Tag Archives: questioning/inquiry

Seven Days of the Week

Posted on August 16, 2024 | Leave a comment

“Monday/Lundi * Tuesday/Mardi * Wednesday/Mercredi * Thursday/Jeudi * Friday/Vendredi * Satuday/Samedi Sunday/Dimanche

Our seven-day week is a straight inheritance from very ancient Babylonian and Jewish traditions that took the seven planets as one of the ordering principles of humanity and divinity. The main alternatives were the Egyptian ten-day week, the Germano-Celtic nine-night week and the eight-day week for the Etruscans. The latter was inherited by the Romans, for it allowed for a specific market-day, which enabled country-dwellers to come to the cities and sell fruit and vegetables (which lasted only eight days). During Julius Caesar’s calendar reforms the seven-day week was introduced to the Near East, though it ran alongside the old Etruscan traditions until the time Constantine.

And some time during that period, between 200 and 600 AD, the current charming muddle of English names was hatched out, part honouring the Roman pantheon and part the Norse-German deities. For Monday is moon day, Tuesday is the day to Tiw/Tyr’s day (the heroic Teutonic sky god), Wednesday is Woden/Odin’s (the Teutonic/Norse god of knowledge and war), Thursday is the day of Thor (the Teutonic smith-god of thunder)), Friday is the day of Frija/Freyr (the Teutonic goddess of fertility), Saturday is Saturn (the father of Zeus)’s day, and Sunday is of course the sun’s day.

The same process happened in France, ossifying that peculiar junction point between Roman paganism and the new Christian order. So the French have Lundi (from the Latin dies Lunae, or moon day), Mardi (dies Martis, or Mars day), Mercredi (dies Mercurii, or Mercury day), Jeudi (dies Jovis, or Jupiter day), Vendredi (dies Veneris, Venus day), Samedi (dies Saturni, Saturn day) and Dimanche (dies Dominicus, day of the lord).

In the well-ordered Christian state of Byzantium, all these pagan relics were ditched in favor of days 1, 2, 3 and 4, followed by Paraskene (preparation), Sabbaton and finally Kyriaki (God’s day). These remain the days in modern Greek.”

Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

Tagged , , , ,

The Weekly Text, 19 April 2024: The Second of Two Lesson Plans on Painting and Sculpture from The Order of Things

Posted on April 16, 2024 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is this the second of two lesson plans on painting and sculpture from Barbara Ann Kipfer’s The Order of Things. You’ll need this worksheet with a list as a reading and comprehension questions. If you want the first lesson as well, published on 24 January of this year, you’ll find it under this hyperlink.

I just want to note, again, that the lessons from The Order of Things posted on this blog are aimed at students with low levels of literacy or learners of English as a new language.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Lesson Plans, The Weekly Text, Worksheets

Tagged , , ,

The Weekly Text, 12 April 2024: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Batteries

Posted on April 12, 2024 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is this reading on batteries along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Since most if not all students now carry a smart phone, this reading, to my surprise, has become a high-interest item; thus, I have tagged it as such.

Students want to know, apparently, how to keep these high-tech toys going.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, The Weekly Text, Worksheets

Tagged , , , , ,

The Weekly Text, 29 March 2024, Women’s History Month Week 5: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Emmeline Pankhurst

Posted on March 29, 2024 | Leave a comment

For this, the final Friday of Women’s History Month 2024, here is a reading on Emmeline Pankhurst with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. This is a surprisingly thorough account, for a single page of text, of the legendary suffragist and social reformer.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Social Sciences, The Weekly Text, Worksheets

