As it is a common expression–both in its literal and metaphorical sense–in everyday English, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the seller’s market. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences and two comprehension questions.
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.
Edmund Wilson: (1895-1972) U.S. critic and essayist. Born in Red Bank, New Jersey, he attended Princeton University and initially worked as a reporter and magazine writer. Much of his writing, in which he probed diverse topics with scholarship and common sense in clear and precise prose, appeared in The New Republic and the New Yorker. Among his influential critical works are Axel’s Castle (1931), a survey of the Symbolist poets; To the Finland Station (1940), a study of the thinkers who set the stage for the Russian Revolution; and Patriotic Gore (1962), analyzing the American Civil War literature. His other writings include plays, poetry, the short-story collection Memories of Hecate County (1946), and five volumes of posthumously published journals. He was widely regarded as the leading critic of his time.
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
“social studies: A broad conglomeration of school studies that includes history, economics, geography, government, civics, and sociology, as well as consumer education, personal decision making, current events, global studies, environmental studies, ethnic studies, gender studies, and other nondisciplinary studies related to contemporary issues and the social sciences.”
Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.
Posted in Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged professional development, term of art
As I have always thought role modeling is an important element of any teaching practice, I think this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of a role model is a bit overdue. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of four straightforward sentences and three comprehension questions.
This document might be modified into a full-page worksheet with some critical questions about who might best be characterized as role model. In terms of design, the worksheet looks a bit crowded to me. It is, like just about everything on Mark’s Text Terminal, formatted in Microsoft Word for ease of adaptation, editing, or whatever else you might want to do with it for benefit of your students.
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.
“Bella Abzug originally Bella Savitsky: (1920-1998) U.S. lawyer and politician. Born in New York City, she studied law at Columbia University and subsequently took on numerous union, civil-liberties, and civil-right cases, representing several people charged by Senator Joseph McCarthy. She founded and chaired (1961-70) the antiwar Women Strike for Peace and later the National Women’s Political Caucus. In the House of Representatives (1971-77), she was known for her flamboyant style and outspoken support for the Equal Rights Amendment, abortion rights, and child-care legislation and opposition to the Vietnam War.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
For the final Friday of Women’s History Month 2026, here is a reading on Agrippina with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. She probably doesn’t figure in curricula anywhere, but I can imagine that she must–because she was a real piece of work–be of interest to students of certain intellectual proclivities.
Because she did murder her husband, the Emperor Claudius.
If you find typos in these documents, 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.
For a variety of reasons I have resisted posting, especially during Women’s History Month, this reading on Madonna and its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Why? I don’t know: maybe simple sexism? There is something about her that has always annoyed me. Maybe her apparent vanity? Maybe her ubiquity over a long span of time?
The fact remains that during the early 1990s, when I was an undergraduate at Hampshire College, a number of critics and scholars touted Madonna as a feminist icon. That’s not what I see when I look at her, but what do I know? In any case, Madonna at this point is unarguably a part of women’s history (however we all feel about that).
Does anyone still pay attention to her? On the chance that she still has an audience, I have tagged this as a high-interest item.
If you find typos in these documents, 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.
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Mary Baker Eddy. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences and three comprehension questions on the founder of Christian Science.
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.
For the second Friday of Women’s History Month 2026, here is a reading on Anne Hutchinson along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.
She wasn’t exactly the Gloria Steinem of her day, but Puritan officials did bounce her out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony because she would not stop holding religious meetings in her home.
If you find typos in these documents, 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.
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the National Organization for Women. This is a somewhat crowded half-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences and three comprehension questions. This might be better, if for no other reason than clean design, as a one-page worksheet: I notice I wrote the questions in such a way that they would fit into a half page. The reading supports more than three questions–and that’s without asking critical questions about the material.
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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