Tag Archives: readings/research

Alfred Adler on Neurosis

Posted on August 10, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Every neurotic is partly in the right.”

Alfred Adler

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

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3 Playwrights of Athens’ Golden Age

Posted on August 10, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Aeschylus * Sophocles * Euripides

The apogee of Classical Athens’ two-century-long golden age of literature was the generation who thought and wrote between 461 and 431 BC. Theatre-going Greeks of this time witnessed the high-minded and complex tragedies of Aeschylus, the graceful, measured characterization of Sophocles and the more emotional and passionately charged creations of Euripides.

It is fitting that they are remembered as a trio, for each year three tragic playwrights produced a trilogy of tragedies (and a farcical comedy) that was performed over three consecutive days to honor Dionysus. These festivals were held around the time of the spring equinox. No more than three actors were permitted on the stage at any one time, their faces and that of the chorus covered in masks. At the end of the festival, one of the playwrights was voted the winner and given the prize of a goat, for the word ‘tragedy’ derives from ‘goat song.’”

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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Garnish (vt)

Posted on August 10, 2021 | Leave a comment

It’s Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day today, so here is a context clues worksheet on the verb garnish. It’s used only transitively, so don’t forget your direct object: you must garnish something.

The context in this worksheet seeks to elicit from students the culinary definition of garnish, to wit, “to add decorative or savory touches to (food or drink).” To that end, it might be complementary to this trove of documents I posted a couple of years ago for building a lexicon in the culinary arts.

In any event, garnish has a complicated etymology that includes the idea of garnishing wages (though, interestingly, a definition for that act–depriving someone of earnings to settle outstanding debts–is not part of the set of definitions for garnish as a verb), and “decorating,” “furnishing,” and “embellishing.” Another definition is “to equip with accessories.”  Whatever–that’s enough garnish on this blog post.

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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Glasnost

Posted on August 9, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on Glasnost along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. As I was a Russian and Soviet Studies student at both the undergraduate and graduate level, I can tell you that this one-page reading, from the Intellectual Devotional series, does justice to the topic.

Incidentally, the Russian word root glas means “voice.” So, while one popular definition of glasnost is “openness,” it also means, as this definition from Merriam-Webster’s connotes, the freedom to use one’s voice to discuss previously circumscribed or forbidden topics.

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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Cultural Literacy: Edwardian Period

Posted on August 9, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Edwardian Period in England, so named for King Edward VII, the eldest son of Queen Victoria.

This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two clauses, the second of which is a longish compound sentence. There are three comprehension questions. This worksheet may have greater or lesser utility, depending on how much you need or want students to know about this period in British history. This document if, of course, formatted in Microsoft Word, so you may manipulate it to your and your students’ needs.

Who knows, you might have someone in your class interested in the Teddy Boys, and this reading provides an entree into their fashion sense.

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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The Weekly Text, 6 August 2021: A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Gambol”

Posted on August 6, 2021 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “Gambol.” To open this lesson I use this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Latinism carpe diem (“seize the day”). This is a half-page worksheet with a two-sentence reading and three questions.

To conduct your investigation into this crime, you’ll need this PDF of the illustration and questions that serve as the evidence of it. To bring the miscreant in this case to the bar of justice, you’ll need this typescript of the answer key.

Incidentally the first time I ever heard another person use the word gambol, it was the legendary Dummerston, Vermont farmer Dwight Miller, while tending one March afternoon to lambs recently born on his farm. Gambol, as a verb (used intransitively only) and a noun, mean, respectively, “to skip about in play” and “a skipping or leaping about in play.” If you’ve ever seen the way lambs move around when they’re excited, this word describes it. I wonder if a context clues worksheet on this word would serve better as a do-now exercise for this lesson.

Addendum, August 8, 2021: Here is a context clues worksheet on the verb gambol (as above) if you think it would make a better do-now for this lesson.

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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James Laughlin

Posted on August 5, 2021 | Leave a comment

“James Laughlin: (1914-1997) American publisher, editor, and poet. The son of a wealthy Pittsburgh steelmaker, Laughlin was best known as the founder and guiding force behind New Directions Press. After an extended stay in Italy, where he studied with Ezra Pound, he founded New Directions Press at the age of twenty-two. He published then-unknown writers, commissioned the translation of a vast array of foreign books, and reprinted older books that Laughlin felt deserved attention. His excellent judgement is attested to by a survey of the New Directions catalogue, which included early books by Tennessee Williams, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Borges, and Nabokov. Laughlin is also a respected poet. In Another Country: Poems 1935-1975 (1978) showcases his spare style and precise, vibrant imagery, reflecting the precedent of the modernist writers he once published.”

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

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Fundamentalism

Posted on August 5, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on religious fundamentalism along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

This reading from The Intellectual Devotional Modern Culture focuses tightly on the origins of Christian fundamentalism in reaction to scientific developments in the nineteenth century and the growth and development of this theological trend across time. If I have noticed anything across the span of my life, it is the growth of fundamentalism across the globe and its religions. Moreover, there has been a tendency toward moral absolutism and certainty, and misplaced faith in things like financial markets, that has not, in my opinion, benefitted human civilization. What I mean to say, I suppose, is that these documents might be a good place to start a discussion with students about conformity and rebellion, orthodoxy and heterodoxy, and intellectual freedom and bondage.

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 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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Brewer’s Curious Titles: 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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