What's in a Name?

What's in a Name?

In ancient times, names meant something. For example, Abraham (“father of many” [Hebrew]), Gabriel (“strong man of God” [Hebrew]), Daphne (“laurel” [Greek]), and Iris (“rainbow” [Greek]). Today, it seems a name is meaningful mostly by association, because it reminds us of someone famous or popular (like the sports fan who names his son after a favorite player), or because it represents a significant trend.

The same can be said about last names, many of which were originally patronyms, components of personal names based on those of one's father, grandfather or an earlier ancestor. Patronyms were used throughout the world. Among the better known ones are the prefixes O’ (O’Reilly) and Mac/Mc (Mackenzie). Here are a few examples:

Spanish: suffix ez meaning “son of”
Fernandez – son of Fernando
Rodriguez – son of Rodrigo

French: prefix fitz meaning “son of”
Fitzgerald – son of Gerald
Fitzhugh – son of Hugh

Greek: suffixes opoulos, akos, atos, eas (regional variations) meaning “son of”
Demetropoulos
Demetrakos
Demetratos
Demetreas

Nordic countries: suffix son or sen meaning “son of”
Magnusson – son of Magnus
Petersen – son of Peter

If you wish to know the origin of your name or last name visit http://www.behindthename.com/ and http://genealogy.familyeducation.com/family-names . You may be surprised.

Farewell Don Mario

Farewell Don Mario

I enjoy reading a lot, especially fiction; I have never been into poetry, though, until I came across Mario Benedetti’s poems.

Benedetti, one of Uruguay’s best-known writers, was born in 1920 into an Italian immigrant family and unfortunately passed away on May 17, 2009 in Montevideo, Uruguay. He was considered one of Latin America’s most important 20th century writers.

In his first popular book of poetry, Poemas de la oficina (Poems from the Office, 1956), Benedetti shows his sympathetic understanding of the slow, unspectacular life of the Montevideo middle classes, caught up in their small world of everyday struggles and tensions. In 1960, he published La Tregua (The Truce), by far his most successful novel, which was made into a film that was nominated for an Oscar in 1974.

Although Benedetti was not well known in the English-speaking world, he was extremely popular in Latin America and Spain. Adolescents still share his love poems, and read his work in home videos posted on YouTube—especially "Don't Save Yourself" (my favorite), which urges people to take risks, and "Let's Make a Deal," about unconditional friendship.

Here is my favorite poem by Benedetti in English and Spanish.

Don’t Save Yourself / No te salves by Mario Benedetti

Don’t remain immobile

At the edge of the road

Don’t freeze the joy

Don’t love with reluctance

Don’t save yourself now

or ever

Don’t save yourself

Don’t fill with calm

Don’t reserve in the world

Only a secure place

Don’t let your eyelids fall

Heavily as judgments

Don’t speak without lips

Don’t sleep without sleepiness

Don’t imagine yourself without blood

Don’t judge yourself without time

But if in spite of everything

You can’t help it,

And you freeze the joy,

And you love with reluctance,

And you save yourself now,

And you fill with calm,

And you reserve in the world

Only a calm place,

And you let fall your eyelids

Heavily as judgments,

And you speak without lips,

And you sleep without sleepiness,

And you imagine yourself without blood,

And you judge yourself without time,

And you remain immobile

At the edge of the road,

And you save yourself,

Then…Don’t stay with me.

No te quedes inmóvil

al borde del camino

no congeles el júbilo

no quieras con desgana

no te salves ahora

ni nunca.

No te salves

no te llenes de calma

no reserves del mundo

sólo un rincón tranquilo

no dejes caer los párpados

pesados como juicios

no te quedes sin labios

no te duermas sin sueño

no te pienses sin sangre

no te juzgues sin tiempo.

Pero si

pese a todo

no puedes evitarlo

y congelas el jubilo

y quieres con desgana

y te salvas ahora

y te llenas de calma

y reservas del mundo

sólo un rincón tranquilo

y dejas caer los párpados

pesados como juicios

y te secas sin labios

y te duermes sin sueño

y te piensas sin sangre

y te juzgas sin tiempo

y te quedas inmóvil

al borde del camino

y te salvas

entonces

no te quedes conmigo

The Shakespeare-Seinfeld Connection

The Shakespeare-Seinfeld Connection

Today’s guest blogger is Amsco author, Henry I. Christ, who draws parallels between the Bard & one of the most popular comedians of the 1990s.

