Tag Archives: readings/research

A Spurious Quote from Socrates on Youth

Posted on July 15, 2020 | Leave a comment

“The children now love luxury, they have bad manners, contempt for authority, they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize over their teachers.”

“Attributed in N.Y. Times, 24 Jan. 1948. This spurious quote, trying to make the point that adults have always complained about the behavior of youths, became very popular in the 1960s, Researchers have never found anything like it in the words of Socrates or Plato. Dennis Lien has discovered a similar attribution in Guy Endore’s 1933 novel The Werewolf of Paris: ‘The young people no longer obey the old. The laws that ruled their fathers are trampled underfoot. They seek only their own pleasure and have no respect for religion. They dress indecently and their talk is full of impudence.’ Endore cites ‘an ancient Egyptian papyrus’ as the source.”

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

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The Second of Two Lessons on Sumer

Posted on July 15, 2020 | Leave a comment

Here is the second of two lessons on the ancient civilization of Sumer. I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the noun diaspora—a nice solid noun for whose meaning students have asked after repeatedly over the years. Finally, here is the worksheet at the center of 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.

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Terms of Art: Sect, Sectarianism

Posted on July 15, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Sect, Sectarianism: The sociology of religion developed a model of religious organization which is referred to as the ‘church-sect typology.’ As originally formulated by Max Weber (The Sociology of Religion, 1922) and Ernst Troeltsch (The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, 1912), it was argued that the church type attempted to embrace all members of a society on a universalistic basis. The church, as a result, is a large, bureaucratic organization with a ministry or priesthood. It develops a formal orthodoxy, ritualistic patterns of worship, and recruits its members through socialization rather than evangelical conversion. The church is in political terms accommodated to the state and in social terms predominantly conservative in its beliefs and social standing. By contrast, the sect is a small, evangelical group which recruits its members by conversion, and which adopts a radical stance toward state and society. The medieval Roman Catholic Church was the principal example of a universalistic church; sects include Baptists, Quakers, and Methodists.

Contemporary sociologists have modified this typology by identifying the denomination as an organization which is midway between the sect and the church, and by defining various subtypes of the sect. Bryan Wilson (‘An Analysis of Sect Review,’ American Sociological Review, 1959) defined four different subtypes in terms of the various ways in which they rejected social values or were indifferent to secular society. These subtypes are the conversionist (such as the Salvation Army), the Adventist of revolutionary sects (for example Jehovah’s Witnesses), the introversionist or pietist sects (for instance Quaker), and the gnostic sects (such as Christian Science and New Thought sects). These subtypes have different beliefs, methods of recruitment, and attitudes toward the world. The processes of social change within these sects are very different. Wilson is also the author of the best recent account of sects (The Social Dimensions of Sectarianism, 1992).”

Excerpted from: Marshall, Gordon, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

 

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Posted in English Language Arts, Essays/Readings, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

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The First of Two Lessons on Sumer

Posted on July 15, 2020 | Leave a comment

Starting with this post, and going up from here for a total of eleven documents posts (twenty-two if you count the interstitial quotes), I will publish an entire global studies unit. As I mentioned previously, especially below, where I posted the bulk of another global studies unit, I have, over the years, written and rewritten a number of global studies units as the New York State Global History and Geography Regents Examination changed. For this unit, I can’t remember, to paraphrase Lillian Hellman, how I cut the curriculum to fit that year’s fashion, only that I know that I changed these almost every year for ten years.

And, I am sorry to say, some of this isn’t exactly my best work. Units and lessons grow and mature over time. But when one must change the basic content or them every year (and I sometimes needed to do this for the needs of students, which is another story, and which I am much happier to do), units and lessons never have a chance to deepen, to mature. That loss of time to develop is the thing that primarily afflicts this unit. As I rewrite them, I kept the do-now exercises intact, so as I post these, you may see some repetition.

I considered throwing this material into the digital dumpster, but I can’t bring myself to do that. And, because I probably can continue to blog at the rate I do and not use up the storage I purchase from WordPress for this site for about 100 years, I don’t need to scrimp on uploading documents. Also, I’ve learned the hard way about throwing things away: the minute I do, I want or need them.

So, without further ado, here is first of two lessons on Sumer. Like another version of this lesson, I opened this one with this context clues worksheet on the verb banish; in the event that this lesson goes into a second day, here is another context clues worksheet, this one on the noun age, in the sense of “a period of time dominated by a central figure or prominent feature.” Finally, here is the worksheet with a reading and comprehension questions that is at the center of 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.

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Respirator Therapy

Posted on July 15, 2020 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on respirator therapy along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. When I pulled out this reading yesterday to process it into the finished documents you see here, I thought it would be a timely item to post. The reading is primarily about the device, long obsolete, if the number of them I’ve seen in junk shops over the years, is any indication known as the iron lung.

So, this doesn’t tell the story of the kinds of ventilators used for keeping COVID19 patients alive, but rather some of its predecessors. That said, there is some information about CPAP machines, a device relatively well-known these days. In any case, the deeper meaning of the reading–what life is like when one must depend on a machine to breathe–is timely indeed.

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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A Lesson Plan on Pollutants in the Air from The Order of Things

Posted on July 15, 2020 | Leave a comment

Here is a lesson on pollutants in the air and its accompanying worksheet with a list and its comprehension questions. This is basically a short exercise–informed by a list from Barbara Ann Kipfer’s The Order of Things–that calls upon students to deal simultaneously with two different symbolic systems, to wit numbers and words.

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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Book of Answers: Dalton Trumbo

Posted on July 14, 2020 | Leave a comment

“When was Dalton Trumbo summoned before the House Committee on Un-American activities? In 1947. The screenwriter and author of Johnny Got His Gun (1939) was imprisoned and blacklisted for his refusal to answer questions about his Communist affiliations.”

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

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Vietnam Protest Movement

Posted on July 14, 2020 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on the Vietnam protest movement in the 1960s along with its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. This material might provide valuable context for students seeking to understand the actions and (I hope) changes consequent to them in our nation right now.

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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Crocodile

Posted on July 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Crocodile: A symbol of deity among the ancient Egyptians. According to Plutarch, it is the only aquatic animal that has its eyes covered with a thin transparent membrane, by reason of which it sees and is not seen, as God sees all, Himself not being seen. To this, he adds: ‘The Egyptians worship God symbolically in the crocodile, that being the only animal without a tongue, like the Divine Logos, which standeth not in the need of speech’ (De Iside et Osiride). Achilles Tatius says, ‘The number of its teeth equals the number of days in a year.’ Another tradition is that, during the seven days held sacred to Apis, the crocodile will harm no one.

‘Crocodile tears’ are hypothetical tears. The tale is that crocodiles moan and sigh like a person in deep distress to lure travelers to the spot and even shed tears over their prey while in the act of devouring it. Shakespeare refers to this in the second part of Henry VI.”

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

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The Second of Two Lesson Plans on Ancient Egypt

Posted on July 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

OK, here is the second of two lessons on ancient Egypt. I open this lesson with this worksheet on the noun diaspora; this is a very heavily used words in historical discourse, and I cannot tell you how many times students have asked me to define if for them over the years. If this lesson goes into a second day (I wrote this and the five lessons that precede it below to be taught over a two-day period, FYI), here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the grim reaper. It might not be the best choice for this lesson, but there are plenty of others elsewhere on this website–simply click on the “Cultural Literacy” tag in the word cloud. Finally, here is the worksheet at the center of this lesson with its reading and comprehension questions.

And that is it. In the the six documents posts below (with the interstitial quotes between them), you’ll find most of the rest of the lessons in this far-from-perfect unit.

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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