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.

Megavitamins and ADHD

Posted on December 17, 2019 | Leave a comment

“megavitamins and ADHD: the use of very high doses of vitamins and minerals to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is based on the theory that some people have a genetic abnormality that requires higher levels of vitamins and minerals.

However, there is a complete lack of supporting evidence for megavitamin treatment for learning disabilities, and there are no well-controlled studies supporting these claims. Both the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics have concluded that the use of megavitamins to treat behavioral and learning problems is not justified.”

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

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4 Continents

Posted on December 17, 2019 | Leave a comment

“Europe * Asia * Africa * America

The four continents might seem to fit into the ancient sacred categories of 4 very neatly, but the concept is comparatively recent. Before the maritime discoveries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the fundamental concept was of three continents–Asia, Europe and Africa–knitted together by such lynch-pins of the world as Jerusalem and Constantinople, Antioch or Alexandria.”

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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Write It Right: Admission for Admittance

Posted on December 16, 2019 | Leave a comment

“Admission for Admittance. ‘The price of admission is one dollar.’”

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

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A Glossary of Terms from Martha Stone Wiske’s “Teaching for Understanding”

Posted on December 16, 2019 | Leave a comment

Last week, after reading a few pages each morning with my coffee before leaving for work, I finished Martha Stone Wiske’s (ed.) Teaching for Understanding: Linking Research to Practice (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997); yesterday I finished its companion, The Teaching for Understanding Guide by Tina Blythe (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997). From the latter, I cribbed this glossary of Teaching for Understanding terms if you’re inclined to use this planning and instructional framework.

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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Generative Topics in Teaching for Understanding

Posted on December 16, 2019 | Leave a comment

“Generative topics have several key features: They are central to one of more disciplines or domains. They are interesting to students. They are accessible to student (there are lots of resources available to help students pursue the topic). There are multiple connections between them and students’ experiences both in and out of school. And perhaps most important, they are interesting to the teacher.”

Excerpted from: Blythe, Tina, et al. The Teaching for Understanding Guide. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998.

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H.L. Mencken on Platitudes

Posted on December 13, 2019 | Leave a comment

“Platitude: an idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true.”

H.L. Mencken

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

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Aryans

Posted on December 13, 2019 | Leave a comment

“Aryans: The people of the Rigveda, who invaded Iran and India from the northwest in the later 2nd millenium BC, By one theory they were responsible for the downfall of Indus Civilization. Their language was an early form of Sanskrit, the most easterly of the Indo-European tongues, but the use of their name to describe other Indo-European speakers is to be strongly deprecated.”

Excerpted from: Bray, Warwick, and David Trump. The Penguin Dictionary of Archaeology. New York: Penguin, 1984.

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Term of Art: Aporia

Posted on December 13, 2019 | Leave a comment

“Aporia: An aporia is a puzzling condition or situation. The rhetorical application of aporia is to pretend to an inability or confess to an actual inability to resolve a problem or answer a question. One might say of a political figure whom one was attacking, ‘I don’t know what he lost first, his ability to tell the truth from a lie or his ability to behave morally.’ The device is often used when the question is being begged. A homely version of it is the often-heard comment ‘How can people be so stupid’ uttered when something the speaker disapproves of has just happened.”

Excerpted from: Trail, George Y. Rhetorical Terms and Concepts: A Contemporary Glossary. New York: Harcourt Brace, 2000.

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Britannicus

Posted on December 13, 2019 | Leave a comment

“Britannicus: (original name Claudius Tiberius Germanicus, c AD 41-55) Son of Messalina and the emperor Claudius I, heir apparent to the throne. Through the scheming of his mother, Agrippina, he was denied succession to the throne. It is believed that Nero, his half brother, poisoned Britannicus at a banquet. The name Britannicus was given to him by the senate because the conquest of Britain took place at about the time of his birth. He is the subject of a tragedy (1669) by Racine.”

“Britannicus: A tragedy by Racine. The material of the play is derived from Tacitus. Smitten with Junia, the beloved of his half brother Britannicus, the emperor Nero attempts to win her; unsuccessful, he causes Britannicus to be arrested and poisons him. Junia escapes from the palace and becomes a vestal virgin. The play abounds in political subplots and marks Racine’s first challenge of Corneille on the older playwright’s home ground: political drama.

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

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Rotten Rejections: A Barbara Pym Omnibus

Posted on December 13, 2019 | Leave a comment

[I think this Wikipedia article on Barbara Pym will provide some much needed context to this particular literary travesty.]

“An Unsuitable Attachment (1963)

Novels like (this), despite their qualities, are getting increasingly difficult to sell.

The Sweet Dove Died (1978)

Not the kind of thing to which people are turning.”

Excerpted from: Bernard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.

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