“Autocrat, n. A dictatorial gentleman with no other restraint upon him than the hand of the assassin. The founder of that great political institution, the dynamite bomb-shell system.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged humor, literary oddities
Over time, I’ve posted several items like this learning support of basic literary terms. This one is something I assembled for a specific class that was dealing with the terms outlined. Like everything else here at Mark’s Text Terminal, it’s a Microsoft Word document, so you can manipulate the text for your classroom needs.
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.
“A novel (1922) by James Joyce (1882-1941), regarded by many as the 20th century’s most important work of fiction in the English language. The novel is famous for its innovative use of language and its experimental use of stream-of-consciousness techniques. T.S. Eliot commented: ‘James Joyce has no style but is the vacuum into which all styles rush.’ The book was published by a small press in Paris in 1922, after three US judges banned further publication of chapters in the United States, and it was immediately acclaimed as a work of genius.
The narrative centres on a single day, 16 June 1904, the day on which Joyce had his first formal date with Nora Barnacle (1884-1951), a barmaid with whom he shared the rest of his life. The book tells of the day in the life of its Jewish-Irish hero, Leopold Bloom, his wife Molly, and Stephen Dedalus, the protagonist of the author’s A Portrait of the Artist as as a Young Man (1916). The structure of the book is intended to parallel that of Homer’s Odyssey, with Odysseus’s decade of wandering compared to Bloom’s single day of roaming in Dublin. Bloom thus represents Odysseus (whom the Romans called Ulysses), Molly answers approximately to Odysseus’s wife Penelope and Dedalus corresponds to his son, Telemachus. Joyce described his Homeric parallel–which he worked out in considerable detail–as a bridge across which he could march his 18 episodes, after which the bridge could be ‘blown skyhigh.’ 16 June is now often known (and celebrated), especially in Ireland, as ‘Bloomsday.’
Ulysses was eventually cleared for publication in the United States, the judge concluding: ‘Whilst in many places the effect of Ulysses on the reader undoubtedly is somewhat emetic, nowhere does it tend to be an aphrodisiac.’
It was published in the United States in 1934, and in Britain in 1936.
In 2001 The Bookseller magazine reported that a bookshop assistant had been asked for a copy of James Joyce Is Useless.”
Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged fiction/literature, readings/research
“Sanguine * Choleric * Melancholic * Phlegmatic
The Four Humours or Temperaments were a foundation of European medieval medical philosophy. The ideal was for a balance of the four, which were conceived to be based on the properties of blood (Sanguis), yellow bile (Khole), black bile (Melas), and Phlegm in the body.
A predominance of Sanguine was believed to create an easy-going, sociable, pleasure-seeking type. A choleric character was fiery, strident, and ambitious. Melancholic was watery and emotional and created thoughtful, introverted and intellectual types. Phlegmatic was slow and earthy but also governed the most relaxed, content and quiet of types.”
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.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged health, science literacy
Over the winter, I finished some materials for health literacy that I’d been procrastinated on for, literally, years. I’ll be posting these regularly over the next couple of years, I suppose–I have a total of 76 of them.
Anyway, this reading on oppositional defiant disorder and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet strike me as a good place to start: this has turned out to be relatively high-interest material to the students in whose interest I currently toil.
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 you global studies (or world history, or whatever your district calls it), teachers, here, if you can use it, is an independent practice worksheet on Greece.
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.
“When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.”
The Left Hand of Darkness ch. 3 (1969)
Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged fiction/literature, humor, women's history
Here is an Everyday Edit worksheet on Anne Frank. And let me say for the last time this month, to give credit where credit where credit is overwhelmingly due, that if you and your students like working on these short grammar exercises, the good people at Education World generously give away a yearlong supply of them–just click on that long hyperlink.
You don’t need to bother with advising me on typos in this document–they’re there for a reason.
OK, here is a reading on Princess Diana and the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that accompanies it. I have been surprised at how many of the young women I teach took an interest in this.
But then, I guess I’ve never understand the appeal or allure of the British royal family. I know it’s harsh, but I have always concurred with Elvis Costello’s assessment of the royals, uttered in a 1989 interview with Rolling Stone magazine. When asked about playing at a Prince’s Trust benefit concert at Buckingham Palace, Costello replied: “No. I wouldn’t do anything with the royal family. They’re scum. Why do we subsidize this family of buffoons? What makes them so damn important? I just don’t understand why we subsidize people who seem to just go on holiday all the time. So no, you won’t be seeing Elvis Costello live at Buckingham Palace.”
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.
“Women have been called queens for a long time, but the kingdom given them isn’t worth ruling.”
An Old-Fashioned Girl ch. 13 (1870)
Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
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