Tag Archives: united states history

Cultural Literacy: Willa Cather

She’s not much read today (though I have loved the books of hers I’ve read), but I think this Cultural Literacy worksheet on novelist Willa Cather ought to have some currency in our secondary classrooms in the United States (at least!). This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of one compound sentence with two 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.

Book of Answers: Joan Didion

“To what poem is Joan Didion referring in the title of her book Slouching Toward Bethlehem (1968)? She refers to the last line of ‘The Second Coming‘ (1921) by William Butler Yeats: ‘And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,/Slouches toward Bethlehem.'”

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

Cultural Literacy: Greta Garbo

If you can use it, which I suppose is another way of saying if you have a student with an interest in her, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Greta Garbo. This is a half-page worksheet with a three-sentence reading and three comprehension questions. A simple, but effective introduction to this famously reclusive woman.

May I presume to recommend a viewing of Ninotchka? I doubt anyone would be sorry he or she watched this fine film.

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.

Abigail Adams on Patriotism

“Patriotism in the female sex is the most disinterested of all virtues. Excluded from honors and from offices, we cannot attach ourselves to the State or Government from having held a place of eminence…. Yet all history and every age patriotic virtue in the female sex; which considering our situation equals the most heroic of yours.”

Letter to John Adams, 17 June 1782

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

The Weekly Text, 25 March 2022, Women’s History Month 2022 Week IV: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Julia Child

For the final Friday of Women’s History Month 2022, here is a reading on Julia Child along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Whatever one thinks of French cooking, which Ms. Child brought to American cuisine, she was by any measure an accomplished woman.

I confess ignorance where both French cooking and Ms. Child are concerned–my own palate, alas, is undeniably plebeian. In researching this post, I learned that she stood six feet, two inches tall; her height disqualified her from World War II service in the Women’s Army Corps (WACs) or the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Services). She joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to today’s Central Intelligence Agency, where she worked directly with OSS founder General William J. (“Wild Bill”) Donovan. According to Ms. Child’s Wikipedia page, in her service to the OSS, she took on the task of solving the problem of curious sharks setting off underwater explosives placed by the OSS. She experimented with recipes that would serve as shark repellent; her method is still in use today.

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.

Rotten Reviews: The Feminine Mystique

“…It is a pity that Mrs. Friedan has to fight so hard to persuade herself as well as her readers of her argument. In fact her passion against the forces of the irrational in life quite carries her away.

Yale Review 

It is superficial to blame the ‘culture’ and its handmaidens, the women’s magazines, as she does… To paraphrase a famous line, ‘the fault dear Ms. Friedan, is not in our culture, but in ourselves.’”

New York Times Book Review

Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.   

Claire Booth Luce

“Clare Boothe Luce: (1903-1987): American playwright and diplomat. Following her divorce from George T. Brokaw in 1929, Luce worked as an editor at Vogue and Vanity Fair. She published a novel, Stuffed Shirts (1933), under the name Clare Boothe Brokaw. In 1935 she married the publisher Henry Luce. She is best known for a series of theatrical successes, including The Women (1936), Kiss the Boys Goodbye (1938), Margin for Error (1939), Child of the Morning (1951), and Slam the Door Softly (1970). Luce’s political interests led her to public service. She served two terms (1943-47) in the House of Representatives from Connecticut and was ambassador to Italy from 1953 to 1956. She was confirmed as ambassador to Brazil in 1959 but resigned without serving because of controversy surrounding her confirmation.”

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

Susan B. Anthony on Male Pronouns and Gender Equality

“It is urged that the use of the masculine pronouns he, his, and him in all the constitutions and laws is proof that only men were meant to be included in their provisions. If you insist on this version of the letter of the law, we shall insist that you be consistent and accept the other horn of the dilemma, which would compel you to exempt women from taxation for the support of the government and from penalties for the violation of laws. There is not she or her or hers in the tax laws, and this is equally true in of all the criminal laws.”

Quoted in Ida Husted Harper, The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (1899)

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

Cultural Literacy: Dorothea Dix

While I am not exactly sure where she fits in the primary or secondary curriculum (health classes? United States history classes?), here, nonetheless, is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Dorothea Dix. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of one sentence 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.

Book of Answers: Harriet Monroe

“When was Poetry magazine founded? The forum for works by many of the most influential American poets of the first part of the twentieth century was founded in Chicago in 1912 by Harriet Monroe.”

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