Tag Archives: fiction/literature

Cultural Literacy: Harlem Renaissance

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Harlem Renaissance. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences (one of which, longish, presents a nice summary list of writers associated with the Harlem Renaissance) and three comprehension questions.

Once again, this is a short document that serves as a good general introduction to one of the most significant and consequential moments in 20th-century American cultural history.

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.

Places in Women’s History: Greenwich Village, New York, New York

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The Weekly Text, 14 February 2025, Black History Month Week II: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on the Harlem Renaissance

For the second month of Black History Month 2025, here is a reading on the Harlem Renaissance with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. This is a useful, one-page survey of key events and personalities of the Harlem Renaissance. In the end, however, it is only an introduction to one of the most fertile and consequential periods in American cultural 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.

Places in Black History: Riverside Drive, Harlem, New York, New York

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Carl (Clinton) and Mark Van Doren

“Carl (Clinton) and Mark Van Doren: (1885-1950, 1894-1972) U.S. writers and teachers. The Van Doren brothers were born in Hope, Illinois. Carl, who taught at Columbia University 1911-1930), edited the Cambridge History of American Literature (1917-21) and journals. His critical works include the biography Benjamin Franklin (1938, Pulitzer Prize). Mark taught at Columbia 1920-59. He published more than 20 volumes of verse, including Spring Thunder (1924) and Collected Poems (1922-38) (1939, Pulitzer Prize). He wrote three novels and several volumes of short stories and edited anthologies. His literary criticism includes work on John Dryden, William Shakespeare, and Nathanial Hawthorne as well as Introduction to Poetry (1951), which examines shorter classic poems of English and American literature.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

Harlan Ellison on Childhood

“Nobody gets out of childhood alive.”

Harlan Ellison

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

Book of Answers: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

What was the alternative title to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein? The Modern Prometheus.

Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

Leviathan

“Leviathan: A word from the Hebrew, meaning literally ‘that which gathers itself in folds,’ and given in the Bible to a mythical sea serpent (Job 41:1; . 27:1; Ps. 104:26). The name is also applied to the whale and the crocodile, and by extension it has come to mean something vast and formidable of its kind.”

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

Oscar Wilde on Experience and Mistakes

“Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.”

Oscar Wilde

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

Rotten Reviews: The Tin Drum

“Bewildered by the torrent of fantastic incident, mystified by what Gunter Grass intends by it all, one feels like a zoologist who discovers some monstrous unrecorded mammal gobbling leaves. It may have beautiful horns, but what is it?”

New Statesman

Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.