Tag Archives: professional development

The Doubter’s Companion: Civilization

“Civilization: The single and shortest definition of civilization may be the word language.

This is not to suggest that images or music are of lesser importance. It is simply that they have more to do with the unconscious. They are somehow part of metaphysics and religion. Civilization, if it means something concrete, is the conscious but unprogrammed mechanism by which humans communicate. And through communication they live with each other; think, create and act.”

Excerpted from: Saul, John Ralston. The Doubter’s Companion. New York: The Free Press, 1994.

Editorialize

“Editorialize (verb): To express one’s opinion or point of view; introduce opinion or bias into reporting of facts or information; admix comment with reportage; characterize or label, Noun: editorializer, editorialization.

‘Girls, Shmul editorialized in his little book, live a stone age life in a blown-glass cave.’ Grace Paley, The Little Disturbances of Man”

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

Term of Art: Speech Codes

“speech codes: Regulations adopted on many college campuses that prohibit certain kinds of speech deemed offensive by various groups—for example jokes that make fun of women, blacks, Hispanics, or individuals with disabilities. Advocates of speech codes claim that they are necessary to protect campus civility and to eliminate verbal harassment. Critics claim that they stifle freedom of speech and violate Constitutional protections. In public higher education, speech codes have been largely eliminated by litigation, but many private universities continue to enforce them.”

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

The Weekly Text, 23 October 2026: A Pair of Learning Supports on Annotating Text

In my final couple years of co-teaching high school English Language Arts class, I was disappointed that students rarely read entire books (although I had the good fortune to work with two English teachers who did assign entire books), and therefore seldom performed any substantial interpretive work on what they did read–which was and is, I expect, short passages from novels. Students annotate these texts, but don’t really write anything insightful about them. Still, given how little students read these days, they struggled with adding interpretive notes–i.e. annotating–even these short texts.

So I developed this learning support on annotating for analogy, allusion, metaphor and tone, and this one on rhetorical analysis for ethos, pathos, and logos.

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.

William Carlos Williams

“William Carlos Williams: (1883-1963) U.S. poet. Trained as a pediatrician, Williams spent a lifetime writing poetry and practicing medicine in his hometown of Rutherford, New Jersey. He is noted for making the ordinary appear extraordinary through clear and discrete imagery and powerful evocation of the world of common objects, as in the fresh impressions of the sensuous world expressed in ‘The Red Wheelbarrow,’ from Spring and All (1923). Paterson (1946-58), a five-part long poem, evokes a complex vision of modern American life. His other poetry includes Pictures from Brueghel (1962; Pulitzer Prize). His numerous prose works include essays, a trilogy of novels, short stories, drama, and autobiography.”

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

Rotten Reviews: Cat Man

[This rotten review refers to the novel Cat Man by Edward Hoagland]

“This lengthy description of the lower depths of existence among men who pick up a living around travelling circuses is frequently disgusting in an eager, repetitious, small-boy way.

The New Yorker 

Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.   

The Weekly Text, 16 October 2026: An Article on the Bookstores of Buenos Aires, Argentina

Hispanic Heritage Month 2026 ended yesterday, but I want to post, from the Summer 2026 issue of Fine Books & Collections magazine, this article on the bookstores of Buenos Aires. It speaks for itself, so there is no need for me to carry on here–other than to mention, I suppose, if it is not obvious, that I am a bibliophile.

The Doubter’s Companion: Citizen

“Citizen: The individual is essentially a citizen.

This is reality inherited from Athens. We have little choice but to accept it since democracy cannot function in any other way. It is possible to hop along in a one-legged manner with citizens voting from time to time but refusing to participate and being denied most of their obligations. The result is a superficial, even dishonest, system and a population constantly dissatisfied with itself.

If the individual is not first a citizen, then the obligations and privileges which go with that status are effectively lost and the person ceases, to all intents and purposes, to be an individual.”

Excerpted from: Saul, John Ralston. The Doubter’s Companion. New York: The Free Press, 1994.

 

Term of Art: Retrieval

“retrieval: The searching and finding process that leads to recognition and recall, bringing information out of long-term memory.”

Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.

Aestheticism

“Aestheticism: Generally, a term applied to a way of perceiving things that was common among the writers and artists of the 19th century who adhered to the doctrine of art for art’s sake. The movement, or cult, was largely influenced by German romantics, particularly Goethe. Because of the quest for beauty and the insistence that art should serve no moral or didactic purpose, it was related with the work of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the Parnassians. Major exponents of aestheticism in America were Edgar Allan Poe and Ralph Waldo Emerson.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.