Tag Archives: cultural literacy

Cultural Literacy: Semite

Here’s a Cultural Literacy worksheet explaining the Semites, their origins, and their modern ethnicity.

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: Stamp Act

Ok, finally on this beautiful Friday morning in early August, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Stamp Act. This is a piece of legislation from the British Parliament that was a contributing factor to the American Revolution.

In other words, vital prior knowledge for understanding the origins of the United States.

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: Tax Deduction

Here’s a Cultural Literacy worksheet on tax deductions. This is a concept graduating seniors probably ought to understand as they begin their adult lives.

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 Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Footsteps in the Dark”

Moving right along this morning, here is another lesson plan on a Crime and Puzzlement case, “Footsteps in the Dark.”

I begin this lesson, to get students settled after a class change, with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom money burning a hole in one’s pocket. Students and teacher will need the PDF of the illustration and questions of this case to investigate and solve it. Finally, here is the typescript of the answer key for this case.

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.

Cultural Literacy: Voucher

Because the United States Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, has made school voucher programs the white paper in her policy brief, this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of a voucher seems like something to put before my fellow educators. Public school parents and students should understand the implications of Secretary DeVos’s proposals for their communities and schools. The basic explanation on the attached worksheet is as good a place as any to start.

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: Henry David Thoreau

This Cultural Literacy worksheet on Henry David Thoreau is a good–and perhaps more importantly, short–general introduction to the this paragon of Transcendentalism and important American thinker and writer.

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: Vested Interest

Alright, I think this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of a vested interest would complement the reading, one post below this one, on the military-industrial complex I just published.

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 Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Extortion”

The kids with whom I have used them have loved them, so I developed a large body of materials from the Lawrence Treat’s excellent series Crime and Puzzlementwhich appears to be available, perhaps with dubious legality, all over the Internet as free PDF downloads.

Here is a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “Extortion.” I generally begin this lesson, in order to settle students after a class change, with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom “Ships That Pass in the Night.” You will, of course, need the illustration of the crime scene and its accompanying questions from the book to investigate the crime. Finally, this typescript of the answer key will help you and your students, using the evidence, to definitively solve the crime.

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.

Cultural Literacy: Saladin

While it’s not very long, and therefore not very thorough, here nonetheless is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Saladin, a figure worthy of more than cursory study. Perhaps this document will serve to introduce him, and therefore start a discussion on why this worksheet doesn’t serve his legacy well, even as an introduction to it.

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: George Santayana

George Santayana famously said–and this is one of those quotes that is often repeated erroneously or misattributed–“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” To my mind, this is one of the most cogent aphorisms (and I wrote my MA thesis on the Zeus of aphorists, Nietzsche) ever uttered, to it deserves verbatim repetition and proper attribution.

So I hope this Cultural Literacy worksheet on Santayana’s famous quote aids that modest cause. When I co-taught freshman global studies classes in Manhattan, my excellent co-teacher always started the year with a discussion of the implications of Santayana’s maxim.

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.