Tag Archives: readings/research

A Document-Based Questioning (DBQ) Lesson on the Rig Veda

Here is a DBQ lesson on the Hindu sacred text the Rig Veda, the first, as above and below, of a ten-lesson documents-based questions (DBQ) unit.

I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of symbols; in the event the lesson requires a second day to complete, then here is another on another on the epic as a poetic form. As I write this, I think perhaps the reading on epics probably ought to come first in the delivery of this lesson. Finally, here is the reading and comprehension worksheet that is the chief work of this lesson.

Incidentally, you might find this reading and comprehension worksheet on Hindu Epics complementary to this lesson.

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.

Illusionism

“Illusionism: The use of optical principles to create the illusion that a painted object is real. Among the techniques are PERSPECTIVE, FORESHORTENING, and CHIAROSCURO. QUADRATURA and TROMPE L’OEIL are other forms of illusionism.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

The Miracle on Ice

When I taught in Springfield, Massachusetts, (which hosts a minor league hockey team), a number of students in my literacy intervention class wanted to read about hockey. So I worked up this reading on the Miracle on Ice and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet for their consumption. If you’re not old enough to remember it, or are not a hockey or Olympics fan, the Miracle on Ice is the United States Olympic Hockey Team’s upset victory over the Russian team at the 1980 Olympics at Lake Placid, New York.

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.

Term of Art: Paradigm

“Paradigm: [From Greek paradeigma, a pattern, an example, a basis for comparison. Stress: ‘PA-ra-dime’]. In grammar, a set of all the (especially inflected) forms of a word (write, writes, wrote, writing, written), especially when used as a model for word forms in Latin and Greek (in which key words represent the patterns of numbered groups in nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc.) and to a lesser extent for such other languages as French and Spanish (principally for verbs). Their use is limited in English, because it is not a highly inflected language.”

Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Book of Answers: C.S. Lewis and Joy Davidman

“When did critic and write C.S. Lewis marry Joy Davidman? In 1956. She died of cancer in 1960, three years before Lewis’s own death in 1963. Their story is told in Lewis’s A Grief Observed (1961).”

Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

Cervix

Useful though they may be (I hope), I’m always a bit circumspect about posting materials like this reading on the cervix and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

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.

A Lesson Plan on the Addiction Potential of Drugs from The Order of Things

Here’s a lesson plan on the addiction potential of drugs with its list as reading and comprehension questions. Both are adapted from the text of Barbara Ann Knipfer’s book The Order of Things. All are catalogued–and searchable–as such at Mark’s Text Terminal.

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.

Cotton Mather

OK, last but not least this humid morning, here is a reading on Cotton Mather and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. United States history teachers take note.

And I’ll keep my snarky comments about aggressively militant Calvinists to myself. Likewise Reverend Mather’s role in the Salem Witch Trials.

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.

Brewer’s Curious Titles: Catch-22

Catch-22: “A novel (1961) by Joseph Heller (1923-1999) about the experiences of Captain Yossarian of the 256th (Army) bombing squadron in Italy during the Second World War. Yossarian’s main aim is to avoid getting killed. ‘Catch-22’ has become part of everyday speech to indicate a ‘no-win’ situation. Heller originally defined Catch-22 in chapter 5 of the novel:

‘There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified the concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was to ask; and as soon as he did. He would no longer be crazy have to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to’ 

Heller’s original title had been Catch 18, but his editor Robert Gottlieb pointed out that they were publishing Leon Uris’s Mila 18 in the same season. Heller later recalled:

‘I thought of Catch-Eleven, because it’s the only other number to start with an open vowel sound, I guess we doubled that.’

A film version (1970) with Alan Arkin as Yossarian was directed by Mike Nichols. Heller’s novel Closing Time (1994) features some of the same characters in later life.”

Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.

Dale Earnhardt

Depending on where you are and whom your teaching, this reading on Dale Earnhardt may well be high-interest material. It certainly was in Vermont. Less popular perhaps, but still necessary, is the vocabulary-building and comprehension sheet, but there it is anyway.

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.