Tag Archives: united states history

The Weekly Text, 25 October 2024: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Like other avid readers, I expect, I have been watching the long overdue public advance of Percival Everett’s career. While I have yet to actually read his books, I did see American Fiction (based on his novel Erasure),  heard him interviewed in various places, and read a profile of him in The New Yorker. To call him interesting would be to considerably understate the case.

His most recent novel, James, re-imagines Mark Twain’s classic–and now controversial–American novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, from the perspective of Jim, the escaped slave who travels with Huck. Jim’s humanity and his moral uprightness, as the novel proceeds, informs Huck’s morality and therefore criticizes the immorality, hypocrisy, and just plain horror of slavery.

So, it seeks like a good enough time to post as a Weekly Text this reading on the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

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.

Jacobo Arbenz Guzman

“Jacobo Arbenz Guzman: (1913-1971) Soldier and president of Guatemala (1951-54). The son of a Swiss émigré, Arbenz joined the leftist army officers who overthrew the dictator Jorge Ubico (1878-1946) in 1944. Elected president in 1951, he made land reform his central project. His efforts to expropriate idle land owned by the United Fruit Company and his alleged Communist links led to an invasion sponsored by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. When the army refused to defend Arbenz against what appeared to be a superior force, he resigned and went into exile, and the CIA installed the leader of the proxy army, Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas (1914-1957), as president.”

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

The Labyrinth of Solitude

“The Labyrinth of Solitude (El laberinto de la soledad, 1950; tr 1961): A book by Octavio Paz. This penetrating essay on Mexican history has probably been more widely read and is thus more influential than any of Paz’s other essays or poetry. In search of the meaning of the Mexican and, by extension, the Latin American experience, Paz singles out the conquest of the Indians by Spanish invaders as the moment the true Mexico became isolated and obscured by masks. Silence, dissimulation, machismo, hermeticism, violence, and the cult of death are the masks adopted by the Mexican to disguise his fundamental historical solitude. Paz argues, however, that solitude has become a universal part of the human condition and that all men, like the poet himself, must become conscious of this condition in order to find, in the plentitude of love and creative work, a glimpse of the way out of the labyrinth of solitude.

In the revised and supplemented edition of 1985, Paz clarifies his view of Mexican culture and history, and deals with U.S.-Mexico relations. He also reexamines the dichotomy between the “two Mexicos,” the “developed” and the “underdeveloped,” and finds that the distinction is itself an imposition of the former upon the latter. He discusses the “other” Mexico as not only a tradition and a culture, but as representing a philosophical “Other,” like the other within.

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

Cultural Literacy: Uruguay

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Uruguay. This is a full-page worksheet with a three-sentence reading and four comprehension questions.

Incidentally, should you be interested in delving deeper into Uruguayan politics and society, I published this blog post on Tupac Amaru II, who was the namesake of a Uruguayan revolutionary group the Tupamaros, whose work resisting a repressive governments led the way to Uruguay becoming a “full democracy,” indeed, one of the strongest democracies in the Americas.

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, 11 October 2024, Hispanic Heritage Month Week IV: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on the World’s Columbian Exhibition of 1893

For the final Friday of Hispanic Heritage Month 2024, here is the post for this month that bears the scantest relation to Hispanic History: a a reading on the World’s Columbian Exhibition of 1893 along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. As this event’s name indicates (and if you’ve read Erik Larsen’s fascinating book The Devil in the White City, you know most if not all there is to know about the 1893 World’s Columbian Exhibition), it is related to Christopher Columbus, to wit the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in the “New World.”

Certainly Spain’s arrival in the New World basically begins what we might consider Hispanic History, that’s how we come by the word Hispanic, after all. So there is marginal relevance here. I don’t know, this event seems like the conquistador’s round of self-congratulation for a job of genocide well done.

But as I said at the outset of this month, I am woefully under-inventoried where materials related to Hispanic History is concerned.

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.

Spanish-American War

“Spanish-American War: (1898) Conflict between the U.S. and Spain that ended Spanish colonial rule in the New World. The war originated in Cuba’s struggle for independence. The newspapers of William Randolph Hearst fanned U.S. sympathy for the rebels, which increased after the unexplained destruction of the Maine. Congress passed resolutions declaring Cuba’s right to independence and demanding that Spain withdraw its armed forces. Spain declared war on the U.S. in 1898. Commodore George Dewey led the naval squadron that defeated the Spanish fleet in the Philippines, and General William Shafter led regular troops and volunteers (including Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders) in the destruction of Spain’s Caribbean fleet near Santiago, Cuba (July 17, 1898). In the Treaty of Paris (December 10, 1898), Spain renounced all claims to Cuba and ceded Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines to the U.S., marking the U.S.’s emergence as a world power.”

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

Cultural Literacy: Remember the Maine

If you know anything about the Spanish-American War, (if not, see the post above this one) you know that it began with the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine, which was anchored in Havana Harbor. The yellow press in United States, looking to push the nation into war with Spain, contrived the expression “Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain!” I suppose it probably sounded as idiotic as today’s crowds chanting “U.S.A.!, U.S.A.!,” only slightly more literate. At least it rhymes and contains verbs, eh?

So, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the slogan “Remember the Maine.” This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of four sentences and four comprehension questions. What the reading fails to mention is that the Maine probably exploded internally–that it wasn’t sabotaged by Spanish operatives.

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.

Somoza Family

“Somoza family: Family that maintained political control of Nicaragua for more then 40 years. The dynasty’s founder, Anastasio Somosa Garcia (1896-1956), became head of Nicaragua’s army in 1933 and, after deposing the elected president in 1936, ruled the country with a firm and grasping hand until he was assassinated. He was succeeded by his elder son, Luis Somoza Debayle (1922-1967), and later by his younger son, Anastasio Somoza Debayle (1925-1980), whose corrupt and brutal rule (1963-79) led to his overthrow by the Sandinistas. Somoza looted the country before leaving for Miami; he was assassinated in Paraguay.”

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

The Weekly Text, 4 October 2024, Hispanic Heritage Month Week III: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on President James Monroe

You probably know, particularly if you teach United States History, that the Monroe Doctrine (1823) bears the name of President James Monroe. The Monroe Doctrine held that any foreign powers that intervene in political affairs in the Americas commits a potentially hostile act against the United States. Conceived, as most historians apparently agree, as an act of solidarity with the emergent republics across the Americas–what we also call Latin America.

During the Cold War, alas, the doctrine was perverted in such a way that it became a justification for United States Imperialism in Latin America (I’ve written about this here). All of this ratiocination is to introduce, and articulate the relevance of this reading on President James Monroe along with its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet to Hispanic Heritage Month 2024.

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: The Santa Fe Trail

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Santa Fe Trail. William Becknell pioneered this road in 1821 as a commercial route between St. Louis, Missouri and Santa Fe, New Mexico (which wasn’t, of course, a state at that time–it became a state in 1912). Along with the freight that moved along this road, inevitably, settlers began to follow. This was the beginning of the United States’ endeavor to help itself to territory that was at the time part of Mexico–which of course culminated in the Mexican-American War.

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.