Tag Archives: united states history

Four Sets of Questions to Support Students in Preparing Research Papers

Posted on July 24, 2026 | Leave a comment

Last, but possibly not least (I hope), from the past couple of years as a co-teacher in Jason Zanitsch’s senior English Language Arts class, here are four documents to support Jason’s Multi-Genre Research Project Unit. In this series of lessons, students are called upon to choose a topic to research–they are provided a list of potential topics, but strongly encouraged to pursue something they prefer–and present it to the class in a genre they choose: a video, a paper, a skit, a panel discussion, and so forth.

Along the way in this course, I’ve developed supports to assist students in this assignment–the post on solipsism, a dozen or so posts below this one is something I developed for this work. For today’s post, here are lists of questions to arouse students’ thinking on Assata Shakur, the Scottsboro Boys Case, the West Memphis Three Case, and the murder of JonBenet Ramsey.

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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A Learning Support to Aid Writing on Lawrence Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development

Posted on July 21, 2026 | Leave a comment

Are you familiar with Lawrence Kohlberg’s  Theory of the Stages of Moral Development? My excellent co-teacher in the years I worked in his senior English Language Arts class, Jason Zanitsch, developed a clever unit in which students apply their understanding of Kohlberg’s framework to assess a character from the fiction and dramatic texts–the characters in August Wilson’s magisterial play Fences were favorites for this work–that we had dealt with in this class.

I developed this learning support for a mid-term examination, which was the composition of an essay on the above, for students to use. I don’t know how useful it would be for you. But if you’re dealing with Kohlberg in any way, this document is in Microsoft Word (like practically everything else on this blog) and can be easily manipulated for your classroom needs.

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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Dozens (Playing the)

Posted on July 21, 2026 | Leave a comment

“Dozens (Playing the): In the culture of American blacks, a contest of mutual insults concerning relatives, especially the opponents mothers, sometimes in rhymed couplets and often graphically sexual or scatological (the ‘dirty dozens’). See also SIGNIFYING.

‘His broad cultural approach to prizefighting is also illuminating. A discussion, for example, of the style of black boxers invokes jazz, “bad n****r” folk figures and form of insult known as “the dozens.” Diane McWhorter, The New York Times”

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

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Bay Psalm Book

Posted on July 18, 2026 | Leave a comment

“Bay Psalm Book: (1640) A metrical translation of the Biblical psalms by Richard Mather, Thomas Welde, John Eliot, and twenty-seven other ministers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The book—the first bound book printed in the English colonies—was published by Stephen Day in Cambridge in and edition of seventeen hundred copies. Its full title is The Whole Booke of Psalms Faithfully Translated into English Metre.”

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

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Cultural Literacy: Dog Eat Dog

Posted on July 18, 2026 | Leave a comment

Moving on through my differentiated and supported materials folder, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the idiom dog eat dog. I suspect you can find this document, in a simpler version, elsewhere on this blog. I developed this version of this worksheet to accompany a reading of the Langston Hughes poem “Let America Be America Again” which puts this idiom to work.

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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Sample Annotations for The Declaration of Independence

Posted on July 13, 2026 | Leave a comment

Since we’re on a bit of a theme this morning, here is another document, this one a set of sample annotations for The Declaration of Independence, from the 11th-grade English class I co-taught over the past two years. This requires, I think, no explanation; so, I’ll spare you the bloviating.

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: Daisy Miller

Posted on July 13, 2026 | Leave a comment

What is Daisy Miller’s real name? Annie Miller. She appears in Henry James’s short novel Daisy Miller (1878).

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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Sample Annotations for a Reading of Horatio Alger’s Short Story “Henry Trafton’s Independence”

Posted on July 13, 2026 | Leave a comment

Moving right along with differentiated material I developed for the 11th-grade English class I co-taught over the past two years, here is a sample annotations for “Henry Trafton’s Independence,” a short story by Horatio Alger. My father, who taught Alger at the University of Wisconsin, taught me, alas, to ridicule Alger’s contrived and even precious rags-to-riches stories. Nonetheless, this story showed up in this English class.

