Tag Archives: readings/research

Tigris River

“Tigris River: Arabic Shatt Dijla: biblical Hiddekel. River, southeast Turkey and Iraq. It is 1,180 miles (1900 kilometers) long. It originates in the Taurus Mountains at Lake Hazar, Kurdistan, and flows southeast through Turkey and past Baghdad to unite with the Euphrates River at Al Qurnah in southeast Iraq; there it forms the Shatt al Arab. With the Euphrates it defined the ancient religion of Mesopotamia. Important for its irrigation capacity, it gave rise to sustained civilization. The ruins of many ancient cities lie on its banks, including those of Nineveh, Calah, Ashur, Ctesiphon, and Seleucia.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

Abbas I, known as Abbas the Great

“Abbas I known as Abbas the Great: (1571-1629) Shah of Persia 1587-1629. Succeeding his father, Sultan Muhammad Shah, he strengthened the Savafid dynasty by expelling Ottoman and Uzbek troops and creating a standing army. He made Esfahan Persia’s capital, and under Abbas it became one of the world’s most beautiful cities. Persian artistic achievement reached a high point during his reign, when illuminated manuscripts, ceramics, and painting all flourished, and the Portuguese, Dutch, and English competed for trade relations with Persia. Tolerant in public life (he granted privileges to Christian groups) and concerned for his people’s welfare, his fear of personal security and ruthlessness led him to blind or execute many of his immediate family.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

The Weekly Text, 13 May 2022, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Week II: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Shiite and Sunni Muslims

For the second week of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2022, here is a reading on Shiites and Sunnis in Islam with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

If you have followed the United States’ war on Iraq, you have undoubtedly heard of the strained relations, between these two branches of Islam, which have occasionally broken out into violent, internecine conflicts. In just about every respect, the tensions between these two communities of belief are standard religious conflicts; they resemble the European wars of religion that broke out during the Protestant Reformation. You can see elements of the Sunni-Shia schism in the Iran-Saudi Arabia proxy war, which has devastated Yemen.

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.

Tibetan Language

“Tibetan language: Sino-Tibetan language spoken by more than 5 million people in Tibet (Xizang), Qinghai, Sichuan, and Gansu provinces in China; Bhutan; northern Nepal; and Jammu and Kashmir Province in India and Pakistan. Since the occupation of Tibet by China in 1959, enclaves of Tibetan-speakers have dispersed to India and other parts of the world. Spoken Tibetan comprises a very diverse range of dialects, conventionally divided into several groups: Western, including Balti and Ladakhi in Jammu and Kashmir; Central, including the speech of Lhasa and most of the Nepalese dialects (including Sherpa); Southern, including the dialects of Sikkim and Bhutan; Khams, or Southeastern, including the dialects of the interior plateau, southern Qinghai, eastern Tibet, and parts of western Sichuan; Amdo or Northeastern, including the dialects of northern Qinghai, southern Gansu, and northern Sichuan. Most Tibetans share a common literary language, written in a distinctive scripts of disputed origin first attested in the 8th century AD.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

Matsuo Basho III

“Clouds now and again

Give a soul some respite from

Moon-gazing—behold.”

Matsuo Basho, Poem (translation by Bernard Lionel Einbond)

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

The Weekly Text, 6 May 2021, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Week I: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Confucianism

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (which I have shortened, for typographical purposes, as above, to Asian Pacific American Heritage Month; I hope I offend no one with this stylistic liberty). As usual Mark’s Text Terminal will observe the month with a series of document posts and quotes relating to the history of Asian and Pacific Islander Americans as well as Asia and the Pacific Islands themselves.

So, let’s kick off the month with this reading on Confucianism along with its attendant 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: Study Skills

“study skills: Learning strategies that help and individual organize time, materials, and information. Special educators long ago recognized the importance of teaching study skills to students with learning disabilities; such skills have recently become a part of many school curricula starting in the elementary grades.

While some students seem to succeed in school with only basic study skills, many learning-disabled students benefit greatly from being taught ideas such as how to maintain a notebook and how to organize materials in each class. Time management is another essential study skill needed to complete long and short assignments on time as well as to schedule time for appointments, friends, and work. Note-taking and active reading strategies are also important study skills for all students, including those with learning disabilities.”

Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.

Albert Einstein

Finally this morning, here is a reading on Albert Einstein with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Enough said.

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.

Protagonist

“Protagonist: (Greek ‘first combatant’) The first actor in a play; thence the principal actor or character. In Greek tragedy the playwright was limited to the protagonist (first actor), deuteragonist (second actor) and tritagonist (third actor). It is probable that in the first place Greek drama consisted of a Chorus and the leader of the Chorus. Thespis (6th century BC) is believed to have added the first actor to give greater variety to the dialogue and action. The second and third were added by Aeschylus and Sophocles respectively. The protagonist has come to be the equivalent of the hero.”

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

Topology

“topology: In mathematics, the study of the property of a geometric object that remains unchanged by deformations such as bending, stretching, or squeezing but not breaking. A sphere is topologically equivalent to a cube because, without breaking them, each can be deformed into the other as if they were made of modeling clay. A sphere is not equivalent to a doughnut, because the former would have to be broken to put a hole in it. Topological concepts and methods underlie much of modern mathematics, and the topological approach has clarified very basic structural concepts in many of its branches. See also algebraic topology.”

Excerpted/Adapted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.