Tag Archives: philosophy/religion

The Weekly Text, October 2, 2020, Hispanic Heritage Month 2020 Week III: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Teresa of Avila

Ok, for Week III of Hispanic Heritage Month 2020, and for the Weekly Text from Mark’s Text Terminal for October 2, 2020, here is a reading on Teresa of Avila along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

Teresa was essentially a sixteenth-century Catholic mystic. Her mysticism, unsurprisingly, brought her to the attention of the Inquisition. She founded a religious order; as the reading explains, she was, in the final analysis, an influential figure in Catholic theology. If you want to move beyond the relatively basic comprehension questions on the worksheet, you–and more importantly, your students–can consider some of the concepts present in Teresa’s story: religious law, orthodoxy, mysticism, feminism and women’s role in the Church, among others.

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.

Metacognition (n)

It’s something I try to work into my units and lessons, and the evidence for its necessity in the classroom is widespread and incontrovertible, so I have used heavily, across the common branch curriculum, this context clues worksheet on the noun metacognition.

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.

Kingsley Amis on Reasons to Write

“If you can’t annoy somebody, there’s little point in writing.”

Kingsley Amis

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

Cultural Literacy: Fifth Amendment

Last but not least on this distinctly autumnal day, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This amendment most famously protects defendants against self-incrimination–i.e. they can “take the Fifth” when asked a question whose answer may incriminate them in a crime. The Fifth Amendment also prohibits double jeopardy and mandates due process of law.

This knowledge will help prepare students to what I expect will be heavy use in the coming months of this shield against self-incrimination.

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.

Term of Art: Acute Stress Disorder

“acute stress disorder: A transient anxiety disorder following exposure to a traumatic event, with a similar pattern of symptoms to post-traumatic stress disorder plus symptoms of disassociation (such as dissociative amnesia, depersonalization, derealization) but occurring within four weeks of the traumatic event. If the symptoms persist beyond four weeks, then a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder may be considered.

[From the Latin acutus sharpened, from acuere, to sharpen, from acus a needle]”

Excerpted from: Colman, Andrew M., ed. Oxford Dictionary of Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

A Lexicon of Terms Related to Le Corbusier: Brutalism and Beton Brut

“Brutalism: A term coined by the British to characterize the style of Le Corbusier in the early 1950s and others inspired by him. His buildings at Marseilles, France, and Chandigarh, India, make use of Beton Brut. Increasingly occupied with sculptural effects, brutalist architects moved away from the geometric purism of the International Style.”

“Beton Brut: ‘Raw concrete’ is the result of pouring wet cement into a temporary form made of timber or metal. When the cement dries the form’s texture remains imprinted upon the surface. It’s an important element in the work of Le Corbusier.

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

Henry Adams on Politics

“Politics as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.”

Henry Adams

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

Cultural Literacy: Populism

If there was ever a time where students ought to be receiving rigorous instruction in civic and politics, it’s now. And I don’t mean to say that this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the political philosophy of populism is the solution to any deficit in civics instruction, but it’s a start, especially for struggling learners and emergent readers.

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.

Term of Art: Antonomasia

“Antonomasia: [Stress: ‘an-to-no-May-zy-a’]. 1. In rhetoric, the use of an epithet to acknowledge a quality in one person or place by using the name of another person or place already known for that quality: Henry is the local Casanova; Cambridge is England’s Silicon Valley. 2. The use of an epithet instead of the name of a person or thing: the Swan of Avon William Shakespeare.”

Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

James Madison

A few years back, I read several news accounts like this one from CNN that indicated that Americans, particularly those who fancy themselves experts on the subject, know vanishingly little about the United States Constitution

This reading on James Madison and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet will go only a short distance to ameliorate ignorance of the U.S. Constitution, but it will serve as a reasonable introduction to deeper inquiry into this quintessential document from the American Enlightenment

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.