Tag Archives: readings/research

The Unabomber

Posted on August 3, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on the Unabomber along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

This is one of the better articles from the Intellectual Devotional series. The writer recites the facts of the case while keeping the whodunit angle front and center. I only developed these documents recently, so I’ve never used them in the classroom. Still, having used successfully many articles from these books, I think I can predict that this one will be of high interest to students, so I have tagged it as such.

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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The Index

Posted on August 3, 2021 | Leave a comment

“The Index: The popular name for the Index Liborum Prohibitorum (Latin, ‘index of prohibited books’), the Vatican’s ever-changing list of proscribed publications, which Roman Catholics were forbidden to read except in special circumstances. The first index was made by the Inquisition in 1557, although St. Gelasius (pope 492-96) issued a list of prohibited writings in 494. In 1571 Pope Pius V set up a Congregation of the Index to supervise the list, and in 1917 its duties were transferred to the Holy Office. In addition to the Index there was the ‘Codex Expurgatorious’ of writings from which offensive doctrinal or moral passages were removed. The Index and the Codex were banned in 1966.

All books likely to be contrary to faith and morals, including translations of the Bible not authorized by the Church, were formerly placed on the Index. Among authors wholly or partly prohibited were: Joseph Addison, Francis Bacon, Geoffrey Chaucer, Benedetto Croce, Gabriele D’Annunzio, Rene Descartes, Edward Gibbon, Oliver Goldsmith, Victor Hugo, John Locke, John Milton, Montaigne, Girolamo Savonarola, Voltaire and, for a long time, Copernicus, Dante and Galen.

Index Liborum Prohibitorum was also the title given to the first ever bibliography in English of erotic and pornographic writing. It was published in 1877 by Henry Spencer Ashbee (1834-1900), businessman, book collector and member of the Royal Academy of Madrid, who left his collections of erotic and Spanish literature to the British Museum. Some experts have suggested Ashbee as the pseudonymous ‘Walter,’ author of the pornographic classic My Secret Life (1888-92).”

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

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Term of Art: Temporal-Sequential Organization Problems

Posted on August 3, 2021 | Leave a comment

“temporal-sequential organization problems: Children with this type of organizational problem have trouble completing long-term assignments, understanding and having a sense of time, and understanding and following directions.

Almost every task a child does involves sequence, whether that task involves getting dressed, completing an assignment, or reading a book. Knowing the sequence and being able to follow it are important developmental skills.

School can be overwhelming for students who cannot recognize a step-by-step plan needed to master a concept such as memorizing the alphabet, understanding the seasons, or learning the multiplication tables. Spelling can be a particular problem for these children, who cannot remember the sequence of letters, which is also required for word recognition during reading.

Concepts of time are also very difficult for these children, who have trouble mastering days of the week, months of the year, and how to tell time. The ability to manage time is also compromised, and completing a long-term assignment by the due date is quite a challenge. Because a concept of time is foreign to these children, they easily lose track of time, which can interfere with a child’s ability to pace work during a test.”

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

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Luddites

Posted on August 2, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on the Luddites along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

The noun and adjective Luddite, as you surely know, is tossed around in American English, occasionally as a pejorative, to signify someone opposed to innovation and technological advances. I’ll hazard a guess that most people using this word aren’t aware of its origins in Ned Ludd, who destroyed a pair of stocking frames (an early technological advance in textile manufacturing) in 1779. The Luddites, who destroyed textile manufacturing equipment in England from 1811 to 1816 to protest the depredations of the Industrial Revolution, took him as their namesake. I’ve vastly simplified the story of the Luddites for this blog post, this reading is a good general introduction to the subject of the Luddites, and emphasizes how their name entered the political and social lexicon of our time.

