“stovepipe organization: An organization whose different functions are separated so that each department has a narrow, rigid set of responsibilities and there is little discussion or collaboration among the various sectors.”
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
OK, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the incident at Kent State University on 4 May 1970. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of four sentences (the final sentence is a complicated compound that might benefit, particularly for struggling or emergent readers, from simplification) and three comprehension questions.
This document seems a bit crowded to me, and may well cause struggling students some problems. It might be better as a full-page worksheet; and depending how deeply your class is studying this event (if at all), a closer analysis may be de rigueur.
Then again, are we teaching the concepts of resistance and civil strife in our social studies classes? If not, this document is surely superfluous.
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.
Alright, moving right along this morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Julius Caesar. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of five sentences and three comprehension questions. The document seems a bit crowded to me, and may be better formatted as a full-page worksheet. I suppose that will depend on how deep an examination of Julius Caesar your world history or global studies curriculum calls for (or if you are dealing with Shakespeare’s play, which is based on Plutarch’s account of events following Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon).
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 end-of-the-summer-break Text is this reading on the Great Depression with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. You probably won’t be surprised to hear that this is another set from the Intellectual Devotional series; I still have over two hundred of these in a drafts folder for future use. Some are more relevant than others. Yet I think it can’t hurt to be fully prepared to meet student interest when it arises.
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.
“semantic cueing: A strategy used to help an individual retrieve or read a word by giving hints with words of similar meaning. For example, it an individual is trying to remember the word compliment, giving the semantic cue praise may help make a meaningful connection to the word in question.
Similarly, cueing can be used to help an individual read an individual word. For example, if a reader stumbles on the word psychologist, an instructor may give the semantic cue a therapist or a doctor for your mind rather than providing a phonetic or decoding cue, such as ‘psych is pronounced sike.’”
Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Roman emperor Nero. This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of six relatively simple sentences and six comprehension questions. It’s a surprisingly thorough account of the life of this legendarily cruel, self-serving figure, but, once again, I suppose I have come to expect that from The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy.
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.
“Monday/Lundi * Tuesday/Mardi * Wednesday/Mercredi * Thursday/Jeudi * Friday/Vendredi * Satuday/Samedi Sunday/Dimanche
Our seven-day week is a straight inheritance from very ancient Babylonian and Jewish traditions that took the seven planets as one of the ordering principles of humanity and divinity. The main alternatives were the Egyptian ten-day week, the Germano-Celtic nine-night week and the eight-day week for the Etruscans. The latter was inherited by the Romans, for it allowed for a specific market-day, which enabled country-dwellers to come to the cities and sell fruit and vegetables (which lasted only eight days). During Julius Caesar’s calendar reforms the seven-day week was introduced to the Near East, though it ran alongside the old Etruscan traditions until the time Constantine.
And some time during that period, between 200 and 600 AD, the current charming muddle of English names was hatched out, part honouring the Roman pantheon and part the Norse-German deities. For Monday is moon day, Tuesday is the day to Tiw/Tyr’s day (the heroic Teutonic sky god), Wednesday is Woden/Odin’s (the Teutonic/Norse god of knowledge and war), Thursday is the day of Thor (the Teutonic smith-god of thunder)), Friday is the day of Frija/Freyr (the Teutonic goddess of fertility), Saturday is Saturn (the father of Zeus)’s day, and Sunday is of course the sun’s day.
The same process happened in France, ossifying that peculiar junction point between Roman paganism and the new Christian order. So the French have Lundi (from the Latin dies Lunae, or moon day), Mardi (dies Martis, or Mars day), Mercredi (dies Mercurii, or Mercury day), Jeudi (dies Jovis, or Jupiter day), Vendredi (dies Veneris, Venus day), Samedi (dies Saturni, Saturn day) and Dimanche (dies Dominicus, day of the lord).
In the well-ordered Christian state of Byzantium, all these pagan relics were ditched in favor of days 1, 2, 3 and 4, followed by Paraskene (preparation), Sabbaton and finally Kyriaki (God’s day). These remain the days in modern Greek.”
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.
“Banality: The political philosopher Hannah Arendt confused the meaning of this word by introducing in 1961 her brilliant but limiting concept ‘the banality of evil.’ In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a minor political figure, Brian Mulroney, released the term by demonstrating that it could also reasonably be understood to mean the evil of banality.”
Excerpted from: Saul, John Ralston. The Doubter’s Companion. New York: The Free Press, 1994.
Because it turns up in various social studies textbooks, I whipped up this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the pogrom as a form of civil strife to provide context for, well, for the history of Europe from 1850 to 1950. 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.
“Roland * Oliver de Vienne * Naimon of Bavaria * Archbishop Turpin * Ogier the Dane * Huon de Bordeaux * Fierabras * Renaud de Montauban * Ganelon * Guy de Bourgogne * William of Gellone * Giard de Rousillon * Aymeri de Narbonne
The Twelve Paladins (or Twelve Peers) dominated the imagination of medieval Europe for at lest 500 years. At the heart of the story is a band of twelve noble nights who assist the Emperor Charlemagne in defending Christendom form the assaults of Saracens from the south (especially Muslim Spain) and pagans from the north, Into this central epic are woven fragments of Norse and classical mythology, doomed love, chivalric duels, legendary quests, as well as real battles transformed into romantic legend. This bundle of stories is known as The Matter of France and is consciously interlinked with The Matter of Britain (the Arthurian cycle of tales) and The Matter of Rome.
There are many variant lists of the Twelve Peers but the first seven given here have to be included. Roland, an historical marcher-lord of the Carolingian Breton frontier, fated to die protecting the Christian army at the battle fought at the Roncevaux Pass, is at the center of the tale. Key tales recount how he won his horse Veillantif, his magical sword Durendal and his battle-horn Oliphant. Second in chivalric glory is Oliver, brother of Roland’s love, Aude. Naimon is the German straight guy, Charlemagne’s most dependable soldier and father of Sir Bertram. Archbishop Turpin of Reims is a historical figure who died in 800 AD fused with another warrior cleric. Ogier is both knight-errant and the once and future king of Denmark, asleep beneath Kronborg Castle wrapped up in his beard. Huon is set a series of near impossible quests by his emperor to cleanse him of the blood-guilt of killing Prince Charlot. Fierabras is the Saracen champion who converts to Christianity.
Renaud is another major figure, supported by three brothers (Alard, Guiscard, and Richard), a magical sword (Froberge) and a magical horse (Bayard). Ganelon is the Judas-like traitor within the band of twelve brothers who will be torn apart by four wild horses. Guy de Bourgogne marries the Saracen beauty Floripas (sister of Fierabras). And William of Gellone is the archetypally adventurous second son who advances himself to become the Marquis Court Nez.
But unifying all these characters is their purity and chivalry. So a Spanish soldier about to be executed on the banks of the Rio Plate in Argentina in 1536 could look his commander in the eye and declare, ‘Some days things will as God wills, and the Twelve Peers will rule,’ and know that these last words would be remembered by his comrades.”
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.
 | A Measurement Conver… on An Elegantly Simple Cooking Co… |
| A Measurement Conver… on The Weekly Text, October 25, 2… |
 | markstextterminal on Cree |
 | panzer046a139293db on Cree |
| markstextterminal on Cree |
Mark's Text Terminal 
You must be logged in to post a comment.