Category Archives: Reference

These are materials for teachers and parents, and you’ll find, in this category, teachers copies and answer keys for worksheets, quotes related to domain-specific knowledge in English Language Arts and social studies, and quotes on issues of professional concern. See the Taxonomies page for more about this category.

Media Art

Posted on August 25, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Media Art: When ‘media’ refers to the mass media rather than to a particular art medium, this term refers to a trend in art production that involves the representation of representations, i.e., the depiction or deconstruction of mainstream images of those societal groups traditionally marginalized and depicted as stereotypes (e.g., African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, gays and Lesbians). It has also come to include works appearing in mass media spaces, such as those usually reserved for advertising. Jenny Holzer’s fake television commercials on MTV are directed to an audience that might never enter a museum.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

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The Algonquin Wits: Dorothy Parker on Teaching Undergraduates

Posted on August 25, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Mrs. Parker taught for a time at Los Angeles State College, where she found the students very ‘narrow.’ When reading Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, for example, the students felt the book was too dirty. ‘But then Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize,’ Mrs. Parker recalled. ‘After that they behaved as if they had given it to him.’”

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

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Posted in English Language Arts, New York City, Quotes, Reference

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Term of Art: Modifier

Posted on August 25, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Modifier: A word or phrase that qualifies, describes, or limits the meaning of a word, phrase or, clause. Frayed ribbon, dancing flowers, worldly wisdom.”

Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.

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Term of Art: Affective

Posted on August 25, 2020 | Leave a comment

“affective: (Function, meaning) having to do with the speaker’s feelings. E.g. one might say, as a neutral statement, ‘I have finished it’; or one might say, with triumph or amazement, ‘I have actually finished it.’ What is said is in other respects the same, but the utterances differ in affective meaning. Also of the intonations themselves or of other individual units: e.g. beastly is an affective form in This is a beastly nuisance.

Also called ‘emotive,’ ‘expressive.’ Affective meaning has been distinguished variously from cognitive meaning, propositional meaning, or the representational or referential function of language.”

Excerpted from: Matthews, P.H., ed. The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

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5 Confucian Blessings

Posted on August 25, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Longevity * Wealth * Health * Civility * A Natural Death

The Five Blessings can be symbolized by a peach—a very auspicious Chinese symbol, linked with wishes for long life (often expressed by the number 10,000, with is suggestion of infinity of immortality). An image of nine peaches and five bats (linked to a peach because they sound familiar) is therefore coloured with all sorts of suggestions about all these blessing.”

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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Levelers

Posted on August 24, 2020 | Leave a comment

‘Levelers: In English history, a group of ultra-republicans during the Civil War, who wanted to give all men the right to vote, and to end class distinctions. John Lilburne (1614?-57) was one of the leaders of the sect, which was active from 1647 to 1649, when it was suppressed by Cromwell’s troops.

In Irish history, an illegal association of 18th-century agrarian agitators, also called Whiteboys.”

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

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Robert Maynard Hutchins on the Death of Democracy

Posted on August 24, 2020 | Leave a comment

“The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.”

Robert Maynard Hutchins

Great Books of the Western World, vol. I, ch. 10 (1952)

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

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Historical Term: African National Congress

Posted on August 24, 2020 | Leave a comment

“ANC. African National Congress, party formed in 1912 at Bloemfontein to protect the interests of black people in South Africa. It developed from the Native Education Association formed in 1882 in Cape Colony. In 1926 it decided to work for a democratic and racially integrated South Africa. It pursued non-violent tactics and many young Africans left it because of its lack of militancy. The South African government made it illegal in 1961. In the same year the ANC’s leader, Nelson Mandela (1918-2013), was tried for treason and acquitted. He was however, subsequently convicted of sabotage and sentenced to life imprisonment. Despite Mandela’s continuing detention, he remained the most potent symbol of the anti-apartheid movement and the ANC is still widely recognized—even by many white South Africans—as the most formidable champion of black rights.”

Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.

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Historical Term: Bourgeoisie

Posted on August 24, 2020 | Leave a comment

“bourgeoisie: (Fr. citizen class) Term used by Marxists to indicate those persons other than the agricultural capitalist who do not, like the proletariat, live by the sale of their labor. They include, on the one hand, industrialists, financiers and members of the liberal professions; on the other, small artisans and shopkeepers who are described as the ‘petty” bourgeoisie, although their standard of living may not be appreciably higher, and may even be lower, than that of the proletariat. According to Marxist theory, the bourgeoisie arose with modern industrialization, breaking feudal patterns of society and replacing the feudal lords of the ruling class; the petty bourgeoisie will gradually become proletarianized and the proletariat will then succeed its remaining members as masters of society.”

Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.

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Posted in Essays/Readings, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

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Fourth Dimension

Posted on August 24, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Fourth Dimension: A non-Euclidean geometrical concept that first became popular in France around 1910 and that may have influenced the Cubists. Picasso and Braque as well as Marcel Duchamp painted objects from multiple perspectives, suggesting a synthesis of views taken at various points in time. Contemporary artists such as Tony Robbin are once again dealing with issues of the fourth dimension by using computers and concepts based in physics and mathematics.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

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