Tag Archives: philosophy/religion

Cultural Literacy: Crusades

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Crusades. This is a half-page worksheet with a five-sentence reading and three comprehension questions. While it is a good general introduction to a complex series of events whose legacy remains very much with us today, it is obviously inadequate to the topic. Because, like almost everything else available for download at Mark’s Text Terminal, this is a Microsoft Word document, it can (and certainly should, in my estimation) be altered for 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.

A Russian Proverb on Education

“Education is light, lack of it darkness.”

Russian Proverb

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

The Canterbury Tales’ 29 Pilgrims

“Chaucer’s tale-tellers: Knight * Miller * Reeve * Cook * Man of Law * Wife of Bath * Friar * Summoner * Clerk * Merchant * Squire * Franklin * Physician * Pardoner * Shipman * Prioress * Monk * Nun’s Priest * Second Nun * Canon’s Yeoman * Manciple * Parson * Narrator

And those who don’t tell tales: Host * Plowman * Yeoman * Canon * Second Priest * Third Priest and Five Guildsmen (Haberdasher, Carpenter, Weaver, Dyer, Arras-Maker)

Chaucer tells us that there are ‘well nyne and twenty’ pilgrims in the company that sets off from Southwark to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas-a-Becket in Canterbury. But once you start list-making you find that such numerical certainty proves evasive, for there are thirty-four identifiable characters in his text, of whom twenty-three tell a tale. I like to imagine that the Host and the Five Guildsmen would have been made to perform if Chaucer had lived long enough, for The Canterbury Tales was almost certainly a work in progress, which Chaucer happily tinkered with all his life.”

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.

Dr. Gholdy Muhammad on the Aspirations of Teachers

“We should want to move beyond mere grades and test scores and make it our mission that when students leave our teachers and our schools, they not only earn strong grades and test scores, but they also embody a love for reading and literacy–that they leave us and ascend to more remote regions of the world while also discovering the power of their own minds. This is the genius that they for others to cultivate–to prepare, to raise, to grow, and help develop. Cultivating genius speaks to the responsibility and work that educators have.”

Excerpted from: Muhammad, Dr. Gholdy. Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy. New York: Scholastic, 2020.

Stephanie Ericsson’s “The Ways We Lie”

When the English teacher with whom I work recently introduced Stephanie Ericsson’s essay “The Ways We Lie” late last week, I’d never previously seen it. If you search it, you’ll see that it is evidently in use in a number of schools around the country. It’s not especially profound, but it does touch on some of the philosophical issues that lying and truth-telling raise. Ms. Ericsson has enjoyed a successful career as a writer and and actor, the latter of which surprised me.

In any case, here is a copy of the essay itself along with a contextual and learning support that I composed to attend it. The essay is in Microsoft Word, though I didn’t render it so, so I cannot vouch for it accuracy or fidelity; the contextual and learning support I did write, and, as below, if you find any problems with it, please advise. I copy-edited it twice, which doesn’t mean it doesn’t contain lapses or errors. There is a reason why professional writers–which I am not, alas–use the services of their publishers’ copy-editing offices.

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.

Brewer’s Curious Titles: The Master and Margarita

“The Master and Margarita: (Russian title: Master i Margarita). A novel by Mikhail Bulgakov (1891-1940), combining dark humor, satire, fantasy and philosophy. It was completed in 1938, but not published in Russia until 1966-7 (in serial form); the English edition was published in 1967. In the 1930s the Devil visits Moscow, and, with the aid of a naked girl and a gun-toting, cigar-smoking, man-sized cat, spreads chaos and mayhem and shows up the moral inadequacies of Soviet society. Standing apart from all this is the Master, a novelist of great integrity, and his beloved, Margarita. He is writing a book about the appearance of Jesus before Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem, long sections of which are included by Bulgakov. The book is prefaced by quotation from Goethe’s Faust.”

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

Term of Art: Team Teaching

“team teaching: An instructional method in which two or more teachers collaboratively teach a group of students. Teaching teams may teach one subject to multiple classes or teach all the core subjects to a single cluster of students for the school year. In the former arrangement, teachers may take turns instructing the entire group or divide the class into smaller sections that rotate between the teachers. In the latter arrangement, teachers meet frequently to plan curriculum and address student strengths and weaknesses.”

Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.

Analogy

“Analogy (noun) A theoretical comparison or point-by-point correspondence between particulars of two different things, rather than a categorical likeness; resemblance in certain parallels; logical inference that if two things are alike in some respects, they will be alike in others. Adj. analogical, analogous; adv. analogously; n. analogousness; v. analogize.”

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

Joyce Sequichie Hifler on Poverty and Ignorance

“We can get over being poor, but it takes longer to get over ignorance.”

Joyce Sequichie Hifler

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

Term of Art: Abstinence Education

“abstinence education: An educational program premised on the view that family life and sex education courses should teach students that sexual intercourse is inappropriate for young, unmarried people. Advocates say that adults must communicate an unambiguous that sex outside marriage is dangerous because of the risks of unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, such as AIDS. Critics of abstinence-only programs say the programs ignore the reality of widespread sexual activity among teenagers and deprive teens of information they need to protect themselves physically and emotionally.”

Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.