“Hudson River School: Group of American realist landscape painters active between about 1820 to 1880 whose favorite subjects were scenes of the Hudson River Valley and the Catskill Mountains. Famous members were Thomas Cole, Asher Durand, and Frederic Church.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
“A Man for All Seasons: A play (1960), later a film (1967), by Robert Bolt (1924-95) about the Tudor statesmen Sir Thomas More and his opposition to Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon. The title was derived by Bolt from a description of More by his contemporary Robert Whittington (c. 1480 – c. 1530), who wrote:
‘More is a man of angel’s wit and singular learning; I know not his fellow. For where is the man of that gentleness, lowliness and affability? And as time requireth, a man of marvelous mirth and pastimes; and sometimes of as sad a gravity: as how say: a man for all seasons.’
Vulgaria (1521)
Whittington in turn borrowed the tag from Erasmus, a friend of More’s, who had described More in his preface to In Praise of Folly (1509) with the words omnium horarum hominem (‘a man for all hours’).”
Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.
“blockade: Action to prevent supplies reaching an enemy, either by placing ships outside its ports, troops outside a city or cutting off traffic across a country’s borders. Under international law a neutral merchant vessel attempting to breach a blockade may be confiscated by the blockading country. The tactic was first attempted in the Napoleonic wars when Britain’s navy blockaded France, Portugal, and Spain. A recent naval blockade was imposed on 12 April 1982 by Britain on the Falkland Islands to cut off supplies to Argentine troops occupying them; it was lifted following the retaking of the islands by British forces in May and June 1982.”
Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.
[N.B.: As he was almost constantly wont to do, Ambrose Bierce ironizes heavily here, using part of the United States Declaration of Independence to pun on the fact that Cromwell signed the death warrant that separated King Charles I from his head.]
“Abridge, vt. To shorten. When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for a people to abridge their king, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. –Oliver Cromwell“
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged humor, literary oddities, readings/research
Over the years, I have produced a number of documents based on the interest of one student. This reading on the prisoner’s dilemma and its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet are one such set of documents.
My own first exposure to the prisoner’s dilemma came from a friend who encountered it as an undergraduate in what, if memory serves, was a history course. This same friend went on to law school, so he may have encountered it there. In any case, the prisoner’s dilemma is part of a broader study of mathematical models of human cognition and resultant conduct called game theory. I actually started to develop a unit on game theory when I realized two things: the first was that the student for whom I prepared the material offered in this blog post wasn’t as interested in it as he thought; the second was that I was woefully unqualified to teach a single lesson on game theory, let alone a whole unit.
If you have the time–I didn’t–a unit on game theory might be just the thing for a certain kind of student. However, it is a complicated field, and even adapting it for struggling or alienated high school students is no small task.
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.
“WPA: Works Progress Administration: (later renamed Works Projects Administration) This federal agency (1935-1943) established by the U.S. government provided depression-era relief to the unemployed by commissioning public works. More than 5,000 artists produced works ranging from monumental murals (Willem de Kooning) to documentary photographs (Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans).”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
“Hidden Curriculum: In education, the hidden curriculum refers to the way in which cultural values and attitudes (such as obedience to authority, punctuality, and delayed gratification) are transmitted, through the structure of teaching and the organization of schools. This is different from the manifest or formal curriculum that is subject-based or topic-based. Philip Jackson’s classic work on Life in the Classroom (1968) points to three aspects of the hidden curriculum: crowds, praise, and power. In classrooms, pupils are exposed to the delay and self-denial that goes along with being one of a crowd; the constant evaluation and competition with others; and the fundamental distinction between the powerful and the powerless, with the teacher being effectively the infant’s first boss. Much sociological research has been concerned with the undesirable aspects of the hidden curriculum, whereby schools are said to sustain inequality, though sexism, racism, and class bias. If, as Emile Durkheim postulated, schools reflect the larger society of which they are a part, it is not surprising that, for good or for ill, the hidden curriculum reflects the values that permeate the other societal systems that interact with education.”
Excerpted from: Marshall, Gordon, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
“The Seventh Seal: A highly regarded film (1957) directed by the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007). A vision of a medieval land ravaged by the Black Death, the film impressed and mystified audiences around the world. The title refers to a verse in the Bible:
‘And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in
heaven about the space of half an hour.’
Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.
If you have by any chance showed “Raiders of the Lost Ark” to your homebound students, or plan to, then you might find that this reading on the Temple and the Holy Ark and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet complements that exciting film.
I’ve tagged this as high-interest material because when I have offered it to students while making its connection to the Indiana Jones movie referred to above, their interest was piqued.
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 Pulitzer Prize was awarded to Saul Bellow only after Bellow had won the Nobel Prize, which must have seemed like being given a cup of warmed-over instant coffee twenty minutes after having drunk the world’s most expensive cognac.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged fiction/literature, humor, literary oddities, readings/research
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