Tag Archives: united states history

Cultural Literacy: Colin Powell

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Colin Powell. This is a half-page document with a reading of three sentences and three comprehension worksheets. Once again, the authors and editors of The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy (Hirsch, E.D., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2002) have come through with a short, punchy reading that includes the high points of this distinguished American’s career.

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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Places in Black History: 70 Fifth Avenue, Greenwich Village, New York, New York

70 Fifth Avenue Plague

Frederick Douglass on Struggle and Progress

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.”

Frederick Douglass, Speech, Canandaigua, N.Y. 4 Aug. 1857

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

Cultural Literacy: Watts Riots

When I prepared this document a couple of years ago, I found myself wondering if the Watts Riots are on anyone’s mind anymore. I’m old enough to remember them distinctly and I certainly remember the film Wattstax, which I badly wanted to see. At age 14, alas, I couldn’t surmount its R rating–so given, I assume, because of Richard Pryor’s hilarious “license-plate-pressing motherf*****r” routine.

Anyway, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Watts Riots. This is a half-page document with a reading of three sentences and three comprehension questions. The reading does mention the Rodney King beating, which is, I submit, an association worth making in an exercise like 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.

Cultural Literacy: Tin Pan Alley

While I fear it falls far short of the standards to which I like to think this blog conforms, here, nonetheless, is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Tin Pan Alley. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences–the first a compound separated by a semicolon, the second a longish declarative sentence–and three questions. The reading presents the term “Tin Pan Alley” as metaphorical and notes that it is “not used as much today as it was a generation or two ago” to refer, generally, “to the popular music industry in the United States.”

My problem is this: Tin Pan Alley is a metaphor, yes, but it was also a real place in Manhattan. So, and I think this especially true for those of us who teach in the Five Boroughs, our students ought to know about the literal (to use an overworked adjective) Tin Pan Alley.

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.

The Weekly Text, 12 January 2024: A Lesson Plan on the Latin Word Roots Quadr, Quadri, Quadru, and Quadra

This week’s Text is a lesson plan on the Latin word roots quadr, quadri, quadru, and quadra. They mean, of course, four, and they are at the roots of high school words like quadratic (equation) and more general purpose English words like quadrangle and quadrant.

I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the verb quarter. I’m not sure why I chose the verb, as it has nothing to do with the meaning of the root on this worksheet, but rather means, in the context supplied, “to provide with lodging or shelter.” The verb also means “to cut or divide into four equal or nearly equal parts,” and I think this document would probably best be rewritten to furnish that context for inferring this word’s meaning.

Unless of course you’re teaching a lesson on the Third Amendment to the United States Constitution,, i.e. “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.” In that case, the above-linked context clues worksheet may have some utility for you.

Finally, here is the scaffolded worksheet that is the primary work of this lesson.

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 Weekly Text, 5 January 2024: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on the California Gold Rush

Happy New Year!

This week’s Text is this reading on the California Gold Rush with its accompanying vocabulary-building, comprehension and analysis worksheet. These materials are adapted from the Intellectual Devotional series; for more on these materials at Mark’s Text Terminal, please see the About Posts & Texts page, accessible through the links on the banner of the home page (right above the photograph).

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.

Thorstein Veblen

“Thorstein (Bunde) Veblen: (1857-1929) U.S. economist. Born in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, he grew up in Minnesota and earned a PhD in philosophy from Yale University. He taught economics at the University of Chicago and other universities but was unable to keep any position for long because of his unconventional ideas and the disorder in his personal life. In 1899 he published his classic work The Theory of the Leisure Class, which applied Darwin’s evolutionary theories to the study of modern economic life, highlighting the competitive and predatory nature of the business world. With dry humor he identified the markers of American social class, and he coined the term ‘conspicuous consumption’ to describe the display of wealth made by the upper class. His reputation was highest in the 1930s, when the Great Depression was seen as a vindication of his criticism of the business system.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

A Four-Page Learning Support for United States History

This year, I’ve been assigned to co-teach a United States History class. I’ll spare you the details other than to say that a student I’ve worked with several years, and who is developing into an exceptional human being, asked me for some textual support in the course. So I assembled these four pages of short articles on U.S. history from The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2002).

Can you use them?

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.

Cultural Literacy: Imperialism

This Cultural Literacy worksheet on imperialism is the final documents post for National Native American Heritage Month 2023. This is a half-page worksheet with a two-sentence reading and two comprehension questions. Once again, like almost everything from The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, this reading’s brevity–it defines imperialism clearly and correctly and explicitly links it with colonialism–is its strength.

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.