Tag Archives: cultural literacy

Cultural Literacy: Hiawatha

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Hiawatha. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of four sentences and four comprehension questions about an actual person shrouded in myth.

When I reviewed this document just now, it looked, unsurprisingly, a bit crammed. It might be better revised as a full-page worksheet. If it happens that you are teaching Henry Wadsworth Longellow’s poem (i.e. the aforementioned myth, which in any case I rather doubt is much taught anywhere, anymore) about Hiawatha, “The Song of Hiawatha,” I imagine there might be a place for this worksheet.

Otherwise, I don’t know. I do know I can think of several English teachers I worked with who wouldn’t know either Longfellow or one of his most famous poems.

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.

Cultural Literacy: Aborigines

Moving right along this morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of an aborigine. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences and three comprehension questions.

This, as is often the case with The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, informs its user that the word aborigine means “the earliest known inhabitants of a region,” though the word is often used to refer to “the native hunting and gathering population of Australia.” In the English vernacular, that is probably the first association that comes to mind for most users of this word. If you use it to refer to the aboriginal peoples of Australia, then it is a proper noun and requires capitalization.

In general, the adjectives aboriginal and indigenous are roughly synonymous.

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.

Cultural Literacy: Manifest Destiny

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of Manifest Destiny in United States history. This ideological oddity, which is really more of a theological than a political and social concept, held that Americans were destined, perhaps by the will of God, to expand across America to the Pacific Ocean.

In other words, basically a garbage idea that was used to justify and conduct a genocide against the aboriginal inhabitants of this continent.

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.

Cultural Literacy: Iroquois League

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Iroquois League. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of on sentence and one comprehension question. In other words, a short, basic introduction to this indigenous nation.

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.

Cultural Literacy: Yucatan

OK, last but not least in documents posts for Hispanic Heritage Month 2024, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Yucatan. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences and three comprehension questions. The document does note that the Yucatan is the site of “many Mayan ruins.”

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.

Cultural Literacy: Uruguay

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Uruguay. This is a full-page worksheet with a three-sentence reading and four comprehension questions.

Incidentally, should you be interested in delving deeper into Uruguayan politics and society, I published this blog post on Tupac Amaru II, who was the namesake of a Uruguayan revolutionary group the Tupamaros, whose work resisting a repressive governments led the way to Uruguay becoming a “full democracy,” indeed, one of the strongest democracies in the Americas.

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.

Cultural Literacy: Valencia

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Valencia. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of one extremely short (i.e. eight words) sentence and one comprehension question. I would use this with struggling or emergent readers, then help them find Valencia on a map: in other words, find a correspondence between word and image.

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.

Cultural Literacy: The Santa Fe Trail

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Santa Fe Trail. William Becknell pioneered this road in 1821 as a commercial route between St. Louis, Missouri and Santa Fe, New Mexico (which wasn’t, of course, a state at that time–it became a state in 1912). Along with the freight that moved along this road, inevitably, settlers began to follow. This was the beginning of the United States’ endeavor to help itself to territory that was at the time part of Mexico–which of course culminated in the Mexican-American War.

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.

Cultural Literacy: Francisco Pizarro

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Francisco Pizarro. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of one sentence and two comprehension questions. In other words, just the basics on this conquistador who trashed the Inca Empire.

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.

Cultural Literacy: Los Angeles

This Cultural Literacy worksheet on Los Angeles reflects little on Hispanic Heritage Month, alas, on whose educational content this and all other blog posts here seek to address, other than its Spanish name. In any case, this is a full-page worksheet with a reading of five sentences and six comprehension questions. It covers a lot of bases in those five sentences, including the 1965 Watts Uprising, the beating of Rodney King by officers of the Los Angeles Police Department, the presence of Hollywood, a center of the American popular entertainment industry, as well as the the poor air quality found in that city.

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.