Incidentally, in researching this post, I learned that Horatio Alger, in his role as a Unitarian clergyman in Brewster, Massachusetts was found to have engaged in “the abominable and revolting crime of gross familiarity with boys.” I think, in this post-Catholic-clergy-scandal era, you know what that means. My father had a great deal to say about Richard “Dick” Hunter, the protagonist of Alger’s “Ragged Dick” stories. Dick’s name, my father told me, suggested a great deal about Horatio Alger himself.

I myself am agnostic on all of this.

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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A List of Questions to Provoke Thought about the Economic and Social Practice of Redlining

Posted on July 13, 2026 | Leave a comment


 

OK, moving right along this morning. Several years ago, I became quite interested in the history of mortgage lending in the United States, particularly the practice of redlining. I read Richard Rothstein’s excellent book The Color of Law, which I highly recommend to you, particularly if you are interested in cities and social justice. The topic of redlining came up in one of the 11th-grade English classes I co-taught, so I worked up this questions to inform thinking on redlining to distribute to students.

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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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, New York City, Reference, Social Sciences

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Refugee Intellectuals

Posted on July 13, 2026 | Leave a comment

“Refugee Intellectuals: (1930-1940) During the 1930s, a galaxy of European intellectuals–authors, artists, scholars, scientists–fled European totalitarianism and found refuge, permanent or temporary, in the United States. Their contributions to the nation’s cultural life–and later to its war effort–were incalculable. The hundreds of refugee intellectuals included:

  • George Balanchine, Russian dancer and choreographer, to U.S. 1933
  • Hans Bethe, German physicist, to U.S. 1935.
  • Bertolt Brecht, German playwright and poet, in U.S. 1941-49
  • Marcel Breuer, Hungarian architect, to U.S. 1937
  • Rudolf Carnap, German philosopher, to U.S. 1936
  • Albert Einstein, German physicist, to U.S. 1933
  • Erik Erikson, German psychoanalyst, to U.S. 1933
  • Max Ernst, German painter, in U.S. 1939-49
  • Enrico Fermi, Italian physicist, to U.S. 1938
  • Erich Fromm, German psychoanalyst, to U.S. 1934
  • Walter Gropius, German architect, to U.S. 1937
  • George Grosz, German painter, to U.S. 1933
  • Paul Hindemith, German composer, in U.S. 1940-52
  • Hans Hofmann, German painter, to U.S. 1930
  • Karen Horney, German psychoanalyst, to U.S. 1932
  • Wolfgang Kohler, German psychologist, to U.S. 1934
  • Fritz Lang, German film director, to U.S. 1934
  • Thomas Mann, German author, in U.S. 1938-53
  • Herbert Marcuse, German political philosopher, to U.S. 1934
  • Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, German architect, to U.S. 1937
  • Lazlo Moholy-Nagy, Hungarian painter, to U.S. 1937
  • Hans Morgenthau, German political scientist, to U.S. 1937
  • Erwin Panovsky, German art historian, to U.S.
  • Erwin Piscator, German theatrical director, in U.S. 1939-1951
  • Arnold Schoenberg, Austrian composer, to U.S. 1931
  • Joseph Schumpeter, Austrian economist, to U.S. 1932
  • Isaac Bashevis Singer, Polish-Yiddish novelist, to U.S. 1935
  • Igor Stravinsky, Russian composer, to U.S. 1937
  • George Szell, Hungarian conductor, to U.S. 1937
  • Leo Szilard, Hungarian physicist, to U.S. 1938
  • Edward Teller, Hungarian physicist, to U.S. 1935
  • Paul Tillich, German theologian, to U.S. 1933
  • Arturo Toscanini, Italian conductor, to U.S. 1930
  • John Von Neumann, Hungarian mathematician, to U.S. 1930
  • Bruno Walter, German conductor, to U.S. 1938
  • Kurt Weill, German composer, to U.S. 1935
  • Max Wertheimer, German psychologist, to U.S. 1933
  • Eugene Wigner, Hungarian physicist, to U.S. 1930

Excerpted from: Rosenbaum, Robert A. The Penguin Encyclopedia of American History. New York: Penguin, 2003.

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