Tag Archives: readings/research

Akbar the Great

He’s an important, indeed representative figure, of the Mughal Empire, so here is a reading on Akbar the Great along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

At this writing, with the rising tide of Hindu Nationalism engendered by the current Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), this is a timely reading. That the BJP has worked to revise Indian social studies texts to minimize and trivialize the role of Muslims (like Akbar) makes this vital reading.

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.

A Rotten Reviews Omnibus: William S. Burroughs

The Ticket That Exploded

“The works of William Burroughs…have been taken seriously, even solemnly, by some literary types, including Mary McCarthy and Norman Mailer. Actually, Burroughs’s work adds up to the world’s pluperfect put-on.

Time

Naked Lunch

“…the merest trash, not worth a second look.”

New Republic

Nova Express

“…The book is unnecessary,”

Granville Hicks, The New Republic 

Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.    

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

“One Hundred Years of Solitude: (Spanish title Cien anos de soledad). A novel (1967; English translation 1970) by the Columbian Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1928-2014), generally regarded as the archetypal example of Latin American magical realism. The setting is the small, isolated Columbian village of Macondo, a fictional community that had previously appeared in Garcia Marquez’s La hojarasca (1955; Leafstorm and Other Stories) and in La mala hora (1962; In Evil Hour). The novel follows seven generations of the increasingly inbred Buendia family, the founders of the village, and their story parallels the history of Columbia itself.”

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

The Weekly Text, October 2, 2020, Hispanic Heritage Month 2020 Week III: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Teresa of Avila

Ok, for Week III of Hispanic Heritage Month 2020, and for the Weekly Text from Mark’s Text Terminal for October 2, 2020, here is a reading on Teresa of Avila along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

Teresa was essentially a sixteenth-century Catholic mystic. Her mysticism, unsurprisingly, brought her to the attention of the Inquisition. She founded a religious order; as the reading explains, she was, in the final analysis, an influential figure in Catholic theology. If you want to move beyond the relatively basic comprehension questions on the worksheet, you–and more importantly, your students–can consider some of the concepts present in Teresa’s story: religious law, orthodoxy, mysticism, feminism and women’s role in the Church, among others.

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.

Book of Answers: The Bloomsbury Group

“What gave the Bloomsbury Group its name? The group of writers and thinkers, which included Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, and Lytton Strachey, among others, was named for the place where they held their meetings, 46 Gordon Square, in Bloomsbury, London.”

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

A Lexicon of Terms Related to Le Corbusier: Brutalism and Beton Brut

“Brutalism: A term coined by the British to characterize the style of Le Corbusier in the early 1950s and others inspired by him. His buildings at Marseilles, France, and Chandigarh, India, make use of Beton Brut. Increasingly occupied with sculptural effects, brutalist architects moved away from the geometric purism of the International Style.”

“Beton Brut: ‘Raw concrete’ is the result of pouring wet cement into a temporary form made of timber or metal. When the cement dries the form’s texture remains imprinted upon the surface. It’s an important element in the work of Le Corbusier.

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

Circadian Rhythms

For just over ten years, I served in a school without windows in any of the classrooms. In fact, that school has been in the news recently for deficiencies in its reopening plan.

Students, as they will (and I thank them for it), often questioned and commented about the building–it really was dismal–and wanted to discuss it at times. I used this reading on circadian rhythms and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet as a way of capitalizing on students’ desire to know why their school possessed the architectural charm of a maximum security prison.

In any case, the reading doesn’t necessarily answer any questions. It does present opportunities to ask critical questions about allocation of public resources, investment in communities, and whether or not one needs to see daylight to operate on a circadian cycle.

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.

The Algonquin Wits: Robert E. Sherwood on Presidential Elections and Succession

“Discussing modern presidential history, Sherwood once stated: ‘All Coolidge had to do in 1924 was to keep his mean trap shut, to be elected. All Harding had to do in 1920 was repeat ‘avoid foreign entanglements.’ All Hoover had to in 1928 was to endorse Coolidge. All Roosevelt had to do in 1932 was to point to Hoover.’”

Robert E. Sherwood

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

A Lesson Plan on the Chronology of Space Flights from The Order of Things

Here’s a lesson on the chronological order of international space flights and the list as reading and comprehension questions that constitute the lesson’s work. This lesson derives, as does every lesson on this blog under the header The Order of Things, from Barbara Ann Kipfer’s book of the same name.

Incidentally, I’ve just finished writing all the lessons and worksheets for the unit they comprise. There are 50 lessons in all, and I’ll soon post supporting documents for the unit, including a user’s manual for the worksheets and the unit plan itself.

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.

Historical Term: Billeting

[Given the post immediately below this on, it’s worth mentioning that the Third Amendment to the United States Constitution–i.e. the third of the first ten amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights, guaranteed this freedom: “No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.”]

“Billeting The custom of requiring householders to provide accommodation for members of the armed forces. The system was widely abused in the 17th century under Charles I and protests against it were included in the Petition of Right (1628). Despite the forbidding of forced billeting in 1679, it continued under Charles II and James II, ending only when parliament agreed to the building of permanent barracks in 1792.”

Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.