Tag Archives: united states history

A Lesson Plan on the Admission of the First 13 of the United States from The Order of Things

Here is something new at Mark’s Text Terminal: a reading and analysis lesson plan derived from the text of Barbara Ann Kipfer’s book The Order of Things. I’ll be writing up a summary of this work and its purpose on the “About Posts & Texts” page, which you can click through to just above the banner photograph. I am still thinking through how to describe the object of these lessons (I have 30 of them outlined at this point), but I can say this much: these worksheets are an attempt to provide students practice, as a road to developing their own understanding of what former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich called the work of “symbolic analysts.”

This first lesson plan is on the admission of the first 13 of the United States. The worksheet for this lesson calls upon students to read and analyze both language and numbers (two sets of symbols, in other words) in order to answer a series of relatively simple comprehension questions. There is a lot of room to alter this material to you and your students’ needs; as always, these documents are in Microsoft Word, so they are easily manipulable.

More of these are forthcoming, as is a more extensive explanation of them and rationale for their use, as above, on the “About Posts & Texts” page.

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.

Bill of Rights

OK, here is a reading on the Bill of Rights and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. The Bill of Rights is, of course, the name we citizens of the United States give to the aggregated first ten amendments to our Constitution. They are, both hermeneutically and politically, some of the most hotly contested language in our founding documents.

Therefore, conceptually, there is a lot to unpack here if you want to dilate on this material: continuity and change, citizens and the law, historical perspective (particularly the Third Amendment, on quartering troops), the spirit and letter of the law, the Supreme Court’s function in our republic–you get the picture.

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.

Hudson River School

“Hudson River School: Group of American realist landscape painters active between about 1820 to 1880 whose favorite subjects were scenes of the Hudson River Valley and the Catskill Mountains. Famous members were Thomas Cole, Asher Durand, and Frederic Church.”

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

WPA: Works Progress Administration

“WPA: Works Progress Administration: (later renamed Works Projects Administration) This federal agency (1935-1943) established by the U.S. government provided depression-era relief to the unemployed by commissioning public works. More than 5,000 artists produced works ranging from monumental murals (Willem de Kooning) to documentary photographs (Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans).”

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

Franklin D. Roosevelt

In this time of public health crisis, it’s nice to know that at least in its past, this country produced leaders dedicated to public service and the common good–rather than grifters who see the Presidency of the United States as a side hustle.

So here is a short reading on Franklin D. Roosevelt along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

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: John Dos Passos

“What are the books in John Dos Passos’ U.S.A. trilogy? They are: The 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919 (1932), and The Big Money (1936). The three were first published together in 1937).”

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

The Algonquin Wits: Beatrice Kaufman Attends a Concert at Carnegie Hall

“Beatrice Kaufman, who held little appreciation for music of any sort, once accompanied Oscar Levant to Carnegie Hall to hear Stokowski conduct Bach’s B Minor Mass. While en route to the theater Beatrice realized they were going to be late and urged her escort, ‘In heaven’s name let’s hurry or we’ll miss the intermission.’”

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

The Weekly Text, March 20, 2020, Women’s History Month 2020 Week III: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on the Flappers

Alright, I do want to remember that March is Women’s History Month. This week’s Text, in observation of the month, is a reading on flappers along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. The reading is short, but it allows for the possibility of asking a critical question about them: were they avatars of female agency, and thus an early paradigm of feminism?

This post on the cartoon character Betty Boop, which I posted almost exactly a year ago, might complement today’s Text, depending on how far you want to go with this. I can tell you that the Betty Boop material has been of relatively high interest to the students I’ve served over the years.

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.

Brewer’s Curious Titles: The Invisible Man

“The Invisible Man: The title of two very different novels. The first is a work of science fiction by H.G. Wells (1866-1946), published in 1897. In this story a scientist finds the secret of invisibility, which lures him into temptation. The first film version(1933), starring Claude Rains, was highly regarded, but its several sequels less so.

The second novel with this title was by the black US writer Ralph Ellison (1914-94). Published in 1952, it won the 1953 National Book Award for fiction. The novel tells the story of a Southern black who moves to New York, participates in the struggle against white oppression, and ends up ignored and living in a coal hole.

I am an invisible man. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fibre and liquids—and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.

 The Invisible Man, prologue.

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

Zora Neale Hurston on the Life of Men

“Ships at a distance have every man’s with on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others, they sail forever on the same horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the real life of men.”

Zora Neale Hurston

Their Eyes Were Watching God ch. 1 (1937)

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