final Friday of Hispanic Heritage Month 2024, here is the post for this month that bears the scantest relation to Hispanic History: a a reading on the World’s Columbian Exhibition of 1893 along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. As this event’s name indicates (and if you’ve read Erik Larsen’s fascinating book The Devil in the White City, you know most if not all there is to know about the 1893 World’s Columbian Exhibition), it is related to Christopher Columbus, to wit the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in the “New World.”

Certainly Spain’s arrival in the New World basically begins what we might consider Hispanic History, that’s how we come by the word Hispanic, after all. So there is marginal relevance here. I don’t know, this event seems like the conquistador’s round of self-congratulation for a job of genocide well done.

But as I said at the outset of this month, I am woefully under-inventoried where materials related to Hispanic History is concerned.

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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Spanish-American War

Posted on October 4, 2024 | Leave a comment

“Spanish-American War: (1898) Conflict between the U.S. and Spain that ended Spanish colonial rule in the New World. The war originated in Cuba’s struggle for independence. The newspapers of William Randolph Hearst fanned U.S. sympathy for the rebels, which increased after the unexplained destruction of the Maine. Congress passed resolutions declaring Cuba’s right to independence and demanding that Spain withdraw its armed forces. Spain declared war on the U.S. in 1898. Commodore George Dewey led the naval squadron that defeated the Spanish fleet in the Philippines, and General William Shafter led regular troops and volunteers (including Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders) in the destruction of Spain’s Caribbean fleet near Santiago, Cuba (July 17, 1898). In the Treaty of Paris (December 10, 1898), Spain renounced all claims to Cuba and ceded Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines to the U.S., marking the U.S.’s emergence as a world power.”

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

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Cultural Literacy: Remember the Maine

Posted on October 4, 2024 | Leave a comment

If you know anything about the Spanish-American War, (if not, see the post above this one) you know that it began with the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine, which was anchored in Havana Harbor. The yellow press in United States, looking to push the nation into war with Spain, contrived the expression “Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain!” I suppose it probably sounded as idiotic as today’s crowds chanting “U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!,” only slightly more literate. At least it rhymes and contains verbs, eh?

So, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the slogan “Remember the Maine.” This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of four sentences and four comprehension questions. What the reading fails to mention is that the Maine probably exploded internally–that it wasn’t sabotaged by Spanish operatives.

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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