Tag Archives: questioning/inquiry

Cultural Literacy: Black Muslims/Nation of Islam

Posted on February 17, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Black Muslims. The minute I saw the text that serves as the basis for this reading comprehension worksheet, let alone wrote the document, I was uneasy. In fact, I was and remain so uneasy about this worksheet that I rewrote it as a worksheet on the Nation of Islam.

Why was I uneasy? Well, first of all, thanks for asking! For starters, I think “Black Muslims” is an appellation contrived and articulated by White Americans in the 1960s to describe something they didn’t understand, and something, perhaps, that made them anxious. One thing I always tried to teach kids in my classes is that they possess a fundamental right, prerogative, indeed responsibility, to identify themselves–and not leave that important job to someone else. And I don’t know about you, but to my ear, the term “Black Muslims” coming out of the mouths of people who don’t identify as members of the Nation of Islam carries a note of derogation.

But it was an article of popular culture that supplied confirmation of my position on this worksheet–namely Regina King’s superlative new film  One Night in Miami. Have you seen it? It’s based on an actual night–February 25, 1964–when Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke met in a Miami hotel room. Based on the stage play by Kemp Powers, it is a powerful film of exceptionally strong dialogue (kudos to Mr. Powers for the strength of his exposition, which is among the best I have ever heard), stellar performances, and deft direction.

In any case, at one point in the film, as Malcolm X and Sam Cooke engage in a heated argument, Sam Cooke makes a sneering remark about “Black Muslims.” Malcolm X quickly retorts, “The Nation of Islam to you.”

And that, in the final analysis, is why this post contains two documents as well as a healthy dose of skepticism about the phrase “Black Muslims.”

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: Haiti

Posted on February 16, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Haiti. This is a full-page worksheet, so it is suitable, I think, for a number of uses besides the rather limited do-now scope of the shorter, half-page Cultural Literacy worksheets posted on this blog.

Have you, by any chance, read C.L.R. James’s well-regarded history of the Haitian Revolution, The Black Jacobins? I just started it yesterday, and it is all it is reputed to be: classic, at once passionate and analytical, infused with a rich contempt for tyranny, and and endowed with a welcome and edifying scholarly apparatus. I should also mention that Mr. James wrote with verve, and used his gifts as a prose stylist to produce fiction and drama as well.

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: Crispus Attucks

Posted on February 15, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Crispus Attucks. Mr. Attucks was stevedore of African and Native American descent.

He was also the first person killed in the Boston Massacre in 1770, and therefore the first person killed for the cause of the independence of the original 13 colonies of this nation. Those are the basic facts of his life, and they should be known. Given the history of Americans of African descent in this country since, Crispus Attucks’ life might be an apt instantiation of irony, especially bitter irony–or even better, cruel irony–in 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.

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Cultural Literacy: Jazz

Posted on February 11, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Jazz. This is a full-page worksheet, so it is suitable for independent practice.

Jazz is principal genre of music played at Mark’s Text Terminal; in fact, as I type this, Kenny Dorham is playing “Blue Friday” from his fine 1959 recording Quiet Kenny. It’s a quartet set with Mr. Dorham backed by a rhythm section including pianist Tommy Flanagan, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Art Taylor. 

When I listened to jazz for the first time in high school (let the record reflect it was the original Impulse long-play vinyl record of John Coltrane Live at the Village Vanguard, side two, the almost 17-minute-long version of “Chasin’ the Trane”) , and I mean really listened, rather than simply heard, I knew I would be an aficionado of the music for the rest of my life. 

Over the years, the word Jazz (especially spelled out with a lower-case j) began to trouble me. Aside from its slangy sound and therefore connotation, it seemed like a miserly word to describe such original, variegated, and stately music. So, a few years back, when I heard an interview the great trumpeter (see him live if you can!) Nicholas Payton in which he said he takes issue with the word Jazz, I was relieved to hear him say it. He prefers the term “Black American Music,” which sounds good to me. If you’re interested in learning more of Mr. Payton’s thoughts about Jazz, you might want to take a look at this 2011 post from his blog.

Clint Eastwood has often said that Jazz and Blues are the perhaps “the only original art forms that we have” in the United States. It’s hard to disagree with that, and it’s hard not to at least consider the fact that Jazz especially has been ignored in the United States for two simple reasons: racism and a lack of good taste, tendencies that far too many Americans express proudly. Jazz is our classical music, and maybe for that reason alone it is time to find a new name for this complex, vibrant, uniquely American music.

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: Arthur Ashe

Posted on February 10, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Arthur Ashe, the great tennis player and humanitarian.