Who would have thought there might be similarities between the immortal Shakespeare and the pop icon, Seinfeld? Here's a lighthearted look.

We were watching a Seinfeld rerun. Using a photo, George had lied his way into the Forbidden City nightclub, where the women were all beautiful models who accepted him. When the photo is accidentally burnt, the magic is destroyed. George tries to take Jerry to this magical realm, but all they find is a meat-storage locker.

In A Midsummer Night's Dream, a magic potion causes Bottom, the simple weaver, to be doted upon by beautiful Titania, Queen of the Fairies. It doesn't matter that Bottom is wearing a donkey's head (thanks to Puck.) In Seinfeld, it doesn't matter that George is short and stocky. There is magic in both episodes.

Both Shakespeare and Seinfeld were successful, admired by all levels of society. Traveling players brought Shakespeare throughout England. TV gave Seinfeld a global impact.

Minor characters played an important part in the success of both. Shakespeare created Dogberry, Jaques, Bardolph, the Gravedigger, Autolycus, and Caliban. Seinfeld gave us Newman, Peterman, Mr. Pitt, Kenny Bania, and the Soup Nazi.

There are the parents who dislike each other: the Montagues and Capulets in Romeo and Juliet; the Constanzas and the Seinfelds in Seinfeld. Lovesick Orlando in As You Like It is matched by lovesick George in many Seinfeld episodes. In All's Well that Ends Well, Bertram doesn’t appreciate the beautiful Helena, nor does fickle George, the beautiful Susan.

Both Shakespeare and Seinfeld provide practical jokes. In The Merry Wives of Windsor, the amorous Falstaff ends up in a basket as part of the wives' practical joke. Seinfeld's Elaine records an anonymous tape, for Jerry, passionately expressing her attraction to him. Jerry, Kramer, and George are enthralled until the secret is revealed.

Shakespeare has enriched the English language with a flood of new words. Seinfeld has provided "yada, yada, yada." Shakespeare has given us "All the world's a stage." Seinfeld came up with "Not that there's anything wrong with that." Julius Caesar has "It's all Greek to me." Seinfeld has "No soup for you!"

Dare we compare Hamlet and Jerry Seinfeld? For the most part, both Hamlet and Jerry are well-dressed. Ophelia calls Hamlet the "glass of fashion." To his friends, Jerry is neat, fastidious, a fashion plate. At this point, the comparisons become contrasts. Hamlet is complicated; Jerry shallow. Hamlet agonizes over questions of duty, responsibility, and morality. Jerry is serenely above self-analysis. Hamlet's soliloquies are both brilliant and germane to the plot. Jerry's soliloquies are comic observatins about ordinary life.

There is another dramatic comparison. Hamlet's play within a play is self-reflexive, a contrivance within a framework that adds depth to the play. Jerry's sitcom within the sitcom pokes fun at itself.

Both Shakespeare and Seinfeld displayed a ruthless honesty. They observed human nature objectively, without sentimentality. They relished satire, poking fun at stereotypes. Though miles apart in their characterizations, Falstaff and Kramer still resemble each other. Falstaff is one of a kind, but both he and Kramer are natural, unconcerned with convention. They can be devious, unpredictable. Conventions come tumbling, and we watch both Falstaff and Kramer with fascination. In his battlefield strategy, Falstaff seeks self-preservation. Kramer decides not to challenge two thugs about to steal Elaine's armoire.

Both Shakespeare and Seinfeld had appropriate farewells. In The Tempest, Prospero bids farewell to his art:

Our revels now are ended: these our actors . . . were all spirits and are melted into thin air.

In the final episode of Seinfeld, Jerry Seinfeld bids farewell to his motley crew, with a sly reference to the first episode.

