Tag Archives: united states history

Harvard

Anyone I’ve known who has dealt with the institution reported to me that its cachet is hypertrophied, but since it remains a brand in higher education around the globe, here is a reading on Harvard University and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. As for the school’s cachet, I have no experience there (other than walking around on its leafy, mellow campus), so I can’t speak to, well anything about it.

Nota bene that this is a short history of the university and its role in the development of colleges and universities 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.

The Algonquin Wits: Ring Lardner on Calvin Coolidge

President Coolidge’s inimitable deadpan personality became a cherished target for the Round Tablers’ wit. After his first meeting with Coolidge, Lardner reported to the group that he had told the president a humorous anecdote, adding, ‘He laughed until you could hear a pin drop.’”

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

Thorstein Veblen on the Esteem of One’s Peers

“In order to gain and hold the esteem of men it is not sufficient merely to possess wealth or power. The wealth or power must be put in evidence, for esteem is awarded only on evidence.”

Thorstein Veblen

The Theory of the Leisure Class ch. 3 (1899)

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

John D. Rockefeller

It’s nearly impossible, as awful as he may have been, to underestimate his influence on American industrial capitalism, so I think this reading on John D Rockefeller and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet are relevant in a number of places across the social sciences curriculum.

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.

Melba Patillo Beals on the Crucible of Her Youth

“But, because we dared to challenge the Southern tradition of segregation, this school became, instead, a furnace that consumed our youth and forged us into reluctant warriors.”

Melba Patillo Beals, on the Desegregation of Little Rock Schools, Warriors Don’t Cry(1994)

Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003

The Miracle on Ice

When I taught in Springfield, Massachusetts, (which hosts a minor league hockey team), a number of students in my literacy intervention class wanted to read about hockey. So I worked up this reading on the Miracle on Ice and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet for their consumption. If you’re not old enough to remember it, or are not a hockey or Olympics fan, the Miracle on Ice is the United States Olympic Hockey Team’s upset victory over the Russian team at the 1980 Olympics at Lake Placid, New York.

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.

Albert Jay Nock on Reading the Dictionary

“As sheer casual reading matter, I still find the English dictionary the most interesting book in the English language.”

Albert Jay Nock

Memoirs of a Superfluous Man ch. 1 (1943)

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

Georgian Style

“Georgian Style: Style of architecture, furniture, and interior decoration developed in the reigns of the four English King Georges (1714-1830). In England the three phases are Palladian, Neoclassical, and Regency. In the United States: Georgian, Federal, and Roman Classicism. All forms show classical inspiration and Renaissance spirit and motifs.”

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

Cotton Mather

OK, last but not least this humid morning, here is a reading on Cotton Mather and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. United States history teachers take note.

And I’ll keep my snarky comments about aggressively militant Calvinists to myself. Likewise Reverend Mather’s role in the Salem Witch Trials.

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: Joseph McCarthy

Alright, last but not least today, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose name you surely recognize as a blight on a period of United States history that in fact bears his name, the “McCarthy Era,” and describes a particular style of political paranoia, McCarthyism.

This is a full-page worksheet, so it has a number of uses, including independent practice (i.e. homework).

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.