Tag Archives: readings/research

Thomas Reed Powell on the Legal Mind

“If you think you can think about a thing inextricably attached to something else without thinking of the thing which it is attached to, then you have a legal mind.”

Thomas Reed Powell

Quoted in Thurman W. ArnoldThe Symbols of Government

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

Gordie Howe

Last year, while working in Springfield, Massachusetts, I was interested to learn that many of my students were interested in and followed hockey. This was partly due, I guess, to the presence of the Springfield Thunderbirds, a minor league hockey team; it was also due to the fact that several girls I taught actually played the game themselves.

So, one of the things I developed for these students is this reading on hockey legend Gordie Howe and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I have several more hockey-related readings and worksheet, so if this sport is of interest to your students, be on the lookout 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.

Jerome Bruner on Narrative

“A ‘story’ (fictional or actual) involves an Agent who Acts to achieve a Goal in a recognizable Setting by the use of certain Means. What drives the story, what makes it worth telling, is Trouble: some misfit between Agent, Acts, Goals, Settings, and Means.”

Jerome Bruner

The Culture of Education

Excerpted from: Wiggins, Grant, and Jay McTighe. Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 1998.

The Three Stooges

Because one seldom has a chance to see real genius at work, this reading on The Three Stooges and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet might be a salutary antidote to that deficit.

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.

Small is Beautiful by E.F. Schumacher

Small is Beautiful: An influential book (1973) by the German-born British economist E.F. Schumacher (1911-77), subtitled ‘A Study of Economics as if People Mattered.’ Schumacher argues in favor of small-scale institutions and sustainable development, and against capital-intensive, high-tech solutions, especially in the Third World. The title phrase has entered popular usage.”

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

Black Sabbath

In the early- to mid-1970s, they were all the rage among certain of my peers, but I mostly listened to Bob Dylan in those days. If you have students who are fans of heavy metal music, then this reading on Black Sabbath and the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that accompanies it will be, I expect, of high interest to those students. After all, Ozzy Osbourne still occupies a relatively prominent place in the culture.

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: Anecdote

“A brief account of or a story about an individual or an incident. The anecdotal digression is a common feature of narrative in prose and verse. In the history of English literature and of literary characters the anecdote has a specific importance. In his Dictionary Samuel Johnson defined the term as “something yet unpublished; secret history”. During the 18th century and interest in “secret histories increased steadily, and no doubt there is some connection between this and the growing popularity of –ana, table-talk and biography (qq.v) at that time. During the second half of the 18th century there was almost a craze for “secret” histories. In the last thirty years of it over a hundred books of anecdotage were published in England. Isaac Disraeli, father of Benjamin, became one of the best known and most assiduous gleaners of anecdotes. In 1791 he published three volumes titled Curiosities of Literature, consisting of Anecdotes, Characters, Sketches, and Observations, Literary, Historical, and Critical. These he followed with other collections: Calamities of Authors (1812-1813) in two volumes, and Quarrels of Authors (1814) in three volumes. In 1812 John Nichols published the first of nine volumes in a series titled Literary Anecdotes of the 18th Century. Such works remained popular during the Victorian period. Nor is the appetite for collections of anecdotes assuaged. In 1975 there was The Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes.”

Excerpted from: Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New York: Penguin, 1992.

A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Snow Cover”

It has been a busy week already, but I’m forcing a few minutes of time this morning to publish this lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “Snow Cover.”

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Apollo with which I open this lesson. The center of this lesson is, of course, this PDF of the illustration and questions that drive the case. Finally, here is the typescript of the answer key that solves the case.

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: Rapport

rapport n.: A sympathetic or harmonious relationship or state of mutual understanding. The word was introduced into psychology by the Viennese physician Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815), and the French psychologist and neurologist Pierre Janet (1859-1947) confined its meaning specifically to the relationship between a hypnotist and a hypnotized subject; then Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) eventually widened its meaning and described it as the prototype (2) of  the transference.

[From French rapporter, to bring back, from re-again and apportare, to carry to, from Latin apportare to bring to, from, ad to + portare to bring or carry]”

Excerpted from: Colman, Andrew M., ed. Oxford Dictionary of Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Vitamin C and Scurvy

For health teachers (and for social studies teachers who want, improbably, their students to understand what life on the high seas was like for English sailors, and how they came by the epithet “Limeys”), here is a reading on vitamin c and scurvy 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.