Surely, there are other possibilities:

· Oedipus and Forensics Files (He didn't have a clue!}
· Lysistrata and Desperate Housewives (Ancient Greek women were desperate, too.)
· Socrates and Dr. Phil (Life strategies then and now)

These are the Ph.D challenges of the future!

“Elementary, My Dear Sir Arthur . . . and ‘Happy Birthday!’ ”

“Elementary, My Dear Sir Arthur . . . and ‘Happy Birthday!’ ”

Actually, it’s “Watson,” not “Sir Arthur,” but since today is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 150th birthday, I felt like teasing you.

Yes, he was born May 22, 1859 in Edinburgh, Scotland, to a master storyteller (his mother) and a chronic alcoholic (whose only known accomplishment was fathering Arthur). When Conan Doyle was nine, he was sent (crying, yet!) to a Jesuit boarding school in England. There, he rebelled against corporal punishment (which was common back then), but enjoyed playing cricket, and later realized he was as great a storyteller as his mother.

Conan Doyle graduated at seventeen. As he put it himself, in those days he “was wild, full-blooded and a trifle reckless,” but a lot was going on with him. With his mother, he co-signed papers that committed his demented father.

You’d think he’d pursue a career in the arts. Instead, he went to medical school! There he met Dr. Joseph Bell, a master of diagnosis and deduction. Dr. Bell became the model for (You guessed it!) Sherlock Holmes!

A few years into med school, Conan Doyle wrote his first short story, “The Mystery of Sasassa Valley,” which was published in Chamber's Journal, an Edinburgh magazine. It wasn’t until 1886, however, (while he was struggling to be a doctor and writer) that he began the novel that launched him into fame. A Study in Scarlet introduced the world to the sharp-witted consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes, and Dr. Watson.

Conan Doyle wrote four novels, and fifty-six (or more) short stories starring Holmes. In all of these, Holmes is almost too cool for words: always insightful, on top of things, and one step ahead, both of the cops, and the killers.

A century before forensics became popular, Holmes is an expert on physical evidence. In The Hound of the Baskervilles, Holmes reads a warning note in which only one word, “moor,” is handwritten. He notes the ink’s bad quality and recognizes the cut-out letters from the previous day’s newspaper. He also detects that the letters were cut with small nail scissors, indicating a woman was behind the note. Holmes can even smell her perfume!

Holmes became so popular that even in recent years, countless Holmes pastiches have sprung up, for the detective’s many fans. Two of the latest are The Secret Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Gary Lovisi (published by Ramble House), and Sherlock Holmes: The Great Detective in Paperback & Pastiche, also by Lovisi (published by Gryphon Books). There are even elite Holmes clubs, like The Sherlock Holmes Society of London and the Baker Street Irregulars.

Back to Sir Arthur. He became “Sir Arthur” in 1902 and was appointed Deputy-Lieutenant of Surrey. Conan Doyle believed he was knighted as a result of his pamphlet, The War in South Africa: Its Cause and Conduct, which defended the UK's role in the Boer war and was translated all over.

Years later, Conan Doyle became fascinated with spiritualism and wrote The History of Spiritualism in 1926. He was so into it, that he refused to believe spiritualist Margaret Fox was a fraud, even after she publicly confessed! He also lost the friendship of magician Harry Houdini, who was obsessed with debunking spiritualists.

What’s worse was, Conan Doyle—creator of the skeptic Sherlock Holmes— also believed in . . . fairies. His book, The Coming of the Fairies (1921) showed he’d been duped by hoax photos of the Cottingley Fairies. Taken by two young girls, Elsie Wright and her cousin Frances Griffiths, these photos (see below) featured paper cut-outs of fairies stuck to a bush. Conan Doyle believed these fairies were real.

In 1982, years after Conan Doyle’s death (in 1930, of a heart attack) old Elsie and Frances finally admitted they’d faked four of the photos. Too bad he wasn’t around for that. . . .

He would’ve known they were lying.

