Tag Archives: diction/grammar/style/usage

The Weekly Text, 24 March 2023, Women’s History Month 2023 Week IV: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Babe Didrikson

For the fourth week of Women’s History Month 2023, here is a reading on Babe Didrikson (also known as Babe Didrikson Zaharias after her marriage to wrestler George Zaharias), the sports legend, along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

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: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. This is a full-page document with a reading of four sentences and four comprehension questions. I’m not sure what call there would be for anything beyond this on the late First Lady–but she is still enough of an icon that this short exercise might find some relevance somewhere.

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: Frances Perkins

Moving right along this morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Frances Perkins, the first woman to serve in a cabinet position, in Ms. Perkins’ case, as Secretary of Labor in the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. This is a full-page document with a reading of four sentences and five comprehension questions.

Did you know she was a witness to the horror of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire? She chaired a committee on public safety after the disaster.

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.

The Weekly Text, 17 March 2023, Women’s History Month 2023 Week III: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Florence Nightingale

For the third Friday of Women’s History Month 2023, here is a reading on Florence Nightingale along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

Incidentally, have you read Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey? It was one of the long-neglected books on my reading list that I finally got to while under COVID-19 quarantine. I confess that I didn’t fully understand the book. I imagine the context of its time–it was first published in 1918–might have helped. The book itself, I gather, was a departure from the biographical conventions in the time in that it took a critical look at its subjects, including Florence Nightingale, rather then reciting a list of achievements that became, in their aggregation, a kind of hagiography. A rereading of the book would no doubt repay my effort. At the moment, though, I think I would prefer simply to watch Jonathan Pryce’s portrayal of Lytton Strachey himself in the fine film Carrington, about the painter Dora Carrington–like Strachey a member of the Bloomsbury Group.

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: Eudora Welty

If you can use it–for I doubt she’s taught much below the post-secondary level–here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Eudora Welty. This is a half-page document with a two-sentence reading and three comprehension questions.

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: Agatha Christie

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Agatha Christie. This is a half-page document with a reading of two sentences and three comprehension questions. A spare, but useful, introduction to this prolific and highly influential novelist. Your students might find it interesting, as I did after learning of it in, of all places, an episode of Doctor Who called “The Unicorn and the Wasp,” that Dame Agatha disappeared for eleven days in December of 1926.

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.

The Weekly Text, 10 March 2023, Women’s History Month 2023 Week II: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Emily Dickinson

On this, the second of the five Fridays in March, which is Women’s History Month, here is a reading on Emily Dickinson with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Like so many of the readings from the Intellectual Devotional series that I’ve adapted for classroom use, this is a remarkably thorough biography–at only a page in length–of Emily Dickinson and her art.

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: Guinevere

OK, moving right along with Women’s History Month materials, here is a half-page Cultural Literacy worksheet on Guinevere, known, alas, mostly for being the wife of King Arthur. Perhaps this slim document–it contains a three-sentence reading and three comprehension questions–might spur a discussion about the autonomy of women and their accomplishments and identities separate from their male spouses?

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: Iphigenia

Depending on the depth of the dive your class takes into the Trojan War and its mythology, this Cultural Literacy worksheet on Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon, might be a useful short introduction to her. In any case, this is a half-page worksheet with a three-sentence reading and three comprehension questions.

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.

The Weekly Text, 3 March 2023, Women’s History Month 2023 Week I: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Sarah

For the first Friday of Women’s History Month 2023, here is a reading on Sarah, the biblical matriarch and prophetess, with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I’ll hazard a guess that this will prove to be neither high-demand or high-interest material. Nonetheless, Sarah, as a major figure in the Abrahamic religions, is a significant landmark in women’s history.

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.