“Blacks should be used to play whites. For centuries, we had probed their faces, the angles of their bodies, the sounds of their voices, and even their odors. Often our survival had depended on the accurate reading of a white man’s chuckle, or the disdainful wave of a white woman’s hand.”
The Heart of a Woman, ch. 12 (1981)
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged black history, drama/theater, poetry, readings/research, women's history
Lorraine Hansberry has crossed my radar screen several times recently: she was the subject of a PBS American Masters series, and she is featured prominently in Raoul Peck’s superlative documentary, James Baldwin: I Am Not Your Negro. Lorraine Hansberry and James Baldwin were great friends, and her early death was a great tragedy for him, and for the theater.
Here, hot off the press, is a reading on playwright Lorraine Hansberry and 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.
Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Social Sciences, Worksheets
Tagged black history, building vocabulary/conceptual knowledge, diction/grammar/style/usage, drama/theater, high-interest materials, lgbtq history, questioning/inquiry, readings/research, united states history, women's history
Although I’d been aware of her since high school, I wasn’t aware of the indignities she endured as the first African-American writer to publish in North America. This reading on early African-American poet Phillis Wheatley (with its accompanying vocabulary building and comprehension worksheet) does a nice job of exposing that particular disgrace on the part of white Boston elites.
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.
“A play (1974) by the US writer Ntozake Shange (b. 1948) consisting of 20 ‘choreopoems’ about the experience of African-American women in modern Western society. One of the longest running shows in Broadway history, the play’s extraordinary title, with its unconventional spellings and rejection of accepted grammatical rules, was intended by the author to represent the independence of African-American culture from Western influence. The mutilation of words throughout the title and text are reportedly meant to remind the reader of the mutilation of African slaves through branding and other punishments.”
Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.
“(1929-1981) Senegalese novelist and activist. Despite the brevity of her writing career, Mariama Ba’s published novels secured her an international reputation. Une Si longue letter (1979; tr So Long a Letter), her first novel, won the first Noma Award for Publishing in Africa at the 1980 Frankfurt Book Fair. Le Chant ecarlate (tr Scarlet Song, 1981), her second novel, was published posthumously and also gained international attention. Ba’s works examine such issues and polygamy, clitoridectomy, and woman’s ability to transcend the negative consequences of the irresponsible use of power in a traditional Muslim and patriarchal society. The novels affirm the ability of women to experience such potentially devastating situations, and yet move beyond victimization to action and wholesome self-expression.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Somewhere, and I’ll post it in the future, I have an entire lesson that attends this brief timeline of world history. For now, I think this document has merit per se.
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.
“Miss Nin’s usual rather sensitive and lyrical writing on her usual theme of erotica interlarded with psychoanalytic interpretations… Miss Nin is distinctly caviar to the general public but I’m afraid it’s only red caviar at that…”
Excerpted from: Bernard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged fiction/literature, literary oddities, women's history
Here is a reading on the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution as well as a comprehension worksheet to use with it. This amendment, you will recall, enfranchised women.
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.
On a grey and chilly Saturday morning, here is something timely: a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Women’s Movement. It might help your students understand how we reached the point we have in our zeitgeist. It turns out, to the surprise of very few, that women prefer not to be thought of or treated like objects.
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.
“Clio * Euterpe * Thalia * Melpomene * Terpsichore * Erato * Urania * Calliope * Polymnia
The nine muses, the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (the goddess of memory), were a favourite subject for Roman artists and much depicted in mosaic and fresco, or carved in marble to grace the praesidium of a theater.
Clio, the muse of history, is represented with a stylus and a scroll, or after the Renaissance, with a book, a laurel crown, or a trumpet; she is easy to confuse with Calliope, who often has the same attributes. Euterpe, muse of lyrical poetry, bears a flute. Thalia, muse of pastoral poetry and comedy, carries a comic mask and sometimes a viol.
Melpomene, muse of tragedy, is associated with a mask, sometimes embellished with a fallen crown, and holds a dagger. Terpsichore, muse of joyful dance and song, often holds a lyre, as does Erato, muse of lyrical love poetry.
Urania, muse of astronomy, is normally shown consulting a globe of a compass. Polymnia, muse of heroic hymn and eloquence, possesses a lute and a solemn expression that outdoes even those of Clio and Calliope.
Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.
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