“As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me—
although you’re older—and
white
and somewhat more free.
This is my page for English B.”
“Theme for English B l. 37″ (1951)
Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Posted in English Language Arts, New York City, Quotes
Tagged black history, poetry, united states history
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Harlem Renaissance. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences (one of which, longish, presents a nice summary list of writers associated with the Harlem Renaissance) and three comprehension questions.
Once again, this is a short document that serves as a good general introduction to one of the most significant and consequential moments in 20th-century American cultural history.
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.
For the final Friday of Black History Month 2025, the Weekly Text from Mark’s Text Terminal is this reading on Langston Hughes along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. These documents join a solid body of material by and about Langston Hughes on this blog.; to find others, just search his name on the home page.
And now we move on to Women’s History Month 2025 in March.
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.
For the second month of Black History Month 2025, here is a reading on the Harlem Renaissance with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. This is a useful, one-page survey of key events and personalities of the Harlem Renaissance. In the end, however, it is only an introduction to one of the most fertile and consequential periods in American cultural history.
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.
Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, New York City, Social Sciences, The Weekly Text, Worksheets
Tagged art/architecture/design, black history, building vocabulary/conceptual knowledge, diction/grammar/style/usage, fiction/literature, poetry, readings/research, united states history
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Hiawatha. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of four sentences and four comprehension questions about an actual person shrouded in myth.
When I reviewed this document just now, it looked, unsurprisingly, a bit crammed. It might be better revised as a full-page worksheet. If it happens that you are teaching Henry Wadsworth Longellow’s poem (i.e. the aforementioned myth, which in any case I rather doubt is much taught anywhere, anymore) about Hiawatha, “The Song of Hiawatha,” I imagine there might be a place for this worksheet.
Otherwise, I don’t know. I do know I can think of several English teachers I worked with who wouldn’t know either Longfellow or one of his most famous poems.
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.
“Lost Generation: Group of U.S. writers who came of age during World War I and established their reputations in the 1920s; more broadly, the entire post-World War I generation. The term was coined by Gertrude Stein in a remark to Ernest Hemingway. The writers considered themselves ‘lost’ because their inherited values could not operate in the postwar world and they felt spiritually alienated from a country they considered hopelessly provincial and emotionally barren, The term embraces Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, E.E. Cummings, Archibald Macleish, and Hart Crane, among others.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
“Who wrote ‘Auld Lang Syne’? Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759-96) put this traditional song into its present form in The Scots Musical Museum (1787-1803).”
Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, poetry, professional development, readings/research
“Assonance: In poetry and prose, the identity of vowel sounds, as in the words scream and beech. Assonance is one of the many phonetic devices that serve to unify poetry and prose. In poetry it is frequently substituted for rhyme and, in this use, is sometimes referred to as vowel rhyme.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
This week’s Text comes from the pages of Barbara Ann Kipfer’s fascinating reference book (aside: I wish I had her job), The Order of Things: a lesson plan on English literary periods. This is a pretty simple lesson; it is intended, as everything under the header of The Order of Things on this blog is intended, for struggling and emergent readers as well as learners of English as a new language.
You’ll need this combined reading and comprehension worksheet (the reading is a list) to teach 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.
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