Tag Archives: readings/research

The Doubter’s Companion: Bretton Woods

“Bretton Woods: A system for international financial management and stability which was put in place by the Allies, minus the Soviets, in 1944 and destroyed in 1973 by President Richard Nixon without consideration being given to a replacement.

Nixon hoped in this way to solve some short-term American economic problems by recreating the sort of financial disorder in which the largest power would be the best placed to benefit. It could be said that this was the single most evil act undertaken by a leader in the postwar period. Other leaders should be discouraged, however. The opportunity to do worse is perpetual.”

Excerpted from: Saul, John Ralston. The Doubter’s Companion. New York: The Free Press, 1994.

Term of Art: Socratic Seminar

“Socratic seminar: A class discussion in which the teacher advances a lesson on a specific topic or text by interacting with students, continually asking challenging questions about an assigned reading and responding to the students’ answers by posing more questions. This method, proposed by Mortimer Adler in the Paideia, is intended to encourage students to think rather than just look for the ‘right’ answer. Socratic seminars are based on primary-source works of literature, philosophy, and history instead of textbooks. See also developmental lesson; Paideia Program.”

Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.

Concepts in Economics: Command Economy

“Command economy: An economy operated by central planning.”

Excerpted from: Black, John, Nigar Hashimzade, and Gareth Miles. Oxford Dictionary of Economics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Four Sets of Questions to Support Students in Preparing Research Papers

Last, but possibly not least (I hope), from the past couple of years as a co-teacher in Jason Zanitsch’s senior English Language Arts class, here are four documents to support Jason’s Multi-Genre Research Project Unit. In this series of lessons, students are called upon to choose a topic to research–they are provided a list of potential topics, but strongly encouraged to pursue something they prefer–and present it to the class in a genre they choose: a video, a paper, a skit, a panel discussion, and so forth.

Along the way in this course, I’ve developed supports to assist students in this assignment–the post on solipsism, a dozen or so posts below this one is something I developed for this work. For today’s post, here are lists of questions to arouse students’ thinking on Assata Shakur, the Scottsboro Boys Case, the West Memphis Three Case, and the murder of JonBenet Ramsey.

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.

Action Painting

“Action Painting: Term coined by the American critic Harold Rosenberg to describe the dynamic, impulsive Abstract Expressionism of Jackson Pollock.”

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

Battle of Agincourt

“Battle of Agincourt: (1415) A battle in northern France. The English army defeated the more numerous, better armed French. It is the setting for Shakespeare’s Henry V and Michael Drayton’s ‘The Battle of Agincourt‘ (c1605).”

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

A Learning Support for Thinking and Writing About the Human Process of Socialization

Once again, from the annals of Jason Zanitsch’s senior English Language Arts class, which afforded me the professional pleasure of co-teaching with Jason for several years, here is a a learning support in the form of a series questions to drive thinking and writing about human socialization processes.

I don’t know how useful this will be to users of this blog, but this again was Jason’s successful attempt to elicit deep thinking and cogent writing from our students. Rather than toss this, I post it here to add to what still seems like an amount of data storage I will never use.

If you find typos in this document, 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.

Bay Psalm Book

“Bay Psalm Book: (1640) A metrical translation of the Biblical psalms by Richard Mather, Thomas Welde, John Eliot, and twenty-seven other ministers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The book—the first bound book printed in the English colonies—was published by Stephen Day in Cambridge in and edition of seventeen hundred copies. Its full title is The Whole Booke of Psalms Faithfully Translated into English Metre.”

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

Cultural Literacy: Dog Eat Dog

Moving on through my differentiated and supported materials folder, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom dog eat dog. I suspect you can find this document, in a simpler version, elsewhere on this blog. I developed this version of this worksheet to accompany a reading of the Langston Hughes poem “Let America Be America Again” which puts this idiom to work.

If you find typos in this document, 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.

Five Documents to Support Learning in Freshman Biology

For the 2025-2026 school year, my last, thank goodness, I was assigned to co-teach two sections of Freshman Biology. This was the first, and therefore the last, time I was to teach biology. Would you be surprised, given the contents of this blog, that biology is not exactly a strong subject for me?

Therefore, I needed to work closely with the content area teacher, as well as study up to the greatest extent possible on the subjects under review. I did develop material for both student use as well as my own edification so I might, to the greatest extent possible, be of some utility in this classroom. So here, in no particular order of content or potential usefulness, are a learning support on the concept of independent and dependent variables, a glossary of terms related to genetics, a glossary of terms related to human reproduction, a summary of a text on protein synthesis, and a support the viewing of a video on protein synthesis.

This is not the most, uh, coherent or well-supported stuff I’ve developed in twenty years of teaching. But rather than toss it, I’ll add it to the pile on this blog. I have more storage space on this website than I will ever use, so what the hell?

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.