Ok, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Aztecs. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences and three comprehension questions. 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.
“Xiuhtecuhtli: Aztec god of fire and creator of all life. With Chantico, his feminine counterpart, he was believed to be a representation of Ometecuhtli. Xiuhtecuhtli’s festivals coincided with the two extremes in the climatological cycle, the heat of August and the cold of January. He was also the center of a ritual transfer of fire from temple to temple that occurred once every 52 years at the end of the Aztec calendar cycle.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
“Mesoamerican religions: Religions of the pre-Columbian cultures of Mexico and Central America, notably the Olmec, Maya, Toltec, and Aztec. All religions of Mesoamerica were polytheistic. The gods had to be constantly propitiated with offerings and sacrifices. The religions also shared a belief in a multilevel universe that had gone through five creations and four destructions by the time of the Spanish conquest. Mesoamerican religions heavily emphasized the astral bodies, particularly the sun, the moon, and Venus, and the observations of their movements by astronomer-priests were extraordinarily detailed and accurate. The Aztecs approached the supernatural through a complex calendar of ceremonies that included songs, dances, acts of self-mortification, and human sacrifices performed by a professional priesthood, in the belief that the welfare of the universe depended on offerings of blood and hearts as nourishment for the sun. The Mayan religion likewise called for human sacrifices, though on a smaller scale. Information on the astronomical calculations, divination, and ritual of the Mayan priests has been gathered from the Mayan codices.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
“Mesoamerican architecture: Building traditions of the indigenous cultures in parts of Mexico and Central American before the 16th-century Spanish conquest. The idea of constructing temple-pyramids appears to have taken hold early. La Venta, the center of Olmec culture c.800-400 BC, contains one of the earliest pyramidal structure, a mound of earth and clay 100 feet (30 meters) high. Mesoamerican pyramids were generally earth mounds faced with stone. Typically of stepped form, they were topped by a platform or temple which only privileged community members were allowed to approach. The best-known include the Pyramid of the Sun (rivaling the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza) and Pyramid of the Moon at Teotihuacan, the Castillo at Chichen Itza, and largest of all, the 177-foot (54 meters) Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl at Cholula. The Classic period (AD 100-900) saw the flourishing of Mayan architecture, in which the corbeled vault made its first appearance in the Americas. Ceremonial centers in the Mayan Lowlands proliferated, as did inscribed and dated stelae and monuments. Tikal, Uaxactun, Copan, Palenque, and Uxmal all attained their glory in these centuries. A common feature at these sites is a tlachtli, or ball court. Their raised platforms were often the architectural center of ancient cities. See also Monte Alban.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
“Aristides Agramonte y Simoni: (1868-1931) U.S. (Cuban-born) physician, pathologist, and bacteriologist, Reared in New York City, he received his MD from Columbia University. He was a member of the U.S. Army’s Reed Yellow Fever Board, which discovered in 1901 the role of mosquitoes in transmitting yellow fever. As a professor at the University of Havana, be became an influential leader of scientific medicine in Cuba.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Lisbon. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two longish compound sentences and four comprehension questions. The document is thorough, if a bit crammed together. As below, and repeated at this point ad infinitum (or perhaps ad nauseam) on this blog, this is a Microsoft Word that you can edit and revise to suit your students’ needs.
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.
“Mt. Aconagua: Mountain, western Argentina, on the Chilean border. At 22,834 feet (6,690 meters) high, it is the highest peak of the Andes and of the Western Hemisphere. It is of volcanic origin, but is not itself a volcano. The summit was first reached in 1897.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Museo del Prado. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two simple sentences and two comprehension questions. A neat, short symmetry to introduce a world-class institution.
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.
“[I am] only a public entertainer, who has understood his time.”
Attributed to Wash. Post 30 Nov. 1952. The Post article is quoting an article in Quick Magazine from the summer of 1951. According to a letter by William S. Rubin in New York Times 5 Jan. 1969, this is ‘a trumpery originated in Il Libro Nero published by Giovanni Papini in 1951.’”
Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
OK, for this, the final Friday of Hispanic Heritage Month 2022, here are a reading on Salvador Dali and the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that accompanies it. What has Salvador Dali to do with Hispanic history? I can’t answer that question in the affirmative with any confidence, so I’ll offer up an opinion of Dali himself.
His art never appealed or spoke to me. In fact, I found it pretentious, dorm-room metaphysical crap. His glib self-promotion turned me off, and his cutesy personal politics, or his “surreal dalliance with fascism,” are simply repulsive. What this post shows, I am utterly loathe to admit, is that I am running out of documents with which to observe Hispanic Heritage Month. So, if you find these documents useful, I’m relieved.
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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