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.

Kingsley Amis on the Point of Writing

Posted on October 23, 2017 | Leave a comment

“If you can’t annoy somebody, there’s little point in writing.”

Kingsley Amis

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.

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Rotten Rejections: Zuleika Dobson, by Max Beerbohm

Posted on October 19, 2017 | Leave a comment

(It’s worth noting here that this novel, Zuleika Dobson, a satire of undergraduate life at Oxford, is included in Modern Library’s List of the 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century in the English Language (it’s number 59). At the time of the list’s publication, I recall many critics remarking that for this type of academic satire, Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis or The Groves of Academe by Mary McCarthy would have been better choices.

“I do not think it would interest us. The author is more highly esteemed by himself than by anyone else, and has never reached any high standard in his literary work.”

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

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The Devil’s Dictionary: Clairvoyant

Posted on October 18, 2017 | Leave a comment

“Clairvoyant, n. A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron—namely, that he is a blockhead.”

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

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Edith Hamilton on the Real Aim of Education

Posted on October 16, 2017 | Leave a comment

“It has always seemed strange to me that in our endless discussions about education so little stress is laid on the pleasure of becoming an educated person, the enormous interest it adds to life. To be able to be caught up in the world of thought—that is to be educated.”

Edith Hamilton (1867-1963)

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

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Rotten Reviews: George Bernard Shaw on Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar

Posted on October 12, 2017 | Leave a comment

”There is not a single sentence uttered by Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar that is, I will not say worthy of him, but worthy of an average Tammany boss.”

George Bernard Shaw, Saturday Review

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

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H.L. Mencken on High School

Posted on October 10, 2017 | Leave a comment

“It is one of the capital tragedies of youth—and youth is the time of tragedy—that the young are thrown mainly with adults they do not quite respect.”

H.L. Mencken

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.

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The Devil’s Dictionary: Administration (n)

Posted on October 5, 2017 | Leave a comment

“Administration, n. An ingenious abstraction in politics, designed to receive the kicks and cuffs due to the premier or president. A man of straw, proof against bad-egging and dead-catting.”

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

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Ralph Waldo Emerson Anticipates Sigmund Freud

Posted on October 4, 2017 | Leave a comment

“He then learns that in going down into the secrets of his own mind, he has descended into the secrets of all minds.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

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

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A Greek and Latin Word Root Master List for Roots Appearing on Mark’s Text Terminal

Posted on October 3, 2017 | Leave a comment

Although I’ve posted this document  in the Word Roots Worksheets section of the About Weekly Texts page on the masthead here at Mark’s Text Terminal, here again is my master list of Greek and Latin word roots at the request of several students in my Wednesday institute class. You guys here at HSE&F, Just click on that hyperlink, and the document will download to the desktop of your computer. Anyone else interested in this document, do the same.

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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Rotten Rejections: Julia Child, et al

Posted on October 2, 2017 | Leave a comment

Rotten Rejections: Mastering the Art of French Cooking, by Julia Child, Simone Beck, and Louisette Bertholle.

“What we envisage as saleable…is perhaps a series of small books devoted to particular portions of the meal…. We also feel that such a series should meet a rigorous standard of simplicity and compactness, certainly less elaborate than your present volumes, which, although we are sure are foolproof, are undeniably demanding in the time and focus of the cook, who is so apt to be a mother, nurse, chauffeur, and cleaner as well.”

“…It is a big, expensive cookbook of elaborate information and might well prove formidable to the American housewife. She might easily clip one of these recipes but be frightened by the book as a whole.”

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

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