“story map: A graphic used to illustrate the various elements of a short story. Typically, these elements include setting (time and place); conflict; protagonist; antagonist; minor characters; and elements of the plot (exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, crisis, falling action, resolution, and denouement).”
Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.
“…When her mother passed, Elizabeth got a copy of that book On Death and Dying, which identified the Five Stages of Grief. When Pepper was laid low, the Four Stages of Putting Your Foot Up Somebody’s Ass provided similar comfort.”
Whitehead, Colson. Crook Manifesto. New York: Doubleday, 2003.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes
Tagged black history, fiction/literature, humor
“What was Pamela’s last name in Samuel Richardson’s Pamela? Andrews.”
Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.
This week’s Text comes from the pages of Barbara Ann Kipfer’s fascinating reference book (aside: I wish I had her job), The Order of Things: a lesson plan on English literary periods. This is a pretty simple lesson; it is intended, as everything under the header of The Order of Things on this blog is intended, for struggling and emergent readers as well as learners of English as a new language.
You’ll need this combined reading and comprehension worksheet (the reading is a list) to teach 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.
“Akiko Yosano: (1878-1942) Japanese poet. Akiko’s first volume of tanka, Midaregami (1901; tr Tangled Hair, 1935), startled her contemporaries with its bold affirmation of female sexuality and exerted an immense influence on later poets who sought release from semifeudal morality as well as from conventional idioms of tanka. Akiko’s translation of Japanese classics, such as the Tale of Genji, into the modern vernacular were highly influential, as were her pioneering and passionate essays on woman’s rights.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
“Chingiz Aitmatov: (1928-2008) Kirghiz novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. Born in the Central Asian republic of Kirghizia, Aitmatov inherited a love for Russian literature from his father (who died in 1937, a victim of Stalin’s terror) and for traditional Kirghiz folktales and customs from his mother. In 1952 he qualified as a veterinary technician and published his first story. After a period of study in Moscow, Aitmatov returned home to work as a journalist in 1958 and soon gained a national reputation with the publication in the journal Novy mir of ‘Jamilya’ (1959), a love story that challenged both traditional Kirghiz custom and the new ‘socialist’ morality. This and other short stories were followed by two thoughtful novels, Proschai, Gulsary! (1966; tr Farewell, Gulsari, 1970) and Bely parakhod (1970; tr The White Ship, 1972). Aitmatov is best known in the West for his play (written with Kaltai Mukhamedzhanov) Voskhozhdenie na Fudzhiamu (1973; tr The Ascent of Mount Fuji, 1975). A subtle treatment of the suppression of dissidents, it caused a sensation when first produced in Moscow in 1973. One of the few genuinely talented writers to emerge from the government’s drive to transform the non-Russian nationalities into parts of the total Soviet state, Aitmatov began increasingly to criticize the impact of Russification, collectivization, and a non-nomadic way of life on traditional Kirghiz society. A subsequent work to appear in English is the novel The Day Is Longer Than a Hundred Years (1980; tr 1983). One of this most recent works, Plaka (The Executioner’s Block, 1986) was received with much interest in Russia.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
He has been in the news recently for his new book, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, which tells the story of the attack he suffered in August, 2022, while onstage at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York, so now is a good time to offer this Cultural Literacy worksheet on Salman Rushdie. This is a half-page document with a reading of two sentences, on relatively simple, the other a longish compound, and two comprehension questions. The reading does mention the Satanic Verses controversy (which may have motivated Mr. Rushdie’s attacker) and the fact that it necessitated that Mr. Rushdie go into hiding.
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.
“Etel Adnan: (1925-2021) Lebanese poet. Adnan’s works record the devastation of Beirut by civil war. Adnan is a Lebanese Christian who writes in both Arabic and French, and much of her work has been translated into English. Her seven volumes of poetry include Arab Apocalypse (1980) and From A to Z (1982). She renders the effects of the war in fragmentary poems that are formed from shards of language, often punctuated by abstract drawings, barring the reader from assembling a coherent narrative. Her one novel, Sitt Marie Rose (1982), also resists a linear reading: it is told not only from the perspective of its female protagonist, a Christian supporter of the Palestinian resistance, but also from that of the Phalangist Christians who hold her hostage. Adnan’s manipulation of the point deftly illustrates the complexities of the Lebanese political crisis.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
“Joryu Bungaku: Japanese term for ‘women’s writing.’ Although women played a significant literary role in the Heian era (794-1185), female writers all but disappeared in the succeeding periods of military turmoil. After struggling to reassert themselves in the late 19th century, women writers emerged in such numbers that by the 1920s, the term joryu bungaku, or ‘writing of the women’s school,’ was uniformly applied to any female-authored work. While protecting women from obliteration from the dominant male mainstream, the classification nevertheless restricted female literary expression to one prescribed by gender, and relegated all women writers, regardless of their artistic diversity, to a single ‘school.’ Disparate examples of joryo bungaku are Miyamoto Yuriko and Nogami Yaeko.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
 | A Measurement Conver… on An Elegantly Simple Cooking Co… |
| A Measurement Conver… on The Weekly Text, October 25, 2… |
 | markstextterminal on Cree |
 | panzer046a139293db on Cree |
| markstextterminal on Cree |
Mark's Text Terminal 
You must be logged in to post a comment.