Here is a reading on Louis Pasteur and pasteurization along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Given the current ascendance of germ theory denialism, this reading, from the Intellectual Devotional series, is particularly timely
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.
“Frieze: The middle section of the entablature between the architrave and the cornice, where relief sculpture was sometimes applied. Also, in interiors, the broad band between wall paneling and ceiling.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
OK, last but not least today, here is a context clues worksheet on the noun plague. It means, in the context in which it is presented on this half-page document, “an epidemic disease causing a high rate of mortality.”
I wrote this, I am sure, to introduce the word to students ahead of a lesson on the European Black Death of the mid-fourteenth century. The context is reasonably strong, but it can always use a little help. So if you rewrite this, I would appreciate seeing your version of it. In fact, I will add it to this post. Incidentally, the bubonic plague, the cause of the Black Death, remains alive and well and occasionally breaks out, as it has intermittently in Madagascar, among other places around the globe.
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.
“Figurative Language: Language which uses figures of speech; for example, metaphor, simile, alliteration (qq.v). Figurative language must be distinguished from literal (q.v.) language. ‘He hared down the street’ or ‘He ran like a hare down the street’ are figurative (metaphor and simile respectively). ‘He ran very quickly down the street’ is literal. See HYPERBOLE; METONYMY; SYNECHDOCHE.”
Excerpted from: Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New York: Penguin, 1992.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, poetry, readings/research
Christopher Lasch: (1932-1994) American social critic and cultural historian. Lasch, a professor of history, is best known for his penetrating analyses of contemporary American cultural and political phenomena. In The Culture of Narcissism (1979), which became an unlikely best-seller, Lasch examined the effects of an increasingly self-centered worldview on the family and the community. He consistently challenged contemporary Americans’ reliance on experts to determine standards of behavior and thought. The Minimal Self (1984) examines individual freedom and privacy in the light of the agencies for social control in our lives. Lasch’s last work, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy (1994), took its ironic title from Ortega y Gasset’s The Revolt of the Masses (1930) and argued that the greatest threat to democracy is now from a technocratic oligarchy at the top and not from revolution from below.
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
Here is a reading on sulfa drugs and World War II along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.
While this material probably qualifies as minutia in the grand sweep of the history of World War II, it is in fact an important moment in the war. This reading is an exposition of cause and effect: by mass chemoprophylaxis (the act of administering medication in the hopes of preventing disease spread) with sulfa drugs, the US Navy saved an estimated 1 million man days and between $50 million and $100 million in 1944 dollars. Ultimately, penicillin replaced sulfadiazine, or sulfa drugs. It is just this kind of cause-and-effect scenario, in my observation in New York State, that tends to inform questions on high-stakes social studies tests.
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.
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the business concept of a franchise. This is a half-page worksheet with a relatively dense three-sentence reading and three comprehension questions. Surprisingly, in so brief a reading, all the relevant bases are covered in the relationship between a franchisor and a franchisee. So this is a thorough general introduction (I worked in a business- and finance-themed high school in Lower Manhattan for ten years, so I’m sure I wrote this for use in one or more classes), but there is plenty of room to expand this document, which is easily done since it is formatted in Microsoft Word.
I don’t want to belabor the point, but this worksheet as nothing to do with the the word franchise in the meaning for which it has recently been ubiquitous in the news (because of state legislatures across the United States seeking to restrict it), to wit, “a constitutional or statutory right or privilege; especially the right to vote.” In fact, if you click through on the link above in this paragraph, it will take you to Merriam-Webster’s extensive definition of this polysemous word. Did you know it also has use as a verb, i.e. “to grant a franchise to”?
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.
Here is a reading on Kim Philby along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I have always found Philby a fascinating figure.
But so are the rest of the so-called Cambridge Five. Without them, one wonders, would John LeCarre (real name David Cornwell) have become a novelist? Betrayal of one’s country and fellows was a preoccupation of LeCarre’s. These guys–Philby, Anthony Blunt, Guy Burgess, John Cairncross, and Donald Maclean–most certainly betrayed Great Britain.
This is another reading from the Intellectual Devotional series whose typescripts and ancillary worksheet I developed during the COVID19 pandemic. As of this writing, I haven’t used these documents in the classroom. Nonetheless, I have tagged them as high-interest materials because I am confident that for the right student(s), they will be.
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.
“Of Mice and Men: A novella (1937) by John Steinbeck (1902-68). It centers on two casual labourers, Lennie, a simple, sentimental giant who loves small animals but does not know his own strength, and his friend George. In a tragic ending, George’s efforts are not enough to keep Lennie out of the trouble that he has unwittingly brought upon himself. The title is from ‘To a Mouse’ by Robert Burns (1759-96):
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
And lea’e us nought but grief and pain,
For promised joy.
A film version (1939) was directed by Lewis Milestone.”
Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.
Here is a reading on Dwight D. Eisenhower along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.
This is a good general introductory biography of Ike; it includes information about his military service and his political career, including his firm support for enforcing the Brown v. Board of Education decision. What it doesn’t mention, and which it may serve as a convenient jumping-off point for, is his famous farewell address, in which he coined the term “Military-Industrial Complex.”
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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