Tag Archives: united states history

J. Edgar Hoover

Here is a reading on J. Edgar Hoover along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. From the Intellectual Devotional series, this is a good general introduction to Hoover’s biography.

Any “good” biography of J. Edgar Hoover must by definition include his subversion of democracy, via COINTELPRO, during his reign as FBI Director. Hoover was a nasty piece of work, and he’s just the kind of villain that students find fascinating; he’s also a good figure with which to begin a critical examination of United States history in the twentieth century, including the Civil Rights Movement and the anti-Vietnam War upheavals. It’s an established fact that COINTELPRO monitored Malcolm X closely; his daughters, earlier this year, released a letter from the late New York City Police officer Raymond Wood in which Detective Wood confessed to participating with the FBI in the conspiracy to murder Malcolm. Netflix has done an admirable job of exposing this with the excellent documentary series Who Killed Malcolm X? I found it riveting.

In other words, these two documents are a gateway to some juicy, engaging stuff. I can already think of two students of mine who would have engaged deeply in a unit around these circumstances and events.

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.

Jane Addams on Democracy

“The cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy.”

Jane Addams

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

Containment

Here is a reading on the United States’ policy of containment along with its accompanying vocabulary-buidling and comprehension worksheet.

This is a good general introduction to this piece of United States foreign policy toward the Soviet Union after World War II. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it is the best short introduction to the topic I’ve seen, presenting the biographies and motivations of the key players, to wit, George F. Kennan and President Harry Truman, as well as a quick analysis of the policy itself.

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.

Book of Answers: The First Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

What novel won the first Pulitzer Prize? His Family by Ernest Poole in 1918.

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

Antiglobalization

Here is a reading on the antiglobalization movement in the United States along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

Because this relatively short reading focuses on the United States, it serves only as a general introduction to a movement that is, well, global in scale. If you scroll down from here to the sixth post below this one, you’ll find a reading and comprehension worksheet on the Bretton Woods Conference that might complement this reading–or vice versa.

I’d like to thank friend of the blog Adelaide Dupont, who called my attention to a typo in the reading in this post.

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.

Persist (vi)

Here is a context clues worksheet on the verb persist. It is, interestingly, only used intransitively. You can use an adverb with it, though most of them would be superfluous. But you’ll never place a direct object–i.e. a noun or noun phrase–after this verb. This is a nice strong verb, of Latin pedigree, in its own right.

It means, as we use it in conversational discourse, “to go on resolutely or stubbornly in spite of opposition, importunity, or warning.” So this context clues worksheet conveys meaning using that definition. The verb, however, can also mean “to be insistent in the repetition or pressing of an utterance (as a question or an opinion).” That, I assume, is how Senator Mitch McConnell meant it when he said of Senator Elizabeth Warren, “Nevertheless, she persisted” when Senator Warren refused to stop speaking during the confirmation hearing for Senator Jeff Sessions‘ for Attorney General of the United States.

It might be worth writing a second version of this document to reflect that second meeting. I’ll keep you posted.

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.

Bretton Woods

Here is a reading on Bretton Woods  along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

Bretton Woods, you may recall, is shorthand for the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference held in June of 1944, at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire.  The hotel is right at the base of Mount Washington, a beautiful spot. This article, from the Intellectual Devotional series, serves as a good general introduction to a highly complicated subject–the post-World War II global economy.

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.

Barry Goldwater

Last but not least on this clement Wednesday afternoon, here is a reading on Barry Goldwater along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

This is a good general introduction to the late senator and presidential candidate. Senator Goldwater, relatively speaking, was a nuanced thinker and, in the end, no subscriber to the kind of rigid ideology conservatives today profess.

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.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

“Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: A historical study (1971) by Dee Brown (1908-2002) of the conquest of the American West and the destruction of the Native American tribes. The title comes from the last verse of a poem ‘American Names’ (1927), by Stephen Vincent Benet (1898-1943):

‘I shall not rest quiet in Montparnasse.

I shall not lie easy in Winchelsea.

You may bury my body in Sussex grass.

You may bury my tongue at Champmedy.

I shall not be there. I shall rise and pass.

Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.’

Wounded Knee, in South Dakota, was the site of a massacre of Teton-Sioux by US forces on 29 December 1890, in which at least 150 Native Americans and 25 US soldiers were killed. It marked the final suppression of Native American resistance. In the Wounded Knee protest of 1973, two years after the publication of Brown’s book, some 200 armed members of the American Indian Movement occupied the symbolic site. The occupation ended after a 70-day siege, but helped to focus international attention on the US government’s treatment of Native Americans.”

Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.

Funk Art

“Funk Art: A term coined in the 1960s to describe a class of art that emerged in the San Francisco Bay area. It was often witty, sometimes deliberately distasteful, with a diversity of styles ranging from comic-strip derivations to William Wiley’s use of found objects. Funk artists looked to popular culture rather than traditional canons of fine art.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.