Tagged , , , ,

Christa Wolf

Posted on March 21, 2024 | Leave a comment

“Christa Wolf: (1929-2011) German novelist and essayist. Wolf’s major theme is the individual damaged and crippled by society. Der geteilte Himmel (1963; tr Divided Heaven, 1983), a critical account of East German society, established her as a major writer. Her highly acclaimed novel Nachdenken uber Christa T. (1968; tr The Quest for Christa T, 1970), both a requiem for a dead friend and an analysis of the limits of individual development set by society, caused a debate about new modes of narration in East German literature. The novel Kindheitesmuster (1976; tr Patterns of Childhood, 1984) is an attempt to come to terms with the National Socialist past. In Kein Ort Nurgens (1979; tr No Place on Earth, 1982), Wolf Depicts a fictional meeting between Kleist and Karoline von Gunderrode, two alienated individuals, both poets and both suicides, who longed for a different society. With this and other works, Wolf contributed to a reevaluation of Romanticism in the German Democratic Republic. Reverting to mythological sources in Kassandra (1983; tr 1984), Wolf finds in the story of Cassandra a foreshadowing of what was to become reality for subsequent centuries: the exclusion of women as subjects of history. Written in the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe, Storfall, Nachrichten eines Tages (1987; tr Accident. A Day’s News, 1989) deals with Western civilization’s potential for destruction. Wolf’s short story, Was bleibt (1990; tr What Remains and Other Stories, 1993) led to a controversy about the status of literature by former East German authors. Selections in English of Wolf’s other writings include The Reader and the Writer: Essays, Sketches, Memories (1977), and The Author’s Dimension: Selected Essays (1993).”

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

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences, Worksheets

Tagged , , , ,

The Weekly Text, 22 March 2024, Women’s History Month Week 4: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Mrs. Dalloway

Posted on March 21, 2024 | Leave a comment

On this, the penultimate Friday of Women’s History Month 2024, here is a reading on Mrs. Dalloway, the novel by Virginia Woolf, and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I rather doubt anyone is teaching this book at the secondary level. I confess I have found this book, at which I’ve taken several passes, more than a bit of a challenge. Still, these materials introduce the novel, and in so doing introduce Virginia Woolf herself, a significant figure in women’s history.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, The Weekly Text, Worksheets

Tagged , , , , ,

The Weekly Text, 15 March 2024, Women’s History Month Week 3: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Patti Smith

Posted on March 15, 2024 | Leave a comment

On this, the third Friday of Women’s History Month 2024, here is a reading on Patti Smith with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I’d really like to think at this point that this extraordinary artist requires little introduction on this blog, so enough said.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, New York City, Social Sciences, The Weekly Text, Worksheets

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Seneca Falls Convention

Posted on March 8, 2024 | Leave a comment

“Seneca Falls Convention: (July 19-20, 1948) Assembly held at Seneca Falls, New York, that launched the U.S.s women’s suffrage movement. The meeting was initiated by Elizabeth Cady Stanton (who lived in Seneca Falls) and Lucretia Mott. Over 200 people attended the meeting including 40 men, The group passed the Declaration of Sentiments, a list of grievances and demands modeled on the Declaration of Independence that called on women to organize and petition for their rights. A controversial demand for the right to vote passed by a narrow margin.”

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

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

Tagged , , ,

The Weekly Text, 8 March 2024, Women’s History Month Week 2: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Anne Bradstreet

Posted on March 8, 2024 | Leave a comment

For the second Friday of Women’s History Month 2024, here is a reading on Anne Bradstreet with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. She was, as you may know (and I didn’t, I think, because I thought she was a key figure in North American Protestantism somehow, so a theocrat of some sort I suppose) a poet; in fact, she was the first person to publish a volume of poetry in Great Britain’s North American Colonies.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Social Sciences, The Weekly Text, Worksheets

Tagged , , , , , ,

Cultural Literacy: Frankenstein

Posted on March 1, 2024 | Leave a comment

Moving right along this morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the novel Frankenstein. This is a full-page document with a reading of five sentences and four comprehension questions.

How has what is ostensibly a horror story (which I’ve always read as an allegory on the naivete of Enlightenment notions about the perfectibility of man) to do with Women’s History Month? Well, this novel’s author is Mary Shelley, who was also known as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley after her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, who was a pioneering feminist and author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.

And while I am conflicted about using these women’s husbands to identify them, the two men are important for understanding the milieu in which Mary Shelley and her mother lived. Mary Shelley came by her name through her marriage to Percy Bysshe Shelley, the major English romantic poet. Mary Wollstonecraft married William Godwin, the British journalist, political philosopher, and novelist who, if he were alive today, would be quickly dismissed by the far right wing of the Republican Party as a man of the “woke left.”

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Social Sciences, Worksheets

Tagged , , , , , , , ,