Tag Archives: film/television/photography

West Side Story

Posted on July 30, 2019 | Leave a comment

“A much-performed American musical by Leonard Bernstein (1918-90), with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim (b. 1930). It was first staged in 1957. The story is an updated version of Romeo and Juliet set in New York’s West Side dockland area, with the Montagues and the Capulets being replaced by rival teenage gangs, the Sharks and the Jets. The rivalry erupts into violence as a result of the love between Tony, one of the Jets, and Maria, the sister of the leader of the Sharks. The 1961 film version won an Oscar for best picture.”

Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.

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To Kill a Mockingbird

Posted on July 19, 2019 | Leave a comment

“The only novel (1960) by the US writer Harper Lee (1926-2016), which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The trial of a black man accused of raping a white woman and its aftermath are seen through the eyes of Scout, the six-year-old daughter of the white defense lawyer, Atticus Finch. Though clearly innocent, the man is found guilty and is subsequently shot 17 times by prison guards while, it is claimed, he was trying to escape. The editor of a local paper writes a courageous leader comparing the death to ‘the senseless slaughter of songbirds by hunters and children.’ The common, or northern, mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) is a noted songbird and mimic, and its range extends from the northern USA to Mexico. It particularly favors suburban habitats, and sometimes sings at night. A film version (1962) was directed by Robert Mulligan, with an Oscar-winning performance by Gregory Peck as Finch.”

Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Essays/Readings, Quotes, Reference

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Walter Wallace Decodes the Rockingham Meeting House Cemetery

Posted on June 21, 2019 | Leave a comment

While I realize that it’s not most people’s idea of fun, I like to spend time in cemeteries. I appreciate funerary art. I enjoy the solemnity and quiet of cemeteries. I benefit from the perspective cemeteries provide. And, since the advent of the smartphone, I enjoy using cemeteries as a primary source in historical research. One can learn a lot about the demographics of a town by its deceased citizens.

So, I am pleased to see that my pal Walter Wallace, in Springfield, Vermont, has worked with a local cable access production company to offer this video on Puritan symbolism on gravestones at the Rockingham Meeting House, in Rockingham Vermont, where he is a docent. Incidentally, this meeting house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.

Great work, Walter!

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Cultural Literacy: Franz Kafka

Posted on June 17, 2019 | Leave a comment

Last fall, while unpacking some boxes of books for my classroom library, I learned with considerable pleasure that Peter Kuper has rendered Franz Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis as a graphic novel. Personally, I like what Mr. Kuper has done with that staple of Mad Magazine, Antonio Prohias’s Cold War allegory as comic strip, “Spy vs. Spy.” Mr. Prohias was a hard act to follow, and Mr. Kuper has done so respectably, indeed even admirably. Professionally, that the students I teach–who have neither particular nor general interest in reading for pleasure–all read The Metamorphosis amazed me. Needless to say, I recommend this book for your classroom.

To complement The Metamorphosis, should you come by a copy, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Franz Kafka.

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.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Worksheets

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Term of Art: Magnum Opus

Posted on June 1, 2019 | Leave a comment

“Magnum Opus: A great work of art or literature, especially a writer’s culminating and greatest achievement; masterpiece. Plural: magna opera, magnum opuses,

‘It was the magnum opus of a fat spoiled rich boy who could write like an angel about landscape and like an adolescent about people.’ Norman Mailer, Cannibals and Christians”

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

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Robert De Niro

Posted on April 30, 2019 | Leave a comment

Moving right along, I’ll close out this morning’s publication schedule with this short reading on Robert De Niro and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

This has been, to my surprise, high interest material for several groups of kids I’ve served over the years. Then again, on some level, De Niro is definitely a tough guy, a “gangsta,” as the young men I work with like to say.

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.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Worksheets

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A Learning Support on Aesthetic Criteria for Reviews

Posted on April 29, 2019 | Leave a comment

A little over a decade ago, I worked for a couple of years in a middle school in the North Bronx. While there, I developed a short unit on writing reviews. Somewhere in along the way, across that ten-year span, I lost the unit (it took me a while, as a slow learner on these things, to master data storage), but somehow hung onto its templates. Those are in a folder awaiting redevelopment; I do think teaching students to write reviews is a good way to guide them to a broader understanding of culture in general, and the elements of culture in particular.

While rummaging around in some old folders, I found this learning support on aesthetic criteria for writing reviews. I remember distinctly that these lists were student generated. I acted only as a Socratic foil by asking questions to clarify terms.

At some point, I’ll get back to writing the unit this document was meant to support, and post its lessons in these pages.

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.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Reference

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The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Posted on April 9, 2019 | Leave a comment

“(Czech title Nesmesitna lekhost byti). A novel (1984) of the magic realism school by Milan Kundera (b. 1929). The fates of two couples are played out against a background of communist rule in Czechoslovakia. In such circumstances, there is an unbearable foreboding even when the ‘sweet lightness of being’ rises ‘out of the depths of the future.’ A film version (1987) was directed by Philip Kaufman.”

Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.

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Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Posted on March 28, 2019 | Leave a comment

“(1927-2013) British novelist and short-story writer. Born in Germany of Polish and German-Jewish parents, Jhabvala lived in England for twelve years before marrying an Indian architect and moving to New Delhi, where she remained until she moved to New York in 1976. Her subject is India, which she views as both an insider and an outsider, and with increasing distress at the poverty and misery surrounding her own comfortable life. She is concerned with social mores and psychological power struggles and psychological power struggles, and employs wit, nuance, and evocative descriptive detail. Her first novels, To Whom She Will (1955; U.S. Amrita, 1956), The Nature of Passion (1956), and Esmond in India (1957), deal with Indian arranged marriages and an East-West alliance. She has written a number of screenplays. Her later novels, such as Heat and Dust (1975), later made into a successful movie, show the influence of cinematic techniques. She has also published several volumes of short stories. In Search of Love and Beauty (1983) is a novel about German emigres in 1930s New York. Poet and Dancer (1993) is a novel.”

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

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The Algonquin Wits: Tallulah Bankhead Reviews a Film

Posted on March 4, 2019 | Leave a comment

“After sitting through the preview of a strikingly bad movie made by an independent producer, Tallulah observed, ‘What I don’t see is what that producer has got to be independent about.'”

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

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