“Action for Act. ‘In wrestling, a blow is a reprehensible action.’ A blow is not an action but an act. An action may consist of many acts.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged diction/grammar/style/usage
“What hotel threw out newlyweds F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre? The Biltmore Hotel in New York City, following their wedding on April 3, 1920. The management asked them to leave because of their unseemly behavior.”
Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, literary oddities
“The most insipid, ridiculous play that I ever saw in my life.”
Samuel Pepys, Diary
Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged drama/theater, humor, literary oddities
Several years ago I became interested in the Trivium both as a concept and as a potential framework for a unit, in this case a unit on writing. I actually began developing the unit, put together the first three lessons, and offered it as a special institute class at the high school in which I was serving. Ultimately, alas, I was unable to bring the unit to fruition due to institutional disinterest.
When I arrived at the school in which I presently serve, I noticed that the English teachers required in writing assignments that students use the rhetorical moves of ethos, pathos, and logos to argue their case. Since rhetoric is one of the three subjects in the trivium–logic and grammar are the others–I found this interesting.
Which is why I developed this learning support on ethos, logos, and pathos in case the students in my literacy classroom needed it. Unfortunately, I was never able to use it.
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.
“Magnum Opus: A great work of art or literature, especially a writer’s culminating and greatest achievement; masterpiece. Plural: magna opera, magnum opuses,
‘It was the magnum opus of a fat spoiled rich boy who could write like an angel about landscape and like an adolescent about people.’ Norman Mailer, Cannibals and Christians”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
“Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged humor, literary oddities, philosophy/religion
[N.B. that this quote contains an apparent error, to wit that number 488 in the Kochel Catalogue is not a sonata for two pianos, but rather the composer’s 23rd piano concerto.]
“Mozart effect: A finding, first reported in the journal Nature in 1993, that listening to compositions by Mozart increases scores on tests of spatial ability for a short while. In the original experiment, college students were given various tests after experiencing each of the following for ten minutes: listening to Mozart’s sonata for two pianos in D major K488, listening to a relaxation tape, or silence. Performance on the paper-folding subtest of the Stanford-Binet intelligence scale was significantly better after listening to Mozart than after the other two treatments, but the effect dissipated after about 15 minutes, and other (non-spatial) tasks were unaffected. The finding has been contested by other researchers and has been widely misinterpreted to imply that listening to Mozart (or listening to classical music) increases one’s intelligence. Several independent research studies have shown that children who receive extensive training in musical performance achieve significant higher average scores on tests of spatial ability, but that long-term consequence is not the Mozart effect.
[Named after the Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-9100]”
Excerpted from: Colman, Andrew M., ed. Oxford Dictionary of Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
“Advanced intellectual abilities that go beyond basic information processing. Higher order thinking involves such abilities as concept formation, understanding rules, problem-solving skills, and the ability to look at information from multiple perspectives.
Students exercise their higher order thinking when they analyze, synthesize, and evaluate materials to which they have been exposed, The construction or creation of new material also requires higher order thinking.
In general, abilities in the area of higher order thinking are closely linked to intellectual capacity. However, individuals with learning disabilities who have underlying information processing deficits may appear to have difficulties with higher order activities. This may be especially true with higher order tasks involving a verbal component for students with language-based learning problems.”
Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.
“A strong, usually unadulterated warm or hot color (red, orange, or yellow) which appears to come to the fore of a picture plane.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
“Hinduism: A system of religious beliefs and social customs, especially influential in India. As both a way of life and a rigorous system of religious law, Hinduism developed over period of about 50 centuries. Unlike most religions, it requires no one belief regarding the nature of God: it embraces polytheism, monotheism, and monism. More important are the beliefs concerning the nature of the Universe and the structure of society. The former is described by the key concepts of dharma, the eternal law underlying the whole of existence; karma, the law of action by which each cause has an effect in an endless chain reaching from one life to the next; and moksha, liberation from this chain of birth, death and rebirth. The latter is prescribed by by the ideals of varna, the division of mankind into four classes or types, the forerunner of caste; ashrama , the four stages of life; and personal dharma, according to which one’s religious duty is defined by birth and circumstance. There are an estimated 705 million Hindus in the world.
Hindu revivalism arose from Hindu encounters with western ideas in the 19th and 20th centuries. There are many thinkers and ideas associated with the process. Raja Ram Mohun Roy (1772-1833) was the forerunner of new Hinduism; he learned English, located Hindu ideas in the context of Western ones in order to promote Hindu self-understanding, and founded the reform movement the Brahmo Samaj (Society of God). Debendranath Tagore (1817-1905) was his successor as the leader of the society; he explicitly questioned the infallibility of the Vedas and called for an experimental spirituality based on the aphorisms of the Upanishads. The most famous figure was Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902), who claimed that Vedanta was the Hindu exemplification of that oneness to which all religions aspired, and that the idea and practice of tolerance and universality were India’s gift to the world; he admired Western self-confidence and scientific success, and formed a model of mutual influence in which the West taught its material skills to India, which reciprocated with its spiritual teachings. Dayananda Saraswati (1824-83), founder of the Arya Samaj (Society of Aryans), tried to emphasize the global significance of Vedic teachings by discerning scientific and technological ideas in them.
The term ‘Hindu revivalism’ is used to describe an ideology of nationalism based on allegedly Hindu values that is professed by some groups (notably the BJP party) in contemporary Indian politics.”
Excerpted from: Wright, Edmund, Ed. The Oxford Desk Encyclopedia of World History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
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