Tag Archives: readings/research

Black Elk

“Black Elk: In a work entitled Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux (1932; repr 1988), Black Elk (1863-1950) recounted his life to John G. Neihardt (1881-1973), conveying important insights into Native American culture, religion, and life on the Plains, as well as a firsthand account of the destruction of that way of life. Black Elk witnessed both Custer’s defeat at Little Big Horn and the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890, in which the U.S. Army killed over a hundred men, women, and children. The massacre marked the end of the Indian Wars.

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

Term of Art: White-Collar Crime

“White-Collar Crime: A term introduced by Edwin Sutherland in the 1940s in order to draw attention to the illegalities and misdeeds of ‘captains of industry’ and other middle-class members of the business world (see his ‘White-Collar Criminality,’ American Sociological Review, 1940, or White-Collar Crime, 1949). The great value of the idea was to redress the imbalance in criminology’s obsession with crimes of the working class. The concept tends to be used very broadly, to include both activities carried out by employees against their employer (embezzlement, pilfering), and activities undertaken by corporate executives on behalf of the corporation itself (such as violation of anti-trust regulations or stock-market rules). Strictly speaking the latter should more accurately be designated corporate crime.”

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

Lesbianism

Here is a reading on lesbianism and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. This has tended to be a high-interest item in my classroom, so I’ve tagged it as such; it is also material written to address personal identity, so I’ve tagged it as social-emotional learning as well.

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.

The Algonquin Wits: Dorothy Parker, Famously, on Claire Boothe Luce

“Mrs. Parker once collided with Clare Boothe Luce in a doorway. ‘Age before beauty,’ cracked Mrs. Luce. ‘Pearls before swine,’ said Mrs. Parker, gliding through the door.”

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

A Lesson Plan on Admission of States to the Union from The Order of Things

OK, before I return to a really trashy thriller I have the bad judgement to read, here is a lesson plan on the admission on the admission–or readmission after the Civil War–of states to the United States. Here also is the worksheet at the center of this lesson.

The material I have adapted from Barbara Ann Kipfer’s The World of Order and Organization; How Things Are Arranged into Hierarchies, Structures, and Pecking Orders (New York: Random House, 1997)–the original copy I possessed of the book not long after it was published was called simply The Order of Things, hence the title of the unit–and written into lessons and worksheets is something brand new at Mark’s Text Terminal. I used only a few of them in the classroom. Since it is unlikely that I will teach at the secondary level in public schools again, these are untested. I’ll post them anyway; a rationale, and my thinking toward that rationale, for their use can be found on the “About Posts & Texts” page, linked to just above the banner photograph but below the banner itself.

Please allow me to dilate on the statement below: like just about everything on Mark’s Text Terminal, these are Microsoft Word documents. That means you can alter and adapt them to your needs. If you use these materials and find them effective, I would be much obliged for your comments. And please keep in mind that if these are useful educational instruments, I will be much more likely to produce more of them–and post them here.

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.

Folk Art

“Folk Art: The arts of peasant societies, both past and present. Characterized by naïve subject matter and a vivacious style, folk art both perpetuates very ancient decorative traditions and draws selectively from art forms of sophisticated cultural traditions, e.g. the adaptation of 18th-century Rococo motifs in European folk art. Paintings, sculpture, ceramics, metalwork, costume, needlework, implements and tools all may be folk art. See NAÏVE and OUTSIDER ART.”

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

Samuel Adams

Lest students think he is only a brand of beer and not a the proper name of a hotheaded patriot from Boston in the cause of the American Revolution as well as a founding father of the United States, here is a reading on Samuel Adams 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.

Term of Art: Dative

“Dative: Indicating indirect object (action or feeling toward) or the object of certain prepositions, e.g., ‘He gave me the leftovers,’ ‘The scarf is for her.’”

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

Term of Art: Meritocracy

“Meritocracy: A social system in which status is achieved through ability and effort (merit), rather than ascribed on the basis of age, class, gender, or other such particularistic or inherited advantages. The term implies that the meritorious deserve any privileges which they accrue. In practice it is difficult to find reliable measures of merit about which social scientists can agree.

The term was coined by Michael Young in The Rise of the Meritocracy (1958) to refer to government by those identified as the most able high achievers, with merit defined as intelligence plus effort. His fantasy attempted to foresee the extreme consequences of a society which fully implemented the goal of equality of opportunity through the educational system, with the most able rising to the upper echelons, leaving intellectual dullards to carry out the humble manual work. The book warned that the new focus on intelligence and ability in the educational system merely institutionalized inequality of intellectual ability in place of inequality based on social class. Since judgements about what constitutes effort are inescapably moral (does a lazy genius merit rewarding? And, if so, why not reward a hard-working dullard?) the term remains highly contested (see, for example, John Goldthorpe, ‘Problems of “Meritocracy’) in Robert Erikson and Jan O. Jonsson (eds.). Can Education be Equalized?, 1996).”

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

Site Specific

“Site Specific: Artwork created, designed, or selected for a specific indoor or outdoor site. It may take shape as publicly displayed monumental sculpture commissioned by either city arts agencies or private corporations, or as earth art, often located away from urban centers. Beverly Pepper’s Fallen Sky, located in Barcelona, merges park with sculpture. This undulating earthen mound covered in multi-colored tiles is a recent tribute to Gaudi and the city’s art nouveau heritage. See also INSTALLATION, PUBLIC ART.”

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