Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Baghdad. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three short sentences–one of which succinctly states that “Baghdad has long been one of the great cities of the Muslim world”–and three 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.
This week’s Text, in observance of the fourth Friday of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2025, is this reading on Yasir Arafat along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.
I’m hard pressed to imagine there is much, if any, demand for these documents; moreover, I understand that Yasir Arafat is a controversial figure. But I also understand that however one perceives Arafat and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), he is an important figure in the the history of part of the world we, after the ancient Greeks and Romans, call Asia.
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.
“Sanskrit language: Old Indo-Aryan language, the classic literary language of Hinduism. The most ancient form is Vedic, attested in its earliest forms in parts of the Rig Veda, dating from the late 2nd millennium BC. Late Vedic Sanskrit was described and codified in a grammar by Panini, dating from about the 5th century BC. Literary activity in so-called Classical Sanskrit, in many respects close to the language described by Panini, flourished c.500 BC-c.AD 1000. Today, Sanskrit (now usually written in the Devanagari script) serves as a learned language for Brahman scholars. It is an archaic Indo-European language with an elaborate system of nominal and verbal inflection.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
This week’s Text, for week three of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2025, is this reading on Mohandas Gandhi with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.
I think it’s safe to assume that I needn’t belabor the world historical importance of the man the world knows by his honorific, Mahatma.
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.
“Showa period: (1926-1989) Period of Japanese history corresponding to the reign of Hirohito, the Showa emperor. The Showa period saw the militarism of the 1930s and Japan’s disastrous participation in World War II, resulting in the nations complete collapse and ultimate surrender. The postwar era was one of rehabilitation, marked by such successes as its joining the U.N. in 1956, hosting the 1964 Olympics, and holding the Osaka World Exposition in 1970. Japan experienced a so-called ‘economic miracle,’ with growth averaging 10% in 1955-60 and higher in the years following. In the 1980s, the Japanese economy became one of the world’s largest and most sophisticated, with per capita income surpassing that of the U.S. Japanese society became increasingly urban, with one-tenth of the population living in Tokyo by the mid-1980s. U.S. influence on popular culture was very strong, and young Japanese emulated their U.S. counterparts in every way possible. The Showa period also saw more people living in nuclear families than in extended families, love marriage rather than arranged marriages, fewer children, and more opportunities for women. See also Hesei period, Occupation (of Japan).”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
Posted in Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged asian-pacific history, professional development, readings/research
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Siberia, that vast area of the Eurasian, or Asian, continent, depending on how you parse these things.
This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences and four comprehension questions. Let me extend the usual warning about the reading: these are long, complicated compound sentences that really will need to be separated and made simpler for emergent or struggling readers. There is a clause about the metaphor “sent to Siberia” as a form of punishment by isolation that could be omitted–or not, if you are interested in assisting your students make connections between the concrete and the abstract.
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.
“Sikkim: Eastern Himalayas, northeastern India, Mt. Kanchenjunga, third-highest peak in the world, forms its western border. It has an area of 2,744 square miles (7,107 square kilometers); the capital, Gangtok, is the only urban center. As an independent country, it fought prolonged wars in the 18th and 19th centuries with Bhutan and Nepal. It first came under British influence in 1817, though it remained an independent buffer between British India and Tibet. In 1950 it became an Indian protectorate, and in 1975, a state of India. One of India’s smallest states, it exports agricultural products and is one of the world’s main producers of cardamom. Its mineral resources include copper, lead, zinc, coal, iron ore, and garnets.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
Posted in Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged asian-pacific history, professional development, readings/research
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Suharto who bears that name alone because, according to his Wikipedia page, “In this Indonesian name, there is no family name or patronymic.” This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences and four questions.
And here, I suppose, is another item that surely has vanishingly little currency in classrooms in the United States, despite this nation’s meddling in Indonesian affairs, including support for Suharto, whose dictatorship was one of the most corrupt and brutal in the bloody twentieth century.
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 week of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2025, Mark’s Text Terminal offers as its Weekly Text this reading on Deng Xiaoping along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.
I cannot imagine that there will be much, if any, demand for these materials; but when I taught at a school near Chinatown in New York City, there were enough kids interested in the topic of Chinese Communist Party succession (and therefore Deng Xiaoping) that I prepared this worksheet to accompany the reading from The Intellectual Devotional series.
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.
“Assassins: A small Islamic sect. For two hundred years, it terrified Europe with its secret murders. It was founded by Hassan-i-Sabbah near the end of the 11th century. From the impregnable mountain stronghold of Alamut in Persia and later from the Syrian stronghold of Masyad, the Assassins harried the Crusaders and their rival Islamic sects, remaining unbroken in power even by the great Saladin. They were finally destroyed in the 13th century by the Tatar prince Hulagu and, somewhat later, in Syria, by the Egyptian Sultan Baybars.
The name Assassins is derived from hashish, a drug made from hemp, with which, according to tradition, the victorious Assassins were rewarded upon their return from successful depredations. The secret of their long reign of terror was the absolute obedience that the young men of the sect were required to give to their leaders. The name of the sect soon came into the language of Europe as a synonym for murder.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
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