Tag Archives: questioning/inquiry

Edgar Allan Poe

Posted on June 14, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on Edgar Allan Poe along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I believe he is taught at the secondary level. This is a good introduction to Poe’s biography and his bibliography.

Have you read Poe, beyond hearing James Earl Jones read “The Raven” on The Simpsons‘ first “Treehouse of Horror” episode? I confess my own reading of Poe doesn’t extend very far beyond that. He is a very influential figure in the history of American letters. His first editions are some of the most sought after in the antiquarian book trade; his very first book, Tamerlane, which doesn’t even bear his name (the author is given as “A Bostonian) is a high spot in book collecting–it is known as the “black tulip” of American literature. The last copy that came up at auction sold for $662,000. His influence abroad may be even more pronounced, especially in France.

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: Mixed Economy

Posted on June 13, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of a mixed economy. It’s a full-page worksheet with four questions, but it can–and very easily, because it is a Microsoft Word Document–be expanded or contracted depending on how much you need students to know about the subject. It’s decent general introduction, but it does presuppose some knowledge of the difference between market and command economies, and private and public enterprises.

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, June 11, 2021: A Lesson Plan on Geometric Angles by Degrees from The Order of Things

Posted on June 11, 2021 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is a lesson plan on the degrees of angles in geometry. Here is the worksheet with a short reading and a series of comprehension questions.

The reading covers the five types of angles in geometry: acute (1-89 degrees); right (90 degrees); obtuse (91-179 degrees); straight (180 degrees); and reflex (180-359 degrees). This is an exercise designed to supply diverse learners with practice manipulating two symbolic systems–i.e. words and numbers–at the same time. It also, I would think (but also qualify this with something that is beyond dispute–I am not a teacher of mathematics), introduces students to the concept of angles in geometry.

For more on the material I developed from Barbara Anne Kipfer’s superb reference book,The Order of Things, see the About Posts & Texts page visible on the masthead of the home page of this blog.

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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Salvador Dali

Posted on June 9, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on Salvador Dali along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

It is a good general introduction to the artist’s life, containing both personal and professional biographical material. Of particular interest to students, perhaps (I saw Un Chien Andalou as a high school junior and found it both horrifying and compelling; in any case, it is a cultural product that is de rigueur if one is to count oneself among the a certain strand of the cognoscenti), are Dali’s collaborations with Luis Bunuel.

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: Microchip

Posted on June 7, 2021 | Leave a comment

Since there is currently a worldwide shortage of them, and this as particularly affected the automobile manufacturing industry, now is a good time to post this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the microchip. It’s a full-page worksheet with five questions; as it is formatted in Microsoft Word, the user is left with a lot of latitude where expanding, contracting, or otherwise adapting this document to suit his or her needs.

So have at 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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The Weekly Text, June 4, 2021: A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “The Cheater”

Posted on June 4, 2021 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “The Cheater.” I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Latinism mea culpa, which means, of course, “through my fault.” You see the root of the noun culpability there, I’m confident, which means “responsibility for for wrongdoing or failure” and “the quality or state of being culpable.” Translated into adolescent-speak, it means “my bad.” You and I might say it translates to “my fault.” Enough said.

To conduct your investigation into the case of “The Cheater,” you’ll need this scan of the illustration that presents the evidence in the case, which is attended by short narrative and questions to guide your inquiry. Finally, here is the typescript of the answers to help you conclude your investigation.

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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Word Root Exercise: Aero

Posted on June 3, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the Greek word root aero. It means, as you probably know, air, and is an extremely productive root in English, yielding such staples of the lexicon as the verb aerate, the adjective aerial, and the noun aerodynamics. In other words, like many Greek roots, it forms the basis of many words across the parts of speech that we use in the hard sciences.

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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Dashiell Hammett

Posted on May 31, 2021 | Leave a comment

On Memorial Day 2021, here is a reading on Dashiell Hammett along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

Why Samuel Dashiell Hammett, the author of numerous short stories and several novels, including The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man (from which a successful six-part film franchise, then a television series, was produced) on Memorial Day? I don’t think most people realize that Hammett served in the United States military twice, enlisting in 1918, then again in 1943. At the height of his literary fame, at the age of 48, he joined the army as a private and was stationed in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, where he edited The Adakian, the camp newspaper.

Hammett identified as a leftist, which made his voluntary service in the U.S. military even more baffling to his left-leaning social circle, including his lover, playwright Lillian Hellman. In fact, after the war, Hammett began teaching writing courses at the Jefferson School of Social Science, operated by the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) in New York City. Later, famously, Hammett was summoned to testify on his activities with the Civil Rights Congress, of which he was elected president in June of 1946. He inculpated himself in the group’s activities, but refused to name the other people involved in the organization. For his refusal to name names, this veteran of service in two wars with the United States Armed Services served a six-month jail sentence for contempt of court.

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, 28 May 2021, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Week IV: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Chandragupta Maurya

Posted on May 28, 2021 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text, the final for this year in observance of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2021 is a reading on Chandragupta Maurya and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

Chandragupta Maurya founded the Maurya Empire, which enjoyed a long run–from 322 to 180 BCE. We know about Chandragupta Maurya and his eponymous empire from a variety of sources. India was known to the ancients in the West, including Pliny the Elder and Plutarch (and don’t forget that Alexander the Great fought briefly in northwest India); the Roman historian Justin also left biographical details about Chandragupta. He is also mentioned in the Arthashastra, a Sanskrit book on statecraft. Since the Mauryas oversaw the rise of Buddhism in India under King Ashoka, Chandragupta’s grandson and the third of the Mauryan emperors,. Buddhist texts also supply facts about Chandragupta and the Mauryas. Finally, a wealth of archaeological evidence underwrites both Chandragupta’s reign as well as the broader history of the Maurya Empire.

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: Asia

Posted on May 27, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Asia. This is a half-page document with three questions–in other words a general introduction to the topic as a continent.

Like so many places in the world, the Romans named this continent, lifting the word Asia (as with so many other things) from the ancient Greeks. In fact, Herodotus was evidently the first person to use the word, though in reference to Asia Minor–or Anatolia, if you prefer–rather than the entire landmass we moderns envision when we think of Asia.

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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