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.

Kingu

“A Babylonian demigod. Kingu was a general and consort of Tiamat in the War of the Gods. After her defeat, Marduk killed him and fashioned man out of his blood and bones.”

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

Ninlil

“A Sumerian goddess of air, the wife of Enlil. Following the advice of her old mother Nundarshegunu, Ninlil so delighted Enlil, the storm god, that he came to her in three different forms. The resulting offspring were Nergal, the king of the underworld, Ninazu, another underworld deity, and a third deity, who remains unknown.”

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

Nintu

“(Also called Ninhursag and Ninmah) A Sumerian mother goddess. Possibly a later form of the ancient earth goddess Ki, Nintu created human beings, molding six varieties of them from clay. To the water god Enki, she bore Ninsar, who in turn bore him Ninkur, upon whom Enki fathered Uttu, the goddess of plants. When Enki ate the plants, he was cursed by Nintu, but he eventually persuaded her to remove the curse, in return for various gifts.”

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

Marduk

“A Babylonian warrior god. Marduk was a son of Ea, the god of water and wisdom. When the other gods are terrified by the invasion of Tiamat, the dragon of the sea, Marduk slays her. He makes heaven and earth of the two halves of her body and creates man of the bones and blood of Kingu, one of Tiamat’s henchmen. Part of Marduk’s supremacy in the pantheon of Assyria and Babylonia was due to the fact that he was the local Baal of Babylon.”

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

Ninurta

“Sumerian and Babylonian god of war, the south wind, and artificial irrigation. Ninurta is the hero of a fragmentary epic poem that tells of his successful war on the dragon Kur. Following the advice of this talking weapon Sharur, Ninurta, a son of Enlil, moves against Kur, a monster often associated with the underworld. At first defeated, Ninurta returns to the battle and destroys Kur completely. Kur’s death, however, adversely affects the normal behavior of the waters, upon which the land depends for irrigation. Ninurta therefore guides the flood waters into the Tigris, and the fertility of the fields returns. Of the stones that were flung in the battle with Kur, Ninurta blesses those that had been on his side and curses the others. In many respects this myth is the forerunner of innumerable others in which the hero slays the dragon.”

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

Tiamat

“In Babylonian mythology, the primeval sea seen as a dragon goddess. The wife of Apsu, the ancient god of the fresh waters, Tiamat was the mother of all the gods. In the famous creation myth of the War of the Gods, she fights against the younger gods, but is killed by Marduk, who, splitting her body, makes heaven of the upper half and earth of the lower.”

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

Bel

“The supreme Babylonian god of the earth and atmosphere, called the god of lords. Said to have created man and the universe, Bel symbolizes male generative power. Bel is the same word as Baal in Phoenician and Hebrew.

In Bel and the Dragon, an Old Testament Apocryphal book appended to the book of Daniel, Daniel exposes the trickery of the priest of Bel in Babylon and convinces the king that Bel is only an image and not an actual living deity.”

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

Yang, Chen Ning/Frank Yang

“Yang Chen Ning, known as Frank Yang (b. 1922) Chinese-U.S. theoretical physicist. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1945 and studied with E. Teller at the Univ. of Chicago. He showed that parity is violated when elementary particles decay. This and other work in particle physics earned him and Tsung-Dao Lee (b. 1926) a 1957 Nobel Prize. His research focused mostly on interactions involving the weak force among elementary particles. He also worked in statistical mechanics.”

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

Matsuo Basho

“Matsuo Basho (1644-1694): Japanese haiku poet. Basho is generally acknowledged as the developer and greatest master of this form. His haiku went through many phases, evolving from the pedantic verse of his early youth to his lighthearted poetry of his last years. The work of his peak period is characterized by evocations of man’s ultimate harmony with nature. A wanderer for much of his life, Basho also wrote travel sketches interspersed with haiku. Oi no kobumi (1688; tr The Records of a Travel-Worn Satchel, 1966) is famous for its opening passages, which reveal his basic beliefs, but the best work in this genre is Oku no hosomichi (1689; tr The Narrow Road to the Deep North, 1966), which, outwardly describing his journey to rural areas of northeastern Japan, inwardly traces his spiritual quest for a beauty and lyricism all but lost in urban life.”

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

John Dewey Dissects Teaching “Content”

“From the standpoint of the educator…the various studies represent working resources, available capital. Their remoteness from the experience of the young…is real. The subject matter of the learner…cannot be identical with the formulated, crystallized knowledge of the adult…. Failure to bear in mind the difference…is responsible for most of the mistakes made in the use of texts and other expressions of preexisting knowledge.”

John Dewey

Democracy and Education

Excerpted from: Wiggins, Grant, and Jay McTighe. Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 1998.