Tag Archives: philosophy/religion

Cultural Literacy:

Here, finally on this Friday morning, is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of the clockwork universe. This is a half-page document with a two-sentence reading (the second of them a long compound) and three comprehension questions–with two of them on the same line. This is a spare but relatively thorough summary of the concept of the clockwork universe.

In any case, like almost everything on Mark’s Text Terminal, this is a Microsoft Word document, so you can tailor it to the needs of your students.

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.

Cultural Literacy: John Calvin and Calvinism

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on John Calvin and his doctrine, Calvinism. This is a half-page worksheet that contains two readings from The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. They are separated. The first is on John Calvin the man, and is two-sentences; the second is on the doctrine of Calvinism, and is four-sentences long. Three comprehension questions follow both of these readings. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but a recent Secretary of Education of the United States apparently believed all that nonsense about predestination in Calvinist doctrine.

As with virtually everything on Mark’s Text Terminal, this is a Microsoft Word document, so you can manipulate it for the needs of your students. I thought these combine well, but they also might be better off separated into two separate documents. You can do with it as you wish.

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.

Stephen Hawking

I don’t know how germane they are to the high school curriculum in general (I prepared these documents for two students several years ago, and haven’t used them since), but here are a reading on Stephen Hawking along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Professor Hawking has always been in my mind something in the line of Nietzsche’s ubermensch, especially in that terms expectation of self-overcoming.

In any case though, a certain kind of student (e.g. the two for whom I developed this material) finds Stephen Hawking, appropriately enough, a fascinating figure. This material is for that student.

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.

Isaac Newton

Here is a reading on Isaac Newton with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. This is a solid introduction to Newton; I have used it as a prelude to framing the Enlightenment in global studies classes in New York City. Otherwise, editorially, I assume I need not belabor the importance of Isaac Newton in the history of the world, let alone the intellectual history of Western Europe.

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.

Book of Answers: L’Encyclopedie

“Who edited L’Encyclopedie? Denis Diderot (17013-84), French philosopher. This compendium of knowledge was published in thirty-five volumes between 1751 and 1776. It was meant to cover all aspects of life and embodied the rationalistic ideals of the Enlightenment. Contributers included Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau.”

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

Euclid

Here is a reading on Euclid along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. This is, as so many of the readings from the Intellectual Devotional series tend to be, a nice one-page conspectus on the author of The Elements, and the influences that led to the creation of this, essentially the world’s first first geometry textbook–which is, unsurprisingly, available across the internet in a variety of PDFs. The first one that pops up (under that hyperlink) is from a physicist named Richard Fitzpatrick at the University of Texas; it’s free of advertising clutter and, to the extent of my limited knowledge of the subject, well organized.

Also, in researching this post, I learned that the first of the five volumes in the Intellectual Devotional series is available as a free e-book under that hyperlink (at least at the time of this post’s publication), should you be interested.

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.

Thomas Edison on the Labor of Thought

“There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking.”

Thomas Edison

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

Norman Cousins on Facts and Interpretation

“Unobstructed access to facts can produce unlimited good only if it is matched by the desire and ability to find out what they mean and where they lead.”

Norman Cousins “Freedom as Teacher” (1981)

Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.

Octave Mirbeau on What Sounds Like a Day at Work

“You’re obliged to pretend respect for people and institutions you think absurd. You live attached in a cowardly fashion to moral and social conventions you despise, condemn, and know lack all foundation. It is that permanent contradiction between your ideas and desires and all the dead formalities and vain pretenses of your civilization which makes you sad, troubled, and unbalanced. In that intolerable conflict you lose all joy of life and all feeling of personality, because at every moment they suppress and restrain and check the free play of your powers. That’s the poisoned and mortal wound of the civilized world.”

Octave Mirbeau

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

John Rawls

“John Rawls: (1921-2002) U.S. philosopher. Born in Baltimore, he taught at Cornell (1962-79) and later Harvard (from 1979). He has written primarily on ethics and political philosophy. In his Theory of Justice (1971), he offered an alternative to utilitarianism that led to very different conclusions about justice. He asserted that if people had to choose principles of justice from behind a ‘veil of ignorance’ that restricted what they could know about their own position in society, they would not seek to maximize overall utility but would instead both protect their liberty and safeguard themselves against the worst possible outcome, They would thus sanction only the kinds of inequalities (e.g. in wealth) that are to the benefit of the worst off (e.g. because the inequalities are necessary for incentives that benefit all).”

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