Tag Archives: women’s history

Cultural Literacy: Sally Heming

Posted on March 28, 2018 | Leave a comment

If we are going to face the truth about our national past, then perhaps perhaps this Cultural Literacy worksheet on Sally Hemings will be of some use in your classroom. I think most students would be very interested in the life of Sally Hemings–indeed, in her entire family.

Reading her story while revising this post brings to mind a great novel I read last autumn, In the Fall by Jeffrey Lent, which I cannot recommend highly enough.

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.

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Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)

Posted on March 27, 2018 | Leave a comment

[Whenever I feel down, I turn to the the Algonquin Wits, and especially one of its most brilliant, albeit self-destructive, members, the late, great Dorothy Parker. I want to annotate this quote with something few people know about Mrs. Parker: she was a dedicated civil rights activist who greatly respected Martin Luther King, Jr.; indeed, she she left her estate in its entirety to him.]

“American writer of short stories, verse, and criticism. Parker was noted for her caustic wit, as a drama critic for Vanity Fair and later a book reviewer for The New Yorker, and she became one of the luminaries of the Algonquin Round Table. Her works in verse are equally sardonic, usually dry, elegant commentaries on departing or departed love. The collection Enough Rope (1926), contains the much quoted ‘Resume’ on suicide, and ‘News Item,’ about women who wear glasses. Her short stories, which were collected in After Such Pleasures (1932) and Here Lies (1939), are as imbued with a knowledge of human nature as they are deep in disenchantment; among the best known are ‘A Big Blonde’ and ‘A Telephone Call.’”

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

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Posted in English Language Arts, New York City, Quotes, Reference

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Cultural Literacy: Josephine Baker

Posted on March 27, 2018 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Josephine Baker who was, by any standard to which I can comfortably stipulate, a great American who lived most of her life, like many American entertainers, writers and intellectuals of African descent, in Paris

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.

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Mrs. Parker on Autobiographical Veracity

Posted on March 26, 2018 | Leave a comment

“It may be that this autobiography [Aimee Semple McPherson’s] is set down in sincerity, frankness, and simple effort. It may be, too, that the Statue of Liberty is situated in Lake Ontario.”

Dorothy Parker, The New Yorker 25 Feb. 1928

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

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Cultural Literacy: Marie Antoinette

Posted on March 26, 2018 | Leave a comment

As the final week of Women’s History Month 2018 begins, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Marie Antoinette, certainly one of the more infamous women in history.

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.

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Madeline L’Engle (1918-2007)

Posted on March 23, 2018 | Leave a comment

[Because of Ava DuVernay’s filmed adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L’Engle has been in the news lately. Here’s a biographical squib on her that might be useful in introducing students to her or her work]

“Originally Madeline Camp (1918-2007) U.S. author of children’s books. Born in New York City, she pursued a career in theater before publishing her first book, The Small Rain (1945). In A Wrinkle in Time (1962), she introduced a group of children who engage in a cosmic battle against a great evil; their adventures continue in A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978) and other books. Her works often explore such themes as the conflict of good and evil, the nature of God, individual responsibility, and family life. She also has written adult fiction, poetry, and autobiography.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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The Weekly Text, March 23, 2018, Women’s History Month 2018 Week IV: a Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Queen Isabella of Spain

Posted on March 23, 2018 | Leave a comment

Well, it’s Friday again, so it’s time for another Weekly Text, which continues to to observe Women’s History Month. So, here is a reading on Queen Isabella of Spain with a comprehension worksheet to accompany it. As long as we’re on the subject of royalty in modern history, here is an Everyday Edit on the women in King Henry VIII’s life to complement the longer exercises on Queen Isabella. Incidentally, if you want more of these Everyday Edit exercises, the good people at Education World have posted a year’s supply of them free for the taking.

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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Amy Goodman on Effective Journalism

Posted on March 22, 2018 | Leave a comment

[Accepting an award for coverage of the 1991 massacre of Timorese by Indonesian troops:]

“Go to where there is silence and say something.”

Quoted in Columbia Journalism Review, March/April 1994

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

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Cultural Literacy: Cassandra

Posted on March 22, 2018 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Cassandra, she of Greek myth. She is often a metaphor, in polite but educated conversation, as a metaphor for a person whose valid warnings or concerns about the future are disbelieved by others.

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.

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Anais Nin (1903-1977)

Posted on March 21, 2018 | Leave a comment

“French-born American novelist and diarist. Although she had written over a dozen books, Nin was not widely known until the publication of The Diary of Anais Nin 1931-1966 (7 vols. 1966-80). A record of avant-garde life in Paris and New York, with portraits of friends like Henry Miller and Lawrence Durrell, the diaries essentially chronicle a woman’s coming to terms with her identity as a woman. They served as the source of much of Nin’s fiction, which shows the influences of surrealism and psychoanalysis. Her first novel, House of Incest (1936), is a prose poem dealing with psychological torment. The second, Winter of Artifice (1939), examines a daughter’s relationship to her father. The series Cities of the Interior includes Ladders to Fire (1946), Children of the Albatross (1947), The Four-Chambered Heart (1950), A Spy in the House of Love (1954), and Solar Barque (1958). Both in her fiction and her diaries, a dreamlike, sensuous prose expands personal concerns to a universal level. Nin’s essays on literary theory include Realism and Reality (1946) and The Novel of the Future (1968). The Delta of Venus (1977) and Little Birds (1979) are books of erotica she wrote in the 1940s.”

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

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