Tag Archives: readings/research

Cultural Literacy: Bay of Pigs

Posted on September 30, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba in 1961. This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of four relatively dense compound sentences and five comprehension questions. The Bay of Pigs debacle, as the reading observes, was an embarrassment to the administration of President John F. Kennedy. It is also a significant moment in the history of the Cold War.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Social Sciences, Worksheets

Tagged , , , , ,

Jose Bonifacio de Andrada e Silva

Posted on September 30, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Jose Bonifacio de Andrada e Silva: Known as Jose Bonifacio (1763?-1838) Chief architect of Brazil’s independence from Portugal. Andrada was born in Brazil but educated in Portugal, where he became a distinguished scholar. On returning to Brazil in 1819, he became chief minister of the Portuguese prince regent (later the emperor Pedro I), who had fled Portugal with the rest of the royal family to escape Napoleon. He became the leading intellectual advocate of independence. After Pedro I declared Brazil independent in 1822, Andrada served as prime minister and as tutor to the child emperor, Pedro II, who became an effective and enlightened monarch.”

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

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

Tagged ,

Ariel

Posted on September 30, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Ariel: (1900) An essay by Jose Enrique Rod, which had a tremendous impact on Hispanic American Intellectuals. Rodo appealed to the youth of Spanish American to aspire to be the spirituality, idealism, and rationality symbolized by Shakespeare’s Ariel and to reject the brutishness and sensuality represented by Caliban. Because Rodo censured U.S. materialism and utilitarianism in the essay, many readers erroneously assumed that he was pitting Anglo-Saxon crassness against Latin idealism. A later essay by Fernandes Retamar made a quite different interpretation of Caliban, as the native and victim of imperialism.”

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

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

Tagged , , , , ,

Gaston Baquero y Diaz

Posted on September 30, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Gaston Baquero y Diaz: (1916-1997) Cuban poet, literary critic, and journalist. Although from a scientific background, he quickly gravitated toward the “Origines” group and became chief editor of the El Diario de la Marina newspaper for fifteen years. He left Cuba for political reasons in 1959, settling in Spain. Baquero’s poetry, collected in Poemas (1942) and Memorial de un testigo (1966), has a magical, visionary quality, laced with humor and sensuality. It is rich in sonorities and is strongly metaphysical, but also explores the intimate details of daily life, qualities more clearly seen in later works such as Magias e invenciones (1984) and Poemas invisibles (1991).”

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

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference

Tagged , , ,

The Weekly Text, 1 October 2021, Hispanic Heritage Month 2021 Week III: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Don Quixote

Posted on September 24, 2021 | Leave a comment

For the third Friday of Hispanic Heritage Month 2021, here is a reading on Don Quixote with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I don’t know if you’ve read Miguel de Cervantes’ magisterial novel–I finally read it during the pandemic, and now want to read it again–but I must extol the virtues and richness of this landmark of world literature.

Otherwise, I have nothing to say, and I certainly wouldn’t presume to editorialize upon or criticize this novel. If that’s what you seek, I recommend Harold Bloom or someone of his ilk. It goes without saying, I assume, that a lot of ink has been spilled in seeking a deeper understanding of Don Quixote.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, The Weekly Text, Worksheets

Tagged , , , , ,

Luis Walter Alvarez

Posted on September 24, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Luis Walter Alvarez: (1911-1988) U.S. experimental physicist. Born in San Francisco, he joined the faculty of UC-Berkeley in 1936, where he would remain until 1978. In 1938 he discovered that some radioactive elements decay when an orbital electron merges with the atom’s nucleus, producing an element with an atomic number smaller by 1, a form of beta decay. In 1939 he and Felix Bloch (1905-1983) made the first measurement of the magnetic movement of the neutron. During World War II he developed a radar guidance system for landing aircraft and participated in the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb. He later helped construct the first proton linear accelerator and constructed the first liquid hydrogen bubble chamber. With his son, the geologist Walter Alvarez (b. 1940), he helped develop the theory that links the dinosaur’s extinction with a giant asteroid or comet impact. For work that included the discovery of many subatomic particles, he received a Nobel Prize in 1968.”

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

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

Tagged , ,

Bartolome de Las Casas

Posted on September 24, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Bartolome de Las Casas: (1474-1566) Spanish-born Dominican missionary and historian. Las Casas came to Santo Domingo in 1502 and was the first priest ordained in the New World (1510). In 1514, Las Casas suddenly became aware of the injustice with which the Indians were being treated in America, and subsequently devoted himself entirely to promoting their welfare, usually with the support of the crown, but against the bitter opposition of the Spanish settlers. Brevisma relacion de la destruccion de las Indias (1522), his vivid, but probably exaggerated, account of the Indian sufferings, was instrumental in fostering the long-lived ‘black legend’ which denigrated the colonial policies of Spain in America. His major work, Historia general de las Indias (1875), is an important source for the early period of colonization in Latin America.”

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

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

Tagged , ,

Mateo Aleman

Posted on September 24, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Mateo Aleman: (1547-1614?) Spanish novelist. Descended from Jews who had been forcibly converted to Roman Catholicism, he expressed many aspects of the experiences and feelings of the new Christians in 16th-century Spain. His most important literary work is Guzman de Alfarache (1599, 1604), one of the earliest picaresque novels, which brought fame throughout Europe, but little profit.”

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

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference

Tagged , , ,

Tomas Gutierrez Alea

Posted on September 24, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Tomas Gutierrez Alea: (1928-1996) Cuban film director. After earning a law degree in Cuba, he studied filmmaking in Rome (1951-53). A supporter of Fidel Castro, he helped develop Cuba’s film industry after 1959 and made the Communist regime’s first official feature film, Stories of the Revolution (1960). Later he worked within the restrictions of the regime to satirize and explore various aspects of life in postrevolutionary Cuba in such internationally acclaimed films as Death of a Bureaucrat (1966), Memories of Underdevelopment (1968), The Survivors (1978), and Strawberry and Chocolate (1993). He is regarded as the finest director Cuba has produced.”

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

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference

Tagged , ,

The Weekly Text, 24 September 2021, Hispanic Heritage Month 2021 Week II: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Pablo Picasso

Posted on September 24, 2021 | Leave a comment

On the second Friday of Hispanic History Month 2021, here is a reading on Pablo Picasso with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. These materials join a growing accumulation of documents on the artist on this blog.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, The Weekly Text, Worksheets

Tagged , , , , ,