Here, on a Sunday morning, is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of cyberspace. Does anyone use that word anymore?
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.
Lou Gehrig was born, to reiterate, on June 19, 1903–115 years ago. You may know that he was felled by the same disease that recently claimed Stephen Hawking, to wit Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which, not coincidentally, is known as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease.” Mr. Gehrig famously delivered what is known as “baseball’s Gettysburg Address” on July 4, 1939, making a dignified exit from the game, and cementing his legend with that simple, eloquent address.
Here is a reading on Lou Gehrig along with a comprehension worksheet to accompany 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.
“Two Sevens Clash was the debut album from Culture, the roots reggae band led by Joseph Hill and produced in Kingston, Jamaica, by Joe Gibbs. Its title refers to the date of 7.7.1977—the day when ‘two sevens met’—which the Rastafarian prophet Marcus Garvey predicted would be a day of chaos and apocalypse. As the liner notes of the album read: ‘One day Joseph Hill had a vision, while riding a bus, of 1977 as a year of judgement—when two sevens clash—when past injustices would be avenged. Lyrics and melodies came into his head as he rode, and thus was born the song Two Sevens Clash which became a massive hit in reggae circles both in Jamaica and abroad. The prophecies noted by the lyrics so profoundly captured the imagination of the people that on July 7, 1977—the day when the sevens fully clashed (seventh day, seventh month, seventy-seventh year) a hush descended on Kingston; many people did not go outdoors, shops closed, an air of foreboding and expectation filled the city.’”
Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged high-interest materials, music, numeracy, readings/research
Over the past couple of days, and after a couple of decades, I reread William Zinsser’s fine book Writing to Learn; it was every bit as good as I remembered it. William Zinsser was a superlative prose stylist himself. Reading him on writing, quite simply, is a glimpse inside the workshop of a master.
And I found a passage in it, which Mr. Zinsser excerpted from something Norman Mailer wrote about the infamous Benny Paret vs. Emile Griffith III fight in 1962. Because I have a student this year involved and interested in boxing, I grabbed the passage and worked up, just now, this short exercise on identifying active verbs in a passage of text. Nota bene that there are two pages in this document; the second is the teacher’s copy/answer key with the active verbs in bold. I’m still trying to figure out lesson plans for these one-off differentiated worksheets. If you can use it, here is a lesson plan template to accompany the worksheet, which you can complete as you see fit (obviously).
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.
Friday morning at last, which means it’s time for the Weekly Text, this one in observance of Women’s History Month. This week I offer this reading on Lydia Maria Child. To accompany it, here is a reading comprehension worksheet. Finally, here is an Everyday Edit worksheet on “Women Get the Vote.” (And, incidentally, you can get more Everyday Edit Worksheets–indeed, an entire year’s worth–from the generous people at the Education World website.
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.
Here is a a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Jimi Hendrix for a Wednesday morning. Jimi was an idol of my crowd in high school; not to put too fine a point on it, but we wore out copies of his records, especially Electric Ladyland, a masterpiece. Did you know that at the time of his tragic, seriously untimely death, Jimi was planning to record with Miles Davis? What I didn’t know, but learned in researching these links, is that Jimi and the great drummer Tony Williams, who himself had worked extensively with Miles in his 1960s quintet, had in fact sought the participation of Paul McCartney in this enterprise.
Can you imagine?
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.
Springfield, Massachusetts, is the home of The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. I lived in Northern New England on and off for years, and I went to college in Amherst, Massachusetts, so I passed through Springfield many times in my travels. Each time, I noticed the Basketball Hall of Fame and wondered how it ended up in Springfield–of all places–and not in one of the bigger cities on the East Coast.
As it happens, the game was invented in Springfield by a man named James Naismith. Most of the young men I teach are interested in basketball, so your students may be as well. In any case, this week’s Text is a reading on James Naismith along with this comprehension worksheet to complement it. You might also find useful this Everday Edit worksheet on Basketball’s Beginnings (courtesy of the good people at Education World). Finally, and to risk making this whole post ephemeral by its tangents, here is a Culture Literacy exercise on the noun expletive, because it is used in the third Additional Fact in the reading.
Incidentally (and as the reading will explain to you and your students), the game of basketball in its original form prescribed 13 rules. A couple of years ago, I noticed that Sotheby’s had auctioned off James Naismith’s holograph manuscript of those original 13 rules for $4.3 million.
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.
“Xenophon’s Anabasis tells the story of 10,000 elite Greek mercenaries who are left isolated on the losing side of a Persian civil war and fight their way across the mountain tribes of Anatolia to reach the safety of the Black Sea coast. The history of this march in 401 BC was the original story of swashbuckling adventure against the odds and was said to have inspired Philip of Macedon to take on the Persians. T.E. Lawrence had the book in his camel bag during the Arab revolt of 1916. And more recently, transplanted to the gangs of New York, it became the Warriors video game.”
Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.
Hispanic Heritage Month begins today, so for the next five Fridays, I’ll post readings and comprehension worksheets in its honor. To kick off the month, here are an Intellectual Devotional reading on Pele, the legendary Brazilian soccer star, and a comprehension worksheet to complement it. This should be relatively high interest material, particularly for kids from Latin America who follow soccer–as so many of the students I serve do.
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.
I meant to post this Intellectual Devotional reading on Cy Young and this reading comprehension worksheet to accompany it several weeks ago, closer to Major League Baseball’s Opening Day. Better late than never, I guess: here is this week’s Text on the legendary pitcher.
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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