Tag Archives: united states history

Cultural Literacy: Kent State

OK, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the incident at Kent State University on 4 May 1970. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of four sentences (the final sentence is a complicated compound that might benefit, particularly for struggling or emergent readers, from simplification) and three comprehension questions.

This document seems a bit crowded to me, and may well cause struggling students some problems. It might be better as a full-page worksheet; and depending how deeply your class is studying this event (if at all), a closer analysis may be de rigueur.

Then again, are we teaching the concepts of resistance and civil strife in our social studies classes? If not, this document is surely superfluous.

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 Lost Generation

“Lost Generation: Group of U.S. writers who came of age during World War I and established their reputations in the 1920s; more broadly, the entire post-World War I generation. The term was coined by Gertrude Stein in a remark to Ernest Hemingway. The writers considered themselves ‘lost’ because their inherited values could not operate in the postwar world and they felt spiritually alienated from a country they considered hopelessly provincial and emotionally barren, The term embraces Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, E.E. Cummings, Archibald Macleish, and Hart Crane, among others.”

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

The Weekly Text, 30 August 2024: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on the Great Depression

This week’s end-of-the-summer-break Text is this reading on the Great Depression with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. You probably won’t be surprised to hear that this is another set from the Intellectual Devotional series; I still have over two hundred of these in a drafts folder for future use. Some are more relevant than others. Yet I think it can’t hurt to be fully prepared to meet student interest when it arises.

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 Doubter’s Companion: Banality

“Banality: The political philosopher Hannah Arendt confused the meaning of this word by introducing in 1961 her brilliant but limiting concept ‘the banality of evil.’ In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a minor political figure, Brian Mulroney, released the term by demonstrating that it could also reasonably be understood to mean the evil of banality.”

Excerpted from: Saul, John Ralston. The Doubter’s Companion. New York: The Free Press, 1994.

The Weekly Text, 9 August 2024: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on the Atom

The Weekly Text from Mark’s Text Terminal for Friday, 9 August 2024 is this reading on the atom along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. This reading is from the Intellectual Devotional series; it serves as a good general introduction to the basic concept and configuration of the atom, but not a great deal more. As I am not a science teacher, I really cannot speak to the effectiveness or utility of these documents.

If you can, please speak up in the comments forum.

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: Roosevelt’s Court Packing Plan

Moving right along this morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Roosevelt’s court packing plan. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences–all longish compounds separated by commas–and three comprehension questions.

As I look at this document this morning, I find, apropos of its subject matter, I suppose, that the text is packed in a little too tightly. Moreover, the aforementioned three longish compound sentences might be better rewritten if you plan to use this document with emergent or struggling readers or students for whom English is a new language. Moreover, I think the comprehension questions could be improved, or expanded, with a couple of critical thinking questions added.

But what do you think?

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: Subsidy

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of a subsidy. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of one sentence and one comprehension question. Just the basics, but useful, I would think, for any introductory economics course as well as a range of topics in United States 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.

Places In American Cultural History: The San Remo Cafe, Greenwich Village, New York City

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A Short Analysis and Argument Worksheet on Basketball Great Steph Curry

It’s a remote professional development day here in my district. As I sit here waiting to join an online meeting, I have a minute to post this short analysis and argumentation worksheet on Steph Curry. My colleague Jason Zanitsch and I put this together a couple of weeks ago. Don’t let this document’s brevity mislead you: it packs a punch in terms of the thought it requires from the students to whom it is assigned. That credit goes to Jason.

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.

Ho Chi Minh’s Anti-Colonial Imperative

“Men and women, young and old, regardless of creeds, political parties, or nationalities, all the Vietnamese must stand up to fight the French colonialists and save the fatherland. Those

Ho Chi Minh, Proclamation, 19 Dec. 1946 (translation by Peter Wiles)

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