Here is a short independent practice on the founder of the Mauryan Empire, Chandragupta Maurya.
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.
On a Tuesday morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concepts of yin and yang. This is one of the most recognizable and even well-known concepts in Chinese culture.
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 Babylonian epic poem. A myth of the creation of the world and the establishment of the divine hierarchy, it formed a part of the New Year festival, in which it may have been acted out. It is known as the Enuma elish, from its opening words. The first gods were Apzu and his wife Tiamat, personifications respectively of the fresh and salt waters. From their union sprang two obscure gods of the deep, Lahmu and Lahamu, who in turn gave birth to Anshar and Kishar. These were the parents of Anu, the sky. Anu was the father of Ea, the god of wisdom. After his birth, a multitude of other gods came into being, but they were such rowdy lot that Apzu, against Tiamat’s advice, determined to destroy them all. Ea, however, drugged Apzu and his dwarfish counselor, Mummu, killed Apzu, and imprisoned the dwarf. Tiamat promptly took the god Kingu for her consort.
Ea now married Damikina, who bore him Marduk, the storm god. A mighty prince, he was given to such pranks as putting the winds on a leash. Many of the gods grew resentful and asked the primal mother, Tiamat, to destroy him. She created a variety of hideous monsters and, placing Kingu at the head of her forces, prepared to make war against the principal gods, who supported Marduk. Ea and Anu were both quickly routed, but Anshar sent Marduk to fight Tiamat. Arming himself with a bow and arrows, a bludgeon of thunder, and a flail of lightning, the young storm god marched against the ancient goddess. After a terrible battle, he destroyed her and imprisoned her monsters in the depths of the earth. Splitting Tiamat’s body into two pieces, he formed the firmament with one half, the foundations of the earth from the other. He then determined the spheres of the chief gods: Anu was to rule the area above the firmament; Enlil, that between the firmament and the earth; and Ea, the waters below the earth. In order to find someone to serve the gods, he finally created a puppet man, out of the blood and bones of Kingu, who was killed for the purpose. In gratitude, the gods built the city of Babylon, which was crowned by a great shrine for Marduk.
This story, one of the oldest known creation myths, bears striking parallels to Greek myth, in which the primal father (Uranus) is destroyed by a descendant (Cronos), and later the young storm god (Zeus) defeats various monsters spawned by the primal mother (Ge) and imprisons them in the earth. Marduk’s killing of Tiamat has its counterpart in Baal’s killing of Yam, the dragon of the sea, in the Canaanite Poem of Baal.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
There aren’t many Mondays left in the 2017-2018 school year, and I’m glad. On this particular Monday, here is a short independent practice worksheet on Genghis Khan (i.e. homework).
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.
“People of Japan, residing throughout its four major islands. Pushed north by the Japanese people over the last 2,000 years, the few remaining pure Ainu today live principally in N Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and the Aleutians. Originally physically and culturally distinct from the Japanese, their language and origins and their role in Japanese history and prehistory have been the subject of scholarly debate. The Ainu were traditionally hunters, fisherman, and trappers; their religion centered on spirits believed to be present in animals and the natural world.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
Posted in Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
It’s Friday again, as the weeks and years spin by. Mark’s Text Terminal continues to observe Asian Pacific American Heritage Month by offering, as This week’s Text, a reading on novelist Amy Tan with this comprehension worksheet to accompany it. Also, her is an Everyday Edit exercise on Hiroshima (and if you like it, you can get a yearlong supply of them from the extremely generous proprietors of the Education World website.
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 short independent practice on the Daimyo, Japan’s feudal lords. This is key material for understanding Japan’s ruling class, and offers material for comparative study with feudal structures elsewhere in the world.
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.
“ni·sei \nē-ˈsā, ˈnē-ˌ\ n, pl nisei often cap [Jp, lit., second generation, fr. ni second + sei generation] (1929) : a son or daughter of Japanese immigrants who is born and educated in America and esp. in the U.S.”
Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition (Kindle Locations 248367-248370). Merriam-Webster, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, much of the work of which, as is relatively common knowledge (I hope), was done by Chinese immigrant labor.
That’s the reason it shows up during Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.
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.
“Forty-nine alone escapes the Eastern suspicion of anything to do with the number 4 (which has a tonal connection with the Chinese word for death). This is because it is the sum of seven times seven, and ‘seven’ is very propitious because it sounds like ‘arise’ and can also mean ‘togetherness.’ For the superstitious, rather than writing forty-nine by itself, seven times seven is often used or tacked on beside it. So forty-nine has become the Eastern world’s preferred length of time for fasting, and cleansing rituals, as well as being the period of time for a requiem ritual after a death.”
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
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