Tag Archives: united states history

Book of Answers: Tennessee Williams

“How long was the first run of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)? The play opened in New York in 1947 and ran for 855 performances.”

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

The Weekly Text, Friday 28 April 2023: History of Hip-Hop Lesson 12, DJ Kool Herc Steps Forward to Sample in The Bronx

Continuing with the History of Hip-Hop Unit, here is lesson plan twelve, on Clive Campbell, aka DJ Kool Herc. This Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) begins the lesson. The centerpiece of this lesson is this reading on Clive Campbell  with its accompanying comprehension worksheet.

And that is that for another week.

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, Friday 21 April 2023: History of Hip-Hop Lesson 11, Gil Scott-Heron: Black Power Griot of Harlem

This week’s Text, following in sequence, is the eleventh lesson plan of the History of Hip-Hop unit, this one on the late, great, Gil Scott-Heron. This lesson begins with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the National Association for the the Advancement of Colored People. The center of this lesson is this adapted reading on Gil Scott-Heron with its comprehension worksheet to accompany it.

This lesson also includes listening to two of Gil Scott-Heron’s songs, both of which are available on YouTube. Here are the lyrics to “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” and “The Bottle.”

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, Friday 14 April 2023: History of Hip-Hop Lesson 10, The Last Poets, Harlem Griots

Moving along with the History of Hip-Hop unit, this week’s Text is the tenth lesson plan, on The Last Poets. I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on Malcolm X. From there we proceed to the mainstay of the lesson, this adapted reading on The Last Poets and its attendant comprehension-building worksheet.

Incidentally, if you’re interested in the full text from which the reading above was adapted, here is a PDF of the master of the reading. I snipped this from a copy of Uncut magazine back when the Hip-Hop fanzines were still published in paper and available at the Borders on Lower Broadway (very near Wall), near the school where I served at that time and where I would pick them up. So, we’re talking, basically, about pre-2008, which is when Borders ceased to exist, a casualty of the financial crisis that year. I had a hell of a time finding the citation, but I am relatively confident of it.

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.

Flagpole Sitting

If not for the one request over the years for this reading on the daredevil stunt of flagpole sitting that was somehow in vogue in the United States in the 1920s, supply would at present exceed demand. The reading, interestingly, makes the connection between this risky and arguable peculiar activity with the unusual form of monasticism of Simeon Stylites, a Christian ascetic who lived in the late-forth and early-fifth centuries CE. Anyway, here is the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that attends the 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.

The Weekly Text, Friday 7 April 2023: History of Hip-Hop Lesson 9, The Black Power Movement in the United States

This week’s Text is lesson plan nine of the History of Hip-Hop unit, on the rise of the Black Power movement in the United States. This lesson begins with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Black Panthers. The principal work for this lesson is this reading on the Black Power Movement with its accompanying comprehension worksheet.

And that’s it for another week.

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: Dolley Madison

Moving right along this morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Dolley Madison. This is a half-page document with a four-sentence reading and three comprehension questions.

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: Gertrude Stein

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Gertrude Stein. This is a full-page document with a reading of three sentences and five comprehension question. It’s a curiously asymmetrical page, far from perfect. But is anyone teaching Gertrude Stein’s work? She is presented here as a historical figure and the coiner of the term “Lost Generation,” which perhaps is all high school students need to know about her.

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.

The Weekly Text, 31 March 2023, Women’s History Month 2023 Week V: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on the Birth Control Pill

For the final Friday of Women’s History Month 2023, here is a reading on the birth control pill along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Once again, the editors of the Intellectual Devotional series, from which this reading is adapted, have done an admirable job of including–without, somehow, cramming it in–all of the salient facts, including Margaret Sanger and the United States Supreme Court decision, Griswold v. Connecticut, that made contraceptives available nationwide and therefore expanded women’s autonomy over their reproductive health.

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: Katherine Hepburn

Elsewhere on this blog, you will, I admit, find Dorothy Parker’s famously withering remark on the actress, but here, nonetheless, is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Katherine Hepburn. This is a full-page document with a four-sentence reading and four comprehension questions.

Incidentally, while I find Ms. Parker’s comment, like almost everything this pillar of the Algonquin Wits ever said, hilarious, I don’t necessarily agree with it.

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.