Tag Archives: united states history

Everyday Edit: Juneteenth

OK, let’s wrap up this Tuesday with an Everyday Edit worksheet on the Juneteenth holiday in observance of Black History Month 2020. Incidentally, if you like these kinds of exercises, the good people at Education World will gladly hand over a year’s supply of them for free.

And if you find typos in this document, fix them! It’s an Everyday Edit worksheet, after all.

Battle of Antietam

OK, social studies teachers, here is a short reading on the American Civil War Battle of Antietam along with a vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet to go with it.

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.

Did Ralph Ellison Speak for You?

“Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?”

Invisible Man epilogue (1952)

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

Cultural Literacy: Brown v. Board of Education

Continuing with Black History Month 2020, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Brown v. Board of Education, the United States Supreme Court Decision that desegregated public schools in this country.

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.

Everyday Edit: Tuskegee Airmen

Here is an Everyday Edit worksheet on the Tuskegee Airmen. As I say every time I post one of these documents, if you and your students like them, the good people at Education World generously give away a yearlong supply of them.

And if you find typos on this document, well, that’s the purpose of them; edit and repair as needed!

Malcolm X on Self-Defense

“There is nothing in our book, the Koran, that teachers us to suffer peacefully. Our religion teaches us to be intelligent. Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery. That’s a good religion.

Message to the Grass Roots” (Speech), Detroit, Michigan, 10 November 1963″

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

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (and Paul Laurence Dunbar)

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: A volume of memoirs (1970) by the African-American writer, singer, and actress Maya Angelou (1928-2014). Angelou borrowed her title—a metaphor for the African-American experience—from the US writer Paul Lawrence Dunbar (1872-1906):

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,

When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore—

When he beats his bars and he would be free;

It is not a carol of joy or glee,

But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,

But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—

I know why the caged bird sings!

Paul Lawrence Dunbar: ‘Sympathy,’ in The Complete Poems (1895)

Dunbar may have been inspired by an earlier line:

When caged birds sing, when indeed they cry.

John Webster: The White Devil (1612), V.iv

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

Paul Laurence Dunbar

[The beautiful Dunbar Apartments in Harlem are named for Paul Laurence Dunbar. Let me mention editorially that I am mildly uncomfortable with this entry’s association of Dunbar with Thomas Nelson Page. Dunbar, in my own view, was sui generis as a poet. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia has a tendency–especially in older entries like this one–to discount the originality of African-American writers.]

“Paul Laurence Dunbar: (1872-1906) American poet. Dunbar is noted for his highly skilled use of black themes and dialect. Writing at a time when literary regionalism was in vogue, he was undoubtedly influenced by Thomas Nelson Page. Dunbar was the son of a slave, but became the most famous African-American poet of his time. He exercised a great influence on later writers. Lyrics of Lowly Life (1896) is his most famous collection. It was followed by Lyrics of the Hearthside (1899), Lyrics of Love and Laughter (1903), and Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow. He also wrote novels, including The Uncalled (1898) and The Sport of the Gods (1902).”

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

Independent Practice: Songhai Empire

OK, folks tomorrow begins Black History Month 2020. Circumstances impel me, as they do every February, to editorialize briefly in saying that if Americans are honest with themselves about the history of the United States, then every month is Black History Month. That said, I am distinctly uncomfortable second-guessing the founders of Black History Month, particularly Dr. Carter G. Woodson.

So, let’s start the month off with this independent practice worksheet on the Songhai Empire.

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.

Alexander Hamilton

OK, before I take my much-deserved leave of this institution this afternoon, here is a reading on Alexander Hamilton with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. The musical Hamilton, also produced as a film, might make this high-interest material.

Just sayin’.

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.