Tag Archives: readings/research

The Godfather

Posted on December 5, 2018 | Leave a comment

If your students announce an interest in classic American cinema, as several of mine have in the past couple of days, then this reading on the The Godfather and its accompanying reading comprehension worksheet might be just the ticket for them. I’m developing a new series of readings, so there will me more to come on the cinema.

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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Joe Montana

Posted on December 1, 2018 | Leave a comment

Here is a relatively high-interest reading on quarterback Joe Montana and a reading comprehension worksheet to accompany it.

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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60 Degrees of Sumeria

Posted on December 1, 2018 | Leave a comment

“Sixty is the base number of the Sumerian number system, fully evolved in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) by 3000 BC, and it remains the essence of how we measure time: sixty seconds in a minute, sixty minutes in an hour. The number is also the base of of the 360 degrees of a circle, as in the fully imagined sky of the Sumerians (of which only a portion was visible from temple roofs), divided into six houses of 60 degrees. In Sumerian culture, the number 1 was expressed by a simple wedge, cut into clay or wood, and 60 by a great wedge.

Sixty has the versatility of being neatly divisible by 30, 20, 15, 12, 10, 6, 5, 4, 3, and 2, and therefore makes for easy subdivision of irrigated land and the harvested crops which were initially gathered in sixty-fold sheaves, just as in pre-decimal English currency sixty pennies (60d) were a crown (five shillings/5s).”

Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.

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Jugendstil (n)

Posted on November 29, 2018 | Leave a comment

“The German term for the style known elsewhere as Art Nouveau. Named after the unofficial organ of the movement in Germany, Jugend, founded in 1896.”

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

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Giovanni Boccaccio: The Decameron

Posted on November 27, 2018 | Leave a comment

“A collection of 100 tales by the Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-75), completed in c.1353. Many of the tales were old at this time, and many later writers–including Chaucer and Shakespeare–borrowed stories from the collection. In the framework story, seven ladies and three gentlemen escape from Florence when the Black Death arrives in 1348, and spend their time each telling one tale per day for ten days (Decameron comes from the Greek deka, ‘ten’, and hemera, ‘day’). (There is comparable framework story in The Canterbury Tales.) A film version (1971) by Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-75) concentrates on some of the earthier tales. A similar collection to Boccaccio’s entitled The Heptameron (1558) was ascribed to Margaret of Angouleme (1492-1549), queen of Navarre. The tales are said to have been related in seven days (Greek hepta, ‘seven’).”

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

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Ernest Hemingway

Posted on November 19, 2018 | Leave a comment

Here, first thing on a rainy Monday morning, is a short reading on Ernest Hemingway and its accompanying comprehension worksheet. It is a good general introduction to the author if you happen to be teaching one of his books.

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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Winston Churchill

Posted on November 17, 2018 | Leave a comment

I can think of a number of settings where this reading on Winston Churchill and the comprehension worksheet that attends it might be handy. So here there they are if you want or need them.

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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Abstract Expressionism

Posted on November 16, 2018 | Leave a comment

“An umbrella term which refers to that direction in abstract art characterized by spontaneous and individual abstract expression in a non-objective manner. While the term was first applied to certain of Vassily Kandinsky’s early experimental paintings, it mostly refers to artists working in the 1940s and 1950s, including Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock. Sharing a similar outlook rather than a style, these artists sought total freedom for psychic expression on the canvas. Believed by some to be the first truly American art, the movement is also called the New York School because its international center was New York City. The influence of abstract expressionism extended into the 1970s with Lyrical Abstraction.”

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

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Abstract Art

Posted on November 16, 2018 | Leave a comment

“Art in which elements of form have been stressed in handling the subject matter–which may or may not be recognizable. Abstraction is a relative term; all artworks exist on a continuum between total abstraction and full representation. Vassily Kandinsky is generally credited with having created the first purely abstract artwork in 1910.”

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

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On the Road

Posted on November 16, 2018 | Leave a comment

“A novel (1957) by Jack Kerouac (1922-69), based on several wild trips across the United States with Neal Cassady (1926-68). In it he used the term Beat Generation ‘to describe guys who run around the country in cars looking for odd jobs, girlfriends, and kicks.’ The book became the prose manifesto of the culture in evokes. Crossing media, it also helped to define the genre of the ‘road movie,’ in which the characters take to the road as an escape from something, and/or as a means of self-discovery. Male bonding between ‘buddies’ was a common element in such classics as Easy Rider (1969), at least until such feminist versions of the genre as Thelma and Louise (1991).

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

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