Tag Archives: questioning/inquiry

Third World

Posted on July 19, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on the Third World along with its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

For the record, I disdain this term, which smacks of colonialism and in fact, as far as I am concerned, is a legacy of colonialism. The colonial powers expropriated wealth and labor from their colonies, then saddled them with a moniker that makes it sound like poverty and underdevelopment is somehow their own fault. If this reading didn’t point out this term’s problems, however blandly (“In addition, some artists and intellectuals adopted the term Third World to describe the common history of imperialism and decolonization shared by many countries in the group” and “Though some now regard the term as insensitive, it remains in use to describe impoverished parts of the globe….”), I probably wouldn’t publish it at all. That said, the reading does open a door to a critical discussion of colonialism and its atrocious legacy.

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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Cultural Literacy: Folk Music

Posted on July 18, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on folk music. This is a half-page worksheet with a relatively short reading and three comprehension questions.

The reading implies, but does not spell out, the concept of folkways. I never understood, in my years teaching both English and social studies, why folkways as a concept was never taught explicitly, thereby offering students the opportunity to instantiate or reify it in their own lives; many of the students I served in New York City were of families recently immigrated to the United States. Understanding folkways, and using that understanding to distinguish between folkways and mores strikes me as a key element of any academic domain at the secondary level that calls itself “social studies.”

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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The Weekly Text, 16 July 2021: A Lesson Plan on Nations with the Longest Coastlines from The Order of Things

Posted on July 16, 2021 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is a lesson plan on nations with the longest coastlines. You’ll need this reading with comprehension questions to teach this lesson. This is material for emerging reader, students with reading-related learning disorders, and English language learners.

This is a short and simple reading comprehension lesson with the usual twist on these lessons adapted from Barbara Ann Kipfer’s superb reference book, The Order of Things: students will deal with both numbers and words (often a challenging endeavor for some readers) in the reading in a relatively low-stakes environment. For more about these lessons, see the “About Posts & Texts” page, linked to below the masthead on this blog’s homepage.

That’s it for this week, Stay cool and stay safe,

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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Cultural Literacy: Catherine the Great

Posted on July 16, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Catherine the Great. To my surprise, this is the first material on the Empress I have published on this blog.

She is without question a world-historical figure, and probably of interest to a certain type of student, probably female. In any case, I’ll make a point of producing a couple of more posts about it.

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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Zenger Trial

Posted on July 15, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on the Zenger Trial along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. This is a relatively short reading as selections from the Intellectual Devotional series go, but the worksheet conforms to this blog’s standard: eight vocabulary words to define, eight comprehension questions, and three “additional facts” questions.

This piece of litigation from colonial-era America was barely on my radar screen until it popped up as a question on the United States history College Level Examination (CLEP) test. To summarize even beyond the limits of this short reading, John Peter Zenger published a newspaper in New York City, The New York Weekly Journal. Zenger used his paper to criticize the colonial governor of New York, William Cosby. Cosby accused Zenger of libel and sedition and in November of  However, a grand jury refused to indict Zenger (which, if memory serves, indicated Cosby’s popularity). In 1735, Zenger was acquitted of the charges against him. His case, in American history, is often cited as the birth of the principle of free press in the United States.

In other words, in many respects, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution has its roots in the Zenger Affair.

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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Cultural Literacy: Cause Celebre

Posted on July 13, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the noun cause celebre. It means, as I am sure you know, “a legal case that excites widespread interest” and “a notorious person, thing, incident, or episode.”

This Gallicism isn’t exactly the most commonly used word in the the language, but educated people do use it. I’ll hazard a guess that one wouldn’t have far to look in major metropolitan newspapers or literary magazines like The Atlantic, Harpers, or The New Yorker to see this word in action. If nothing else, when children and adolescents make foolish choices, as the often do, this is the right word to describe them, especially in its latter sense.

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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New York City Subways

Posted on July 12, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on the New York City subways along with its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

This is a rudimentary history of the system, though it does offer some room for analysis, particularly the paragraph that begins “Since their opening, New York’s subways have functioned as a sort of bellwether for the city’s overall condition.” In any event, if you happen to work as a teacher in New York City, and serve a special needs population, I can just about guarantee you that at some point you will encounter a student, if you haven’t already, whose all-consuming, even obsessive, interest in the subway system will make these documents stand as high-interest material. Ergo, I have tagged them as such.

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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The Weekly Text, 9 July 2021: The Panics of 1837 and 1873

Posted on July 9, 2021 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is two sets of two documents, the first a reading on the Panic of 1837 and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet; the second, a reading on the Panic of 1873  along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Nota bene, please, that in the context of these materials, the word panic refers to “a sudden widespread fright concerning financial affairs that results in a depression of values caused by extreme measures for protection of property (as securities).” More recently, we American English speakers have replaced panic with crisis, as in the Financial crisis of 2007-2008.

I’ve always been fascinated by the obvious symmetry of these dates. Somewhere along the way in my undergraduate years, I wrote a paper that dealt with the Panic of 1896 in the context of something else–possibly the Spanish-American War. Then again, it might have had something to do with a paper on the Panic of 1893; although that said, I wrote a paper about the Supreme Court Justice Joseph Bradley that may well have included an excursus on the Panic of 1884. Somewhere along the way, I also got onto the Panic of 1857, which was a prelude to but not necessarily a precipitant of the American Civil War. One thing I can say with confidence: I only became familiar with the Panic of 1819 in researching the background of this blog post.

As you can see, the nineteenth century, like the twentieth, was an age of instability in financial markets. Am I imagining things, or is there a unit in all of this on the function and dysfunction of markets? All of these panics were the consequence of volatile commodities prices, especially precious metals, or excessive and overly leveraged speculation. The question is, can we ever learn from this? I’m no economist, but when I look at economic history, I see the same things happening over and over again with no one learning anything from them.

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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Cultural Literacy: Carnegie Hall

Posted on July 9, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Carnegie Hall–useful to my erstwhile New York City colleagues if nobody else.

You probably know the old joke: a tourist in Midtown Manhattan approaches a man who is obviously a seasoned New Yorker and asks “How do I get to Carnegie Hall.” “Practice, Practice, Practice,” the New Yorker replies. Seriously, though, if you’re in the city and planning to attend an event at Carnegie Hall, it is at the corner of 57th Street and 7th Avenue. Take the N, Q, R, or W trains (they’re the yellow ones) to the 57th Street and 7th Avenue station, go upstairs, and enter this grand venue.

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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Perspiration

Posted on July 8, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on perspiration along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. If you live anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere as of the publication date of this post, you understand why it is timely.

Other than that, there is not much to be said about these documents other than you can modify them, as you can modify almost anything else on this blog, to your needs because they are formatted in Microsoft Word.

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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