Category Archives: Quotes

As every second post on this site is a quote. You’ll find a deep and broad variety of quotes under this category, which overlap with several other tags and categories. Many of the quotes are larded with links for deeper reading on the subject of the quote, or connections between the subject of the quotes and other people, things, or ideas. See the Taxonomies page for more about this category.

A List of Consciousness-Raising Questions for Students

One of the great pleasures of the institution in which I now serve is the seriousness with which professional development is conducted. I won’t belabor the point about the hasty superficiality with which this responsibility was fulfilled in other schools (I’ve done this elsewhere on this blog) and its reduction to a pro forma bureaucratic ritual. We’ve been asked to read Dr, Gholdy Muhammad’s recent–and excellent–book Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy.  It’s a welcome relief from the usual pabulum that passes as professional development in the school system in which I serve.

In any case, here is a list of consciousness-raising questions I grabbed from page 72 of the edition of the book supplied me. I wrote this for my planning book; however, it could easily (like about 99 percent of what you’ll find on Mark’s Text Terminal, this is a Microsoft Word document that you may, if I dare to say so, bend to your will) be converted into a worksheet or a series of worksheets.

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.

Foreshadowing

“Foreshadowing: The technique of arranging events and information in a narrative in such a way that later events are prepared for or shadowed forth beforehand. A well-constructed novel, for instance, will suggest at the very beginning what the outcome may be; the end is contained in the beginning, and this gives structural and thematic unity.”

Excerpted from: Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New York: Penguin, 1992.

Write It Right: Essential for Necessary

“Essential for Necessary. This solecism is common among the best writers in the country and England. ‘It is essential to go early’; ‘Irrigation is essential to the cultivation of arid lands’ and so forth. One thing is essential to another thing only if it is part of the essence of it—an important and indispensable part of it, determining its nature, the soul of it.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.

Nineteen Eighty-Four

“Nineteen Eighty-Four: A dystopian novel (1949) by George Orwell (1903-50). The book comprises a prophecy of the totalitarian future of mankind, portraying a society in which government propaganda and terrorism destroy human awareness of reality. It is generally thought that Orwell named the novel by reversing the last two figures of the year in which it was written, 1948, but an article by Sally Coniam in the Times Literary Supplement of 31 December 1999 proposed another theory. In 1934 Orwell’s first wife, Eileen O’Shaughnessy, published a poem, ‘End of the Century 1984,’ in The Chronicle, the school magazine of Sunderland Church High School, where she had been a pupil in the 1920s. The poem was written to mark the school’s 50th anniversary, looking back then forward to the future and to the schools centenary in 1984. It seems likely that Orwell could have adopted the year accordingly, although for him it was a random date. Support for this lies in the poem’s mention of ‘telesalesmanship’ and ‘Telepathic Station 9,’ terms strangely modern for their time, which seem to prefigure Orwell’s own ‘Newspeak,’ teleprogrammes,’ and ‘telescreen.’

Following the publication of Orwell’s novel, the year 1984—until it came and went—was long regarded as apocalyptic, and as such was even entered in the Oxford English Dictionary. Appropriately enough, a film version entitled 1984 starring John Hurt and Richard Burton was released in 1984.”

Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.

Analogy

“Analogy (noun) A theoretical comparison or point-by-point correspondence between particulars of two different things, rather than a categorical likeness; resemblance in certain parallels; logical inference that if two things are alike in some respects, they will be alike in others. Adj. analogical, analogous; adv. analogously; n. analogousness; v. analogize.”

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

The Devil’s Dictionary: Connoisseur

“Connoisseur, n. A specialist who knows everything about something and nothing about anything else.

An old wine-bibber having been smashed in a railway collision, some wine was poured upon his lips to revive him. ‘Pauillac, 1873,’ he murmured and died.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000. 

Joyce Sequichie Hifler on Poverty and Ignorance

“We can get over being poor, but it takes longer to get over ignorance.”

Joyce Sequichie Hifler

Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.

Term of Art: Abstinence Education

“abstinence education: An educational program premised on the view that family life and sex education courses should teach students that sexual intercourse is inappropriate for young, unmarried people. Advocates say that adults must communicate an unambiguous that sex outside marriage is dangerous because of the risks of unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, such as AIDS. Critics of abstinence-only programs say the programs ignore the reality of widespread sexual activity among teenagers and deprive teens of information they need to protect themselves physically and emotionally.”

Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.

Book of Answers: Babar the Elephant

“Who created Babar the Elephant? Jean de Brunhoff, in stories beginning with The Story of Babar (1933). De Brunhoff’s son Laurent continued the series.”

Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

Term of Art: Token Economy

“token economy: A behavior therapy procedure in which tokens (such as coins or poker chips) are given for desired behavior. The tokens can then be exchanged for privileges or treats.”

Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.