“Action Painting: Term coined by the American critic Harold Rosenberg to describe the dynamic, impulsive Abstract Expressionism of Jackson Pollock.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
“Dozens (Playing the): In the culture of American blacks, a contest of mutual insults concerning relatives, especially the opponents mothers, sometimes in rhymed couplets and often graphically sexual or scatological (the ‘dirty dozens’). See also SIGNIFYING.
‘His broad cultural approach to prizefighting is also illuminating. A discussion, for example, of the style of black boxers invokes jazz, “bad n****r” folk figures and form of insult known as “the dozens.” Diane McWhorter, The New York Times”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
I don’t know why, but for some reason, when I published this blog post several years ago, with a trove of materials I developed to accompany a reading of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Purple Hibiscus, I didn’t include this lexicon of Igbo words, names, and phrases. So here it is now.
This is where I usually ask for feedback on a document, especially for alerts on typos. But since I know nothing of Igbo orthography, I must ask you to trust, as I do, the unnamed author or authors of this document.
“reverbalization: A strategy in which and individual restates a message out loud to enhance memorization and ensure understanding. Similar to paraphrasing, where individuals restate a message using their own words (usually in writing); in reverbalizing, the individual repeats information out loud to promote long-term memory.
For individuals with short-term memory or auditory processing difficulties, reverbalizing information can enhance learning through rehearsal.
Diagnostically, reverbalizing can be an effective way for instructors to monitor whether students have accurately received information.”
Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.
“Bay Psalm Book: (1640) A metrical translation of the Biblical psalms by Richard Mather, Thomas Welde, John Eliot, and twenty-seven other ministers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The book—the first bound book printed in the English colonies—was published by Stephen Day in Cambridge in and edition of seventeen hundred copies. Its full title is The Whole Booke of Psalms Faithfully Translated into English Metre.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
“Crewel: Embroidery using colored worsted yarn. Common in England and the U.S. during the 18th and early 19th centuries, crewel embroidery was chiefly used for drapes and embroidery.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
For the 2025-2026 school year, my last, thank goodness, I was assigned to co-teach two sections of Freshman Biology. This was the first, and therefore the last, time I was to teach biology. Would you be surprised, given the contents of this blog, that biology is not exactly a strong subject for me?
Therefore, I needed to work closely with the content area teacher, as well as study up to the greatest extent possible on the subjects under review. I did develop material for both student use as well as my own edification so I might, to the greatest extent possible, be of some utility in this classroom. So here, in no particular order of content or potential usefulness, are a learning support on the concept of independent and dependent variables, a glossary of terms related to genetics, a glossary of terms related to human reproduction, a summary of a text on protein synthesis, and a support the viewing of a video on protein synthesis.
This is not the most, uh, coherent or well-supported stuff I’ve developed in twenty years of teaching. But rather than toss it, I’ll add it to the pile on this blog. I have more storage space on this website than I will ever use, so what the hell?
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.
“Free enterprise system: A term with political overtones used to describe an economy in which the initiative for production and consumption decisions lies with individuals and companies, and there is limited government regulation. See also MARKET ECONOMY.”
Excerpted from: Black, John, Nigar Hashimzade, and Gareth Myles. A Dictionary of Economics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Posted in Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
“Refugee Intellectuals: (1930-1940) During the 1930s, a galaxy of European intellectuals–authors, artists, scholars, scientists–fled European totalitarianism and found refuge, permanent or temporary, in the United States. Their contributions to the nation’s cultural life–and later to its war effort–were incalculable. The hundreds of refugee intellectuals included:
Excerpted from: Rosenbaum, Robert A. The Penguin Encyclopedia of American History. New York: Penguin, 2003.
Here is a worksheet on the use of meantime and meanwhile. As Paul Brians, the author of Common Errors in English Usage (to which he generously allows access at no charge at his Washington State University web page), from which this worksheet is adapted, observes, most people use these words interchangeably. Merriam-Webster appears to think so, identifying them as synonyms to each other in the electronic version of its Collegiate Encyclopedia (11th Edition). At the same time, Merriam-Webster designates both words, when separated by dashes (i.e. mean-time and mean-while) as nouns.
Yet, as Professor Brians also points out, some usage experts designated specific uses for each of these adverbs and nouns. It is that designation that drives this worksheet, which is a full page and features a reading of two longish sentences and five modified cloze exercises. This might be a useful exercise for opening a discussion about, well, English usage; that in turn might lead to a review of a usage manual to familiarize students with the, well, usefulness, of such a book.
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.
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