“When did ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion‘ first appear? The anti-Semitic forgery first appeared in a St. Petersburg newspaper in 1903. It purported to document the conspiracy of Judaism to take over the world. It may have been written by Czar Nicholas II’s secret police.”
Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.
Whatever you may think of his politics, there is little question that William Jennings Bryan was either a great orator or a skilled demagogue (or both). Whichever designation you prefer, this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the “Cross of Gold” speech he delivered at the 1896 Democratic National Convention supplies students of United States history with a short introduction to one of the most memorable political speeches in this nation’s history.
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.
“Brains Trust: Nickname given to a group of economists and businessmen in the USA who acted as advisers to Pres. Roosevelt (1882-1945) in formulating the New Deal policy. The term has since been widely used to denote bodies of experts believed to have influence on government policy. In the UK the term ‘brains trust’ was extended to include groups of experts assembled to answer questions put to them by the public, especially the BBC’s wartime panel of experts who broadcast on the wireless.”
Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.
It’s hard to imagine, especially for younger people (I’m old enough to remember Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty”), that the United States once was a country that cared about the fate of its poorest citizens and sought to create something substantial and powerful enough to help them transcend their circumstances.
This reading on Upton Sinclair and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet will go some distance toward helping students understand the nature and value of civic engagement to aid the most vulnerable citizens of our nation. If you’re interested in going further than this worksheet in an inquiry into Mr. Sinclair’s biography and activism, the fifth and final paragraph of the short reading in this post notes his near victory in the 1934 gubernatorial race in California. What it doesn’t mention is that Upton Sinclair’s candidacy in that race was part of his “End Poverty in California” (EPIC) campaign, which was an amplification of Roosevelt’s New Deal policies. There is a lot to understand here–particularly why such movement continue to fail when there are so many more poor people than rich in this nation.
Now go vote!
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.
“Multiculturalism: This movement focuses primarily on changing traditional canons throughout the humanities. With the expansion of canonical traditions and exposure of students at all levels to artists, writers, and historical movements previously marginalized in general bodies of knowledge, the next generation is expected to have a better grasp of an increasingly diverse society in a world in flux. In the realm of art in the United States, this has resulted in a greater emphasis on and interest in non-Western art and on works produced in communities without previous access to museum and gallery exposure (e.g. African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans, women, gays, and lesbians).”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
“Harry S. Truman: (1884-1972) Thirty-third president of the U.S. (1945-53). Unable to obtain a college education, Truman managed his father’s farm and clerked in a bank. He served in the armed forces during World War I, then started an unsuccessful business venture as a haberdasher. Through the office of Thomas J. Pendergast, the political boss of Kansas City and the surrounding region, he won a series of public offices: county judge, presiding judge of the court, U.S. Senator from Missouri. He had attended the Kansas City Law School of two years.
Having been elected vice president as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s running mate in 1944, Truman succeeded to the presidency when Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945. He made many momentous decisions toward the end of World War II, perhaps the most important of which was the use of the atomic bomb to end the war against Japan. He gave unwavering support to the United Nations and formulated the Truman Doctrine of aid to the free peoples of the world “resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressures.” He generally followed his predecessor’s policies in domestic matters.
In the 1948 election, Truman surprised most experts by defeating Thomas E. Dewey. In what he regarded as his own presidency, he gave U.S. aid to the UN with North Korea, assisted by Russia and China, invaded South Korea in 1950. (See KOREAN WAR.) To him must be credited the Marshall Plan (See GEORGE C. MARSHALL), designed to aid European rehabilitation and check Communist expansion. Refusing a third term, Truman returned to his home in Independence, Missouri, where he prepared his memoirs, published as Year of Decisions (1955) and Years of Trial and Hope (1956). He also wrote Mr. Citizen (1960; repr Harry Truman Speaks His Mind, 1975).”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
I offer this reading on President Richard M. Nixon and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet with the reminder that democratic processes dispensed with this criminal, bigoted president. I don’t know that those same democratic processes are as robust as they were in 1974, but they don’t look as though they are. I’d say let’s hope they are, but we need something less ephemeral than hope.
Get out and vote!
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.
“homonymy: The relation between words whose forms are the same but whose meanings are different and cannot be connected: e.g. between pen ‘writing instrument’ and pen ‘enclosure.’ Homonyms are words related in this way.
Distinguished from polysemy in that the meaning of one homonym is not seen as deriving from that of the other: in that light, the words are different lexical units. Homonymy can also be distinguished from cases of conversion: e.g. that of either of the nouns ‘pen’ into a corresponding verb. Also from syncretism, which is between inflections of the same lexical unit. The term may be restricted further to homonymy, as in this example, both in the sounds of words and in their spelling: hence the more specific homograph, homophone.”
Excerpted from: Matthews, P.H., ed. The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
As I write this, the United States approaches one of the most consequential elections in its history. This is not a political blog, but I cannot help but reflect on the growth of cynicism in my lifetime. This reading on the Watergate scandal and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet narrate and record a scandal that, when I was a high school student myself, brought down a presidency. Compared to some of the conduct of the current administration, Watergate appears in retrospect a triviality.
And that is not a good thing.
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.
If you’re teaching Hemingway’s fiction, this reading on Ernest Hemingway and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet might serve as an introduction to the author himself. I wrote it for that purpose, to support students who were about to start with The Old Man and the Sea–a novella which, despite its plaintive prose, can baffle struggling and emergent readers.
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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