Tag Archives: fiction/literature

The Weekly Text, Friday 16 December 2022: History of Hip-Hop Lesson 2, Homer–History’s First Hip-Hop Songwriter

Here is the second lesson plan from the History of Hip-Hop Unit. This lesson posits, proceeding from the previous two, that Home’s Odyssey and Iliad, composed to be read aloud and to glorify Greece, that these ancient epics are two of the world’s first Hip-Hop songs. I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Muses so that students understand the reference in the first stanza of the Iliad. Here is the worksheet with reading and comprehension questions that is the centerpiece of this lesson.

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.

Colette on the Pitfalls of a Happy Childhood

“A happy childhood is poor preparation for human contact.”

Colette

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

Character Sketch

“Character Sketch (noun): A brief descriptive portrait in writing of an individual, usually with close observation of his or her distinctive traits.

‘In 1928 a private press published her character sketch of the Sapphic poetess Renee Vivien, born Pauline Tern, in London, of an English father and an American mother, a fragile neurotic figure who spent most of her short, self-destructive life in Paris, maintained in mysterious semi-Oriental elegance and living on spiced foods and alcohol in a garden apartment by chance next to Colette’s, near the Bois de Boulogne.’ Janet Flanner, Janet Flanner’s World”

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

Oscar Wilde on Journalism

“There is much to be said in favor of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.”

Oscar Wilde

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

Cultural Literacy: Realism

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on realism in literature and art. This is a half-page document with a reading of two sentences, the second of which is longish compound, and two comprehension questions. Once again, just the basics.

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.

Evelyn Waugh on Manners

“Manners are especially the need of the plain. The pretty can get away with anything.”

Evelyn Waugh

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

Cultural Literacy: Metaphor

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on metaphor. This is a half-page document with a reading of two sentences–one of them a complicated compound with multiple clauses, a colon, and semicolons (in other words, emergent readers and English language learners may need some support here) and three basic comprehension questions. In other words, an introduction to the concept of metaphor, but little else.

If you are teaching metaphor and seek more materials on this website, simply search “metaphor” from the home page. I just did, and was surprised how much material has stacked up here over the years.

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: Jorge Luis Borges

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Jorge Luis Borges. This is a half-page worksheet with a two-sentence reading and three comprehension questions–a spare but reasonably effective introduction to a major figure (whom, to my deep chagrin, I have not read) in world literature.

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.

Magic Realism

Magic Realism: (Sp, lo real maravilloso) A term introduced by Alejo Carpentier, in his prologue to El reino do este mundo (1949; tr The Kingdom of This World, 1957). The Cuban novelist was searching for a concept broad enough to accommodate both the events of everyday life and the fabulous nature of Latin American geography and history. Carpentier, who was greatly influenced by French surrealism, saw in magic realism the capacity to enrich our idea of what is ‘real” by incorporating all dimensions of the imagination, particularly as expressed in magic, myth, and religion.

In the hands of [Gabriel] Garcia Marquez and other writers of the Boom period, magic realism became a distinctly Latin American mode, an indigenous style for their explorations of history, culture, and politics. This narrative technique has influenced writers around the world.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

The Weekly Text, 30 September 2022, Hispanic Heritage Month Week III: One Hundred Years of Solitude

On the third Friday of Hispanic Heritage Month 2022, here is a reading on One Hundred Years of Solitude, the masterpiece of Magical Realism from Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

Have you read it? When I was a high school senior, my somewhat older but infinitely more sophisticated girlfriend gave me a copy. I read it, and as you can imagine, understood none of it. I keep meaning to get back to it.

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.