Climate Change Threatens Archeological Treasures

Climate Change Threatens Archeological Treasures

We have all been made aware of the present and future changes to our environment resulting from global warming. Less well known, however, is the impact upon our archeological heritage. A United Nations panel of 1000 experts on climate science recently estimated that the world’s temperature has risen approximately two degrees in the past century. The main cause has been an increase in carbon dioxide that traps heat in the earth’s atmosphere. Among the observable results has been a rise in the world’s oceans of four inches. Also, weather patterns have become less predictable and more extreme. The UN experts predict that ocean levels will rise another four inches over the next one hundred years. A worst-case scenario involves an increase of ten degrees in global temperatures. This would cause ice caps to melt even more rapidly than they are at present and sea levels to rise more than three feet.

Around the world, archeologists are operating on the premise that global warming will not be reversed, or stopped. Their concern is with the protection of archeological sites, both excavated and unexcavated.

In Kazakhstan, Scythian burials have remained frozen for thousands of years. Hotter summers are causing the human remains they contain to decay, in some cases faster than archeologists can get to them to study and preserve. Three thousand years ago, Scythian nomads ruled the Eurasian steppes from the edges of the Black Sea (photo above) in the west to China in the east. They buried their dead in huge grave mounds called kurgans. These have been important sources of information for archeologists studying how this nomadic culture spread, thrived, and faded away around 200 B.C. Kurgans are found from Ukraine to Kazakhstan. The best preserved are those in the Altai Mountains (photo below) on the edge of the vast Siberian permafrost region. Many of these graves have been frozen for millennia. Archeologists have found well-preserved mummies in the kurgans, often with their clothing, burial goods, and horses intact. The material culture of the Scythians is thus revealed.


The Altai Mountains, however, are not as cold as they once were. The glaciers that covered the Altai slopes are receding and even disappearing. For the first time in 3,000 years, the Scythian corpses in the kurgans are in danger of thawing and decaying. An international effort to save the frozen tombs has included the use of satellite photos and ground surveys to map and list the region’s kurgans. A priority is identifying the kurgans that may still have permafrost underneath them. The next step will be to determine how to keep the grave mound cool in order to preserve them for future researchers. Proposals range from reflecting sunlight away from the tombs by painting them white to stabilizing the underground temperature by installing thermo-pumps.

Peru is known as the home of the Inca and other civilizations. It is also a place strongly affected by El Niño. Every seven to ten years, Pacific Ocean currents shift, changing weather patterns from Australia to California. In Peru, El Niño brings warmer water and heavy rainfall along the coast. Peru’s deserts ordinarily receive just over an inch of rain per year. In 1998, the last severe El Niño season, the region received 120 inches, which caused severe flooding. Water damages exposed archeological sites, especially those located on rivers or on easily eroded slopes.

Chan Chan (photo above) is an eight-miles-square city that dates back 1000 years. Made of mud brick, its pyramids and palaces have been threatened by erosion. In the past twenty years, the site has deteriorated steadily. If, as researchers believe, global warming will make El Niño effects more frequent, the resultant increased rainfall will increase the potential for the ancient city’s destruction.

In normal summers, Greenland’s northern and eastern coasts should be ringed by an ice belt thirty to forty miles wide. The drifting ice acts like a shock absorber, lessening the impact of the North Atlantic. In the past five years, the sea ice has all but disappeared (photo above). This leaves Greenland’s coast open to the impact of storm surges originating hundreds of miles away. The effect on the island’s archeological heritage has been severe. Hardest hit have been sites associated with the Thule culture, people closely related to the Inuit of northern Canada who first migrated to Greenland around 2,000 years ago. The Thule were skilled hunters and whalers whose villages were built near the shore. Today, Thule houses, made of stone and turf with whale-bone rafters, are disappearing quickly, along with buried tools and artifacts. Older sites along the coast are also in danger. As the Arctic warms, archeologists fear the frozen turf that covers Qeqertasussak, a 4,500-year-old settlement where evidence of the earliest habitation of Greenland was found, may be melting. The knowledge the site contains will be lost with the ice.

Global warming threatens archeological investigation all over the world. If knowledge of the past is necessary to better understand the present and to anticipate the future, the consequences of this loss will be significant.

