Tag Archives: cultural literacy

Cultural Literacy: Geronimo

OK, moving right along this morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Geronimo. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences and three comprehension questions. The text is thorough and brief, a hallmark, I think, of the entries in The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy (Hirsch, E.D., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2002).

Amazingly, you can find a PDF of this The Dictionary here. I’ve been copying and pasting out of this PDF, which is why of late I have produced so many new Cultural Literacy worksheets. This PDF makes them much easier to assemble.

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: Quetzalcoatl

Alright, let’s wrap up this week’s documents posts with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on Quetzalcoatl. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of one short compound sentence and two questions. In other words, once again, the sparest of introductions to this important Aztec deity.

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: Montezuma

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Montezuma. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two simple sentences and two comprehension questions. This document, I think, epitomizes the concept of the do-now exercise: you know, something to settle students at the beginning of  class session after a change of instructional periods? This is a spare introduction to Montezuma, more properly spelled Moctezuma, but a good place to start, I think, a discussion of the conquistadors in what we now call Latin America.

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: Native Americans

This Cultural Literacy worksheet on Native Americans is a full-page worksheet with a reading of four sentences–all but one of which are longish compounds that may need to be broken up and recast for emergent readers and English language learners–and four comprehension questions. It’s a shorter version, I suppose, of last week’s Text.

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: Incas

Last but not least this morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Incas. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences and three comprehension questions. A clear, cogent, and symmetrical introduction to a great civilization.

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: French and Indian Wars

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the French and Indian War in the British Colonies in North America. This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of five sentences and five comprehension questions. The reading explicitly connect sthe French and Indian War to the Seven Years War, which I’ve rarely seen done in social studies classrooms where I have been a co-teacher. In general, historians regard the French and Indian War as the North American theater of the Seven Years 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: Stanza

OK, moving right along this morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of a stanza in poetry and poetics. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences and two comprehension questions. A clear, simple, and symmetrical introduction to this important concept in studying poetry.

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: Loch Ness Monster

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Loch Ness Monster, a subject of no small fascination for me when I was a child in school (which is why I have tagged it as high-interest material, which I suspect it will still be for a certain type of elementary school student). This is a half-page worksheet with a two-sentence reading, both longish compounds, so you may want to take a look at them if you have emergent readers or English language learners on your hands, and three comprehension questions.

Somewhere along the line, I gathered the impression that Nessie, as the monster is affectionately known, was definitively disproved as a hoax. The reading in this document does not mention it, nor, particularly, does the Wikipedia page for the Loch Ness Monster. (The page, at its bottom, however, does warn that the article “…may lend undue weight to fringe sources and hypotheses.” For my part, I remain–mostly–agnostic.)

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: Janus

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Janus, the “Roman god of doors and gateways and hence of beginnings,” as the four-sentence reading on this document explains. There are three comprehension questions accompanying the reading. I remember puzzling over Janus, the two-faced god, mostly because of the multiplicity and complexity of his myth and interpretation. As you probably know, Janus is represented with two faces, one young and one old, looking in opposite directions.

But did you know that the month of January is named for him? Or that to be Janus-faced is to be duplicitous, or two-faced? While I understand the image of Janus (if nothing else from watching films from the production company bearing his name), I have struggled for some reason with some of the abstractions that appear with his name on them.

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: Don Quixote

OK, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Don Quixote for the final documents post of this blog’s observation of Hispanic Heritage Month 2023. This is a full-page worksheet with a four-sentence reading and six comprehension questions. Perhaps it’s length does not befit this landmark in world literature (confession: I am always reading this book–I keep it by my bedside and read a few pages each week; when I finish, I open the front cover and start again. It really is that good), but it is a solid introduction to this truly great book.

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.