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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6 Dynasties

Posted on August 2, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Wu * Jin * Liu Song * Qi * Liang * Chen

The Six Dynasties Period can be compared to Europe’s Dark Ages as it stands between the two great cultural blocks of the Han (contemporary to the Roman Empire) and the Tang (about the time the Islamic Empire emerged). The first half of this period is sometimes known as the Three Kingdoms Period and the date can vary according to eastern and western divisions between the states, but, give or take a year or two, the Wu ruled from 22-285, the Jin from 265 to 420, Liu Song from 420 to 479, the Qi from 479 to 502, Liang 502 to 557 and the Chen from 557 to 589.”

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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Exemplary (adj)

Posted on August 2, 2021 | Leave a comment

It’s Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day today, so here is a context clues worksheet on the adjective exemplary. It means, variously, “serving as a pattern,” “deserving imitation,” commendable,” “deserving imitation because of excellence,” “serving as a warning,” and “serving as an example, instance, or illustration.”

While this adjective can’t be characterized as a high-frequency word, a cousin of it, the noun example, can be characterized that way. What’s more, exemplar is a nice solid noun students would undeniably benefit from understanding and being able to use in expository prose.

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.

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Book of Answers: The First National Book Award

Posted on July 30, 2021 | Leave a comment

Who received the first National Book Award for Fiction? Nelson Algren in 1950 for The Man with the Golden Arm.

Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

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Plausible (adj)

Posted on July 30, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a context clues worksheet on the adjective plausible. It means, variously, “superficially fair, reasonable, or valuable but often specious (a plausible pretext)”; “superficially pleasing or persuasive, (a swindler…  then a quack, then a smooth, plausible gentleman —R. W. Emerson),” and “appearing worthy of belief (the argument was both powerful and plausible).”

For this worksheet, the first and last definitions are the one the context tries to elicit from students. Incidentally (and editorially as well, for which I ask forgiveness), I’ve long believed, and believe now more than ever, given the outhouse of misinformation that social media has become, that we should use at least some of our schools’ time teaching students about media literacy. If I designed a unit to address this perceived need, I would conduct a lesson on plausibility very early on in the cycle.

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.

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Palaver (n)

Posted on July 29, 2021 | Leave a comment

It’s Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day today, so here is a context clues worksheet on the noun palaver. It means, variously, “a long parley usually between persons of different cultures or levels of sophistication,”  “idle talk,” and  “misleading or beguiling speech.” The context in this worksheet calls for the latter two meanings.

I know this isn’t the most commonly used word in the English language, but I think it might make a reasonable surrogate for a commonly used epithet among many of the students I have served, to wit, bulls**t (please forgive me that vulgarism, even in its elided form, on this G-rated blog).

Incidentally, this word can also be used as a verb to mean, intransitively, “to talk profusely or idly,” “parley,” and transitively to mean “to use palaver to cajole.” The word has an interesting pedigree: it arrives in English from the Latin parabola (“parable,” “speech”) via the Portuguese palavra (“word,” “speech”).

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.

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J. Edgar Hoover

Posted on July 29, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on J. Edgar Hoover along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. From the Intellectual Devotional series, this is a good general introduction to Hoover’s biography.

Any “good” biography of J. Edgar Hoover must by definition include his subversion of democracy, via COINTELPRO, during his reign as FBI Director. Hoover was a nasty piece of work, and he’s just the kind of villain that students find fascinating; he’s also a good figure with which to begin a critical examination of United States history in the twentieth century, including the Civil Rights Movement and the anti-Vietnam War upheavals. It’s an established fact that COINTELPRO monitored Malcolm X closely; his daughters, earlier this year, released a letter from the late New York City Police officer Raymond Wood in which Detective Wood confessed to participating with the FBI in the conspiracy to murder Malcolm. Netflix has done an admirable job of exposing this with the excellent documentary series Who Killed Malcolm X? I found it riveting.

In other words, these two documents are a gateway to some juicy, engaging stuff. I can already think of two students of mine who would have engaged deeply in a unit around these circumstances and events.

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.

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