Chronicler of the Suburbs

Chronicler of the Suburbs

I had read a couple of John Cheever’s short stories and at least one novel (don’t remember which one) several decades ago and had been mildly impressed. This spring, I attended a talk by Cheever’s latest biographer, Blake Bailey (Cheever: A Life, Knopf, 2009), and was inspired to read more of Cheever.

Bailey is a very witty guy in person. He can tell some very funny stories about John Cheever and intertwine them with quotes from Cheever’s works in an entertaining manner. I suppose he did something similar in his biography of Cheever. I don’t know for sure because I was too cheap to buy a copy. However, reviews of Bailey’s biography have been good.

The Short Stories. I did buy a paperback copy of The Stories of John Cheever (2000, Vintage) because I wanted to reread some of the short stories that I had read before and read some with which I was unfamiliar. “The Swimmer” is worth going through even a second or third time. The reader becomes enmeshed in the protagonist’s crazy, alcohol-fueled world as he swims across one backyard swimming pool after another in an attempt to get home. I had forgotten the surprise ending. Another work, “The Scarlet Moving Van,” is a very dark story. You the reader are led to feel sorry for one of the characters until the ironic end of the story, when you are asked to switch your sympathies to the plight of the narrator.

It seems that all of Cheever’s short stories have similar features, including twists of plot that surprise the reader. Most of the stories involve people who drink too much and have unhappy family lives, a description that mirrors Cheever’s life. And after Cheever moved out of Manhattan to the suburbs in the early 1950s, all of the stories take place in the suburbs.

On to Yates. As I said, I was too cheap to buy Cheever: A Life. Instead, I went to the library in search of it. But that book had not yet made it to the library. So I did the next best thing, I took out Bailey’s biography of Richard Yates, A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates (2003). That is a fascinating study of another writer of midcentury suburbia. In fact, Yates as a boy lived in the same house in Westchester County that Cheever would live in for a while as an adult with wife and children. The street they both lived on, Revolutionary Road, was the name of one of Yates’s most popular novels, Revolutionary Road (1961) and of the 2008 movie of that same name. I’m going to have to read that novel or his novel The Easter Parade (1976) or his 1962 collection of short stories, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness.

Saratoga Springs--It’s Not Just for Horse Racing!

Saratoga Springs--It’s Not Just for Horse Racing!

I had the good fortune to attend the New York State Council for the Social Studies conference in Saratoga Springs last month. While Saratoga is famous for its horse racing, it also has a significant history that those of us in the social studies/history field--and all Americans--should know. The Battle of Saratoga in the fall of 1777 is considered the turning point in the American Revolution, directly leading to France’s entry into the war as a decisive military ally to the struggling Americans.

The battle resulted from a failure of the British army to gain access through Canada, which left a large surplus of British troops along the St. Lawrence River. In 1777, these troops were to move south and join forces with General Sir William Howe’s troops along the Hudson River. Leading a force of about 8,000 British troops southward, General John Burgoyne forced the surrender of Fort Ticonderoga (July 6) and Fort Edward on the upper Hudson (July 31). He left nearly 1,000 men behind to garrison Fort Ticonderoga. Having collected 30 days’ rations, Burgoyne crossed the Hudson and encamped near Saratoga. General Horatio Gates, the American commander, was camped four miles away with 12,000 men and was receiving daily reinforcements.


On September 19, Burgoyne’s army moved south and engaged the Continental forces at the Battle of Freeman’s Farm, or the First Battle of Saratoga. Burgoyne failed to pierce Gates’s lines, however, and thus open a way to Albany. On October 7, he led 1,500 of his men out on reconnaissance, but met with a fierce American counterattack under General Benedict Arnold. This engagement was called the Battle of Bemis Heights, also known as the Second Battle of Freeman’s Farm or the Second Battle of Saratoga. By now, Burgoyne’s army had been reduced to about 5,000 effective troops and his supplies were running low. On October 8, Burgoyne began his retreat, but Gates, who by now had 20,000 men, surrounded him at Saratoga. On October 17, Burgoyne surrendered his troops under the Convention of Saratoga, which provided for the return of his men to Great Britain on condition that they would not serve again in North America during the war.