Have you, by any chance, read Mark Mathabane’s memoir of life in apartheid-era South Africa, Kaffir Boy? Mr. Mathabane also played tennis–quite well–and came to the attention of tennis legend Stan Smith at the 1977 South African Championship in Johannesburg. Mr. Smith worked with Mark Mathabane to secure a tennis scholarship, and in 1978 Mr. Mathabane matriculated at Limestone College in South Carolina, aided by a tennis scholarship.

However, in November of 1973, Arthur Ashe traveled to South Africa to play and in so doing broke the color line in sports in the apartheid state. I remember at the time–I was pre-high school–thinking Mr. Ashe was an American hero. Today, there is little doubt of that. In any case Mark Mathabane devotes chapter 38 of Kaffir Boy to the deep impression Arthur Ashe made upon him. You’ll find a nice, uncluttered summary of that chapter at Lit Notes.

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: Dred Scott Decision

Posted on February 9, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here’s a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Dred Scott Decision, an ignominious moment among several in the history of the United States Supreme Court. This is a full-page worksheet with seven questions; it can be used, therefore, as an independent practice worksheet. But it can also be easily adapted to the needs of your classroom and its students.

What this worksheet does not cite or invoke, and which students really ought to know, is Chief Justice Roger Taney’s infamous statement in the decision, to wit, that Dred Scott, like other Americans of African descent, possessed “…no rights which the white man was bound to respect….” This is a key moment of racist rhetoric in this nation’s history, and one students should be bound to understand. Put another way, anyone who says that racism isn’t a fundamental element of United States history really ought to have his or her nose rubbed in Justice Taney’s statement.

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: Ethiopia

Posted on February 8, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Ethiopia. This is a full-page worksheet with 14 questions, which the subject clearly merits. But like everything else at Mark’s Text Terminal, you can modify this Microsoft Word document for the needs of your students.

Incidentally, while the reading does mention that Ethiopia is one of the oldest Christian nations on earth, it does not mention the extraordinary rock-cut, monolithic churches in the town of Lalibela. These structures and their history probably ought to accompany any teaching about Ethiopia.

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, February 5, 2020, Black History Month 2021 Week I: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Huey P. Newton

Posted on February 5, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here, for the first Weekly Text in observance of Black History Month 2021, is a reading on Huey P. Newton along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

In the mid-1970s, among my crowd in high school, Huey P. Newton was a bona fide hero. He co-founded, with Bobby Seale (another of our heroes), the Black Panther Party, (a heroic organization), which among many other things, fed breakfast to impoverished children and challenged the kind of police brutality that brings us events like the patently racist and sadistic murder of George Floyd in 2020.

It’s quite possible that your students may know Huey’s name. A panoply of rappers, including Tupac Shakur, Dead Prez, The Flobots, Public Enemy, Ab-Soul, Buddy and A$AP Ferg, and the great Kendrick Lamar have alluded to Huey in their rhymes. Pop artists like St. Vincent, Ramshackle Glory, Bhi Bhiman, and the Boo Radleys have also mentioned Huey in their songs. The character of Huey Freeman in Aaron McGruder’s brilliant comic strip and television show The Boondocks, a favorite of many students I’ve served over the years, is named for Huey P. Newton.

My own personal favorite pop-culture reference to Huey occurs in the 1979 film Richard Pryor: Live in Concert, which Eddie Murphy regards as the greatest stand-up comedy performance ever captured on film. At the 1:06:54 mark (thanks to Wikipedia for that) of Mr. Pryor’s performance, he calls out to raise the house lights and introduces the audience to Huey P. Newton–who, alas, does not appear on camera.

Finally, I found Spike Lee’s production of Roger Guenveur Smith’s celebrated solo performance in A Huey P. Newton Story to be utterly riveting. Mr. Smith uncannily captures Huey’s deep intellect and abiding compassion, but also his essential shyness and even diffidence. I highly recommend this film.

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: Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

Posted on February 4, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). CORE was founded in 1942, and pioneered the use of nonviolent direct action in the struggle for civil rights and simple justice for Americans of African descent. It is impossible to underestimate the importance of CORE, which is why your students should learn about it. This is a half-page do-now exercise that serves as a general introduction to the organization. Needless to say there is a great deal out there about CORE and its founders.

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: Henry Aaron

Posted on February 3, 2021 | Leave a comment

Sadly, we recently lost him; here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Henry Aaron. If you’re interested in an Everyday Edit worksheet on this exemplary American and great athlete, you can find one here. Moreover, I have a number of materials on Mr. Aaron prepared for publication here, so stay tuned if you or your students are interested in him–and don’t forget to use the search bar on the homepage of this blog.

If you are interested in learning about Hank Aaron’s Civil Rights activism, check out his friendship with the legendary Wisconsin Civil Rights attorney Vel Phillips.

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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