Last but not least this morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on brainwashing. I imagine the importance of this speaks for itself.
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.
“Today as I look back on that opening game of my first world series, I must tell you that it was Mr. [Branch] Rickey’s drama and that I was only a principal actor. As I write this twenty years later, I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world. In 1972, in 1947, at my birth in 1919, I know that I never had it made.”
I Never Had It Made introduction (1972)
Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Here is the seventh lesson plan (of eight) of “The Great Debaters” unit plan here on Mark’s Text Terminal. This lesson describes and rationalizes the second day of watching the film. Here is another note-taking blank with which students can record their thoughts and recollections while watching the film.
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.
Moving right along this morning, here is the sixth lesson plan in The Great Debaters unit plan here at Mark’s Text Terminal. This lesson initiates the viewing of the film.
So, here is a context clues worksheet on the noun montage, a cinematic term that describes the compression of exposition into a series of fleeting images that supplies deep context for the narrative without the sacrifice of a compelling pace of narration. The main document for this lesson is this simple note-taking blank that asks students to jot down responses to a single who, where and what questions.
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 the fifth lesson plan of the unit plan on the Denzel Washington film The Great Debaters. This lesson addresses the attempts of the Communist Party USA to enlist Americans of African descent in the class struggle in the United States. This is a complex and fraught topic, and I believe an entire academic career might be profitably spent on this topic. A good place to go to get a general sense of it is Richard Wright’s superlative memoir Black Boy. Because of Melvin Tolson’s involvement in labor organizing, and his possible membership in the Communist Party (a fact, I find, very hard to pin down), there are scenes in the film of Tolson (played, once again, by Denzel Washington) organizing farmers and farmworkers), I wanted students to understand the allure of the Communist Party to oppressed Black people.
Unsurprisingly, I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the noun socialism. In the event the lesson continues into a second day, here is another on the noun communism. Finally, here is the reading and comprehension worksheet at the center of this lesson.
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.
“Manchild in the Promised Land: (1965) An autobiographical novel by Claude Brown. Set in Harlem in the 1940s and 1950s, the novel is a coming-of-age story in which Sonny, the author, escapes the ghetto and the drugs, prostitution, and violence that plague it. Having sought refuge in higher education, the author conveys a sense of warmth toward the Harlem ghetto while simultaneously contributing to the spirited social criticism of the time.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
Okay, here is the fourth lesson plan of a total of eight in The Great Debaters unit here at Mark’s Text Terminal. This lesson is on James Farmer Jr., the legendary Civil Rights activist, who is a key figure in the narrative of this unit and in the film in which this unit culminates. It’s worth mentioning here that Mr. Farmer’s father, James Farmer Sr. (played in the film by the estimable Forest Whitaker), was a truly heroic figure and probably worth a lesson in this unit. Unfortunately, when planning such a unit, one must make choices. I may return to this unit at some point and add a lesson about James Farmer Sr. What do you think?
I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the verb matriculate, which is used both intransitively and transitively. In the event the lesson goes into a second day (depending on the length of your class period and how you choose to teach this material, there is a good chance it will), then here is another on the noun labor union, a concept and concrete assembly of people that is a key aspect of the biography of Melvin Tolson.
Finally, here is the reading and comprehension worksheet on James Farmer Jr. that is the gravamen of this lesson.
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.
“Humanism: The belief, Renaissance in origin but inspired by classical civilization, that man is potentially the master of all things, and that by study and scientific inquiry such mastery is within his grasp. In art, humanism caused a gradual secularization of themes.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
OK: moving right along, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Apollo, that avatar of civilization, order, balance, and light.
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.
“There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and this is to contradict other philosophers.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.
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