The American victory in the Battles of Saratoga persuaded the French to recognize American independence and to give open military assistance, thus marking a turning point in the uprising and making possible its ultimate success. If the men at Saratoga had failed, the British army could have easily accomplished their plan to cut off the east coast of America, and slowly move eastward to Boston to destroy the rebel American Army. Without this victory, it is quite possible there would be no America and all the ‘Founders’ would have been hanged for treason.

Poetry Makes a Comeback in the White House

Poetry Makes a Comeback in the White House

Although it didn’t make quite as big a media wave as Bo, the Portugeuse water dog, the Obama White House brought the east room to life this Tuesday with a poetry jam. What exactly is a poetry jam, you ask? Well, one thing it’s not is a poetry slam, in which poets engage in a spoken-word contest. This jam was a star-studded event, with performances in various genres such as jazz, spoken-word, and even a little Shakespeare. Big names in attendance included James Earl Jones, Esperanza Spalding, and Michael Chabon.

The blogosphere erupted once the live video broadcast of the event was over; commentary and judgement were passed on everything from Michelle Obama’s outfit (appropriately assymetrical, at once sophisticated and cool) to the Derek Walcott volume of poetry that has been spied in the President’s back pocket. What concerns me, though, is the place in history this night at the White House will take. Specifically, what does this night mean for the place of literature in 21st-century America?

Poetry, novels, short stories, nonfiction: all these genres have both shaped and reflected the course of America’s history. First, the Puritans wrote about their mission to form a “city on a hill”; then the Age of Reason produced Thomas Paine and the political pamphlets that eventually led to the American Revolution; next came the romantic period, creating American greats like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman; finally, and in my humble opinion, America saw the last great periods of literature in its history: modernism and the Harlem Renaissance.

Since the late forties, this country has seen a sharp decline in what literary critics of the future will call a classic. There have been a few bright spots, but nothing to compare to the explosion of creative genius that characterized the 18th and 19th centuries. Some blame this dirth of distinguished writing on changing values and the proliferation of media such as television and film.

Still, the concern remains about whether American letters will fade into the past as new technologies continue to advance. Will literature and writing keep up and retain their essential position as cultural commentaries, even if they adapt and metamorphize in our gadget-obsessed society?

Thanks to the event at the White House on May 13, 2009, the answer is a resounding yes! The significance of a multi-modal presentation of poetry, streaming live online, and later to appear as an HBO special, is that literature—even its most stalwart from, poetry—might just be making a comeback. Each major movement in this country’s literary history has had strongly defining characteristics. That’s just the problem with the last 60 years or so in American writing: there are no strong definitions available for what kind of writing we have been producing. Nowhere in sight can we find the religious fervor of the Puritans, the sound rhetoric of the 18th century, the soaring emotion of the 19th century, or the powerfully disjointed narratives of the early 1900s.

If President Obama is trying to open up the White House to all the people of this country, as he has said he wants to do, then the poetry jam was a success. It showcased voices from across the nation and did so in a way that pop culture can relate to: through music, video, and--after the HBO special airs--television. Reading and literature were part of everyday life for people in this country from the Puritans through to those who debated high art and low art in the modernist era. Perhaps this event at the White House is the beginning of poetry, and of writing in general, finding a way to take a star role in our lives once again, albeit in different forms.

Inciting Interest in Exciting Science for Girls

Inciting Interest in Exciting Science for Girls

According to a report issued by the National Center for Education Statictics, by the time U.S. students reach the eighth grade, boys are twice as likely as girls to show an interest in science. The National Science Foundation (NSF) found similar results in research they conducted, stating that “stereotypes consistently convey messages that science is for boys, not girls.” To combat this stereotype and encourage more girls to pursue careers in science, the NSF developed the Women’s Adventures in Science (WAS) project. As part of this project, the NSF created an interactive website, http://www.iwaswondering.org/, that is geared toward science teachers and, predominantly, female students at the middle-school level. This free service is meant to engage students in the process of scientific research and inquiry.

The site is hosted by a female cartoon character named Lia and it offers students the opportunity to learn about the work of ten prominent female scientists currently doing research. The “ASK IT!” feature lets the students ask Lia specific questions about the featured scientists’ research topics (such as “How much does a gorilla eat in one day?”) and receive answers on-line. The female scientists represent a diversity of ethnic groups (offering role models for many students) and work in the following fields: forensic anthropology, planetary astronomy, wildlife biology, planetary geology, physics, robot design, sociology, biomechanics, climate research, and neuropsychology. There are links to profiles of each scientist, as well as a series of books written about them that the teacher can purchase for the classroom. The scientists provided information about themselves for each book so that students can get a feel for the personal side of being a woman working in a field of science.

In addition, there is a specific link for teachers to the “Teacher Guide” pages. These pages offer suggestions for a variety of classroom activities and teaching techniques, covering such ideas as creativity and collaboration in science, encouragement of participation and intellectual contributions of female students, positive representations of how the work of female scientists helps to make the world a better place, and science topic “games” for the classroom setting. *

I think this web site is a fantastic resource for students and teachers alike. But then, I am biased: the Science Department at Amsco is composed of three women. Those negative stereotypes did not stop us ladies from loving science!

* See also http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/tools_tips/outreach/loreal_wis_2009 for a booklet called Young Women in Science, produced by Science/AAAS in collaboration with the L’Oreal Corporate Foundation, which helps fund innovative female scientists’ research.

Spring-Cleaning Time: Teach Students to Remove the Weeds From Their Writing

Spring-Cleaning Time: Teach Students to Remove the Weeds From Their Writing

During the last weeks of the school year, students are usually scrambling to finish final papers and projects. This is a good time for English teachers to do lessons on the revising and editing stages of the writing process. Such lessons will help students polish their final assignments and will give them tools they can use in the future.

Here’s a lesson I created and taught on what I think is an important part of revising: removing unnecessary words and phrases.

___________________________________________________________

Lesson Title Spring Cleaning Our Writing: Eliminating the Clutter

Context This lesson should be done when students are in the revision stage of a writing project (any project—essay, short story, article, etc.)

Grades 6–12

Lesson Duration Approximately 40–45 minutes

Objectives

Students will learn to pay close attention to word choice.

Students will learn to avoid/eliminate unnecessary words and phrases.

Students will learn to give peers feedback on tightening their work.

Materials

Students’ first drafts.

Grab bag of random numbers for first cutting activity.

Handout—photocopies of excerpt from Chapter 3, “Clutter,” from William Zinsser’s On Writing Well

Handout—photocopies of the section “Omit needless words” from William Strunk and E. B. White’s The Elements of Style (which just turned 50!)

Agenda

1. Cutting challenge activity. Teacher in role as magazine editor—has received student drafts but there is no space for them to run; gives each student random number of words to cut for pieces to fit a layout. Students will try cutting their work by looking for words that are not pulling their weight. (5–10 minutes)
2. Brief discussion of activity. Students will share editing decisions. (5 minutes)
3. Read aloud. Each student will read from Zinsser excerpt, to learn why eliminating clutter is necessary for clear writing and communication. (Read-aloud method: Number each paragraph of excerpt before copying and distributing. Go around the room in order; each student reads one paragraph.) (10 minutes)
4. Modeling activity. Students will help teacher tighten sample sentences on board. (Teacher creates five random sample sentences; each highlights a different tightening tip.) Hand out Strunk excerpt with examples of needless words/phrases. (5–10 minutes)
5. Peer essay swap. Students have already begun to make some changes to their own drafts; now, students will now suggest cuts to a peer’s draft using the tips from the modeling activity. (10 minutes)
6. Assign homework. Have students input corrections and produce final drafts. (Consider publication of student work in class newsletter on Web site, or have students submit pieces to a publication. See “Appendix on Publishing Student Writing” from Nancie Atwell’s In the Middle.)

Assessment

Were students engaged in looking at their own word choices?

Were students demonstrating understanding during the modeling activity?

Were students suggesting appropriate cuts/edits to their peers?

Include conciseness/elimination of clutter as a criterion on rubric used to assess final projects.

_________________________________________________________

Additional Resources

Check out Amsco’s Currents in Literature, American Volume and Currents in Literature, World Volume. Each of those books has a mini-lesson and practice exercise on concise writing.

Good luck with the rest of the school year!

--Lauren

The Little Rovers That Could

The Little Rovers That Could

When NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers landed on Mars in January of 2004, they were expected to have a brief 90-day mission. These little robots have exceeded all expectations. As I write this more than five years later, they are still working, although Spirit is now driving backwards because of a jammed wheel, and Opportunity has reduced movement of its robotic arm caused by a broken electrical wire.

As they set off for Mars, the rovers had a large set of objectives:

• Search for and characterize rocks and soils and look for clues to past water activity.
  
• Determine the distribution and composition of minerals, rocks and soils.


• Determine the geologic process that shaped the terrain and influenced the chemistry.


• Validate surface observations made by instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.


• Search for iron-containing minerals.


• Characterize the mineralogy and textures of rocks and soils and determine the processes that formed them.


• Search for geological clues to the environmental conditions that existed when liquid water was present.


• Assess whether those environments were conducive to life.

The rovers achieved many of their objectives. They found that Mars was not always as cold and dry as it is today. They found hematite, an iron ore, which was a sign of the presence of water. Mars at one time was warm enough for life to have existed. The Mars Exploration Team has high hopes for the rovers to continue their journeys of exploration. No one ever expected them to keep working this long. No one knows how long they will keep working. I think they are a tribute to American ingenuity.

The Mars Rovers reminded me of the children’s story The Little Engine That Could that my mom read to me so many years ago, and that I plan to read to my new grandson when he is old enough to understand. I’ll also tell him about those little rovers that could.

Paper or Gizmo?

Paper or Gizmo?

Hello blog readers,
Several of the Amsco-ites have been debating the future of the textbook-sized Kindle. (Uri discovered this article with Leaked Photos! on Wired, but it’s also mentioned by the New York Times today.)

Here are the facts we know:

1. The Kindle DX will have a 9.7-inch screen.
2. It will read PDF files and have a highlighting/annotation feature.
3. It will initially cost a whopping $489.

But is this the “wave of the future” for the average student? Will the Kindle DX replace the paper book. Let’s consider a high school scenario.

Upside:

+ Goodbye heavy backpack full of textbooks! With lighter loads, students may be able to maintain the fully upright posture that modern humans worked so hard to evolve.
+ The Kindle DX would make studying on the fly more convenient.
+ Amsco’s Algebra 2 and Trigonometry fits perfectly on a 9.7-inch screen.
+ Technology is neat!

Downside:

- Dude, those suckers are expensive!
- What happens if a student’s Kindle is lost, stolen, or smashed? They are certainly not as rugged as my dear old TI graphing calculator, which can take a beating!
- Gizmos, as opposed to paper books, can run out of batteries.
- Looking at a screen all day is brutal on the eyes.
- Without a physical book, you can’t be positive that what a student is looking at on her Kindle is your class’s text.

So what do you think, blog readers? Is the Kindle going to take over high schools? Is the era of the book over? To me, paper books will always convey a feeling of gravity and scholarliness, but perhaps the rest of you aren’t sentimentalists.

Salsa You Don’t Eat, But Listen To

Salsa You Don’t Eat, But Listen To

Many people have heard the term salsa (Spanish for sauce) used to describe a style of popular music in Spanish. As a musical style, salsa is really hard to define because it’s very broad in scope. To say that salsa is a mixture of African and Spanish music doesn’t really mean much to the uninitiated, who usually think of any type of music with some Spanish flavor as salsa. (Sorry, the Miami Sound Machine doesn’t play salsa.)

Salsa was developed during the early 60s and by Latin musicians (mostly Puerto Ricans) who adapted traditional Afro-Cuban rhythms into a “brassier” sound with jazz-style soloing and improvisation. The most important instrumentation in salsa is the rhythm section, which consists of a bass guitar (acoustic or electric) and percussion instruments like the clave (sticks), cowbells, timbales (snare drums played with sticks) and congas (African drums). The brass section consists of trumpets and/or trombones. Wind instruments like saxophones or flