“Libertarian, n. One who is compelled by the evidence to believe in free-will, and whose will is therefore free to reject that doctrine.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged humor, literary oddities, united states history
Here is a reading on President Rutherford B. Hayes along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.
Hayes was basically a cipher (in the sense of “one that has no weight, worth, or influence : NONENTITY“), but his election in 1876, a result of the famous Compromise of 1877, was consequential indeed. The negotiations that elevated Hayes to the presidency directly brought about the end of Post-Civil War Reconstruction Era in the former Confederate States, but also engendered the Jim Crow laws that oppressed Americans of African descent, in most respects, to this day. When you think about the horrors that black people suffered and continue to suffer, think about the installation of Hayes in the presidency as a result of this chicanery.
This is a relatively short reading. But I think it could be the basis of a unit that I would like to think contained adapted text and teacher-made materials from C. Vann Woodward’s seminal treatise on this period of United States history, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). If we want students to make sense of the present, then we must help them understand the real past–without obfuscation or euphemism.
Incidentally, I’ve attached the black history tag to this post, not because Hayes’ biography is black history–it manifestly is not. But the man’s effect on the lives and history of Americans of African descent really speaks for itself: generations of extrajudicial murder (including of children), apartheid laws, an unearned and misplaced sense of ethnic superiority attached to white skin–do I need to go on? Unfortunately, Rutherford B. Hayes is part of Black History in this country.
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 air currents of the world never ventilated his mind.”
Walter Page Hines on Woodrow Wilson
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged humor, literary oddities, united states history
Here is a reading on President Andrew Jackson along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Your students–or anyone–won’t need to read far in this one-page document to find parallels with current history in the United States.
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.
Here is a reading on the reading on the French and Indian War (known contemporaneously in Europe as the Seven Years’ War) along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. The war raged in North America between Britain and France, who had as her allies Native American tribes. This is a turning point in Great Britain’s hegemony in its North American colonies: while Britain won the conflict, it was at enormous cost. In his attempts to extract payment–by way of unpopular legislation like the Stamp Act— from the American Colonies, King George III so antagonized colonists that he provoked a revolution.
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.
“All experience is an arch, to build upon.”
Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
This reading on Ralph Waldo Emerson and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet might be useful in presenting high school students with a more robust biographical knowledge of this key figure in American letters. As a philosopher, Emerson was highly regarded by Friedrich Nietzsche, among others; his circle, known as the Transcendentalists, left a mark on American culture that is not always easy to trace, but of clear continuity once its traces are found.
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 noblest aspect of the American liberal tradition is its respect for diversity.”
Theodore R. Sizer (1932-2009)
Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
On a snowy Vermont morning, here is a Henry David Thoreau along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I’ll assume that I needn’t belabor the continuing relevance to Thoreau’s work–I think Walden, or Life in the Woods is still taught in some high school classrooms. It might be worth taking a look, in these times, at some of his political and philosophical work–particularly “Civil Disobedience.” Moreover, it doesn’t take much work to help students develop their own understanding of the connections between Thoreau, Mohandas Gandhi, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In any case, it’s difficult to avoid Thoreau’s influence in social justice and peace movements around the world.
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.
Moving right along on a Friday morning, here is a reading on Mathew Brady, the legendary Civil War photographer, along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Brady, it hardly needs to be said, is an important figure in the history of both the United States and the development of photography as an art and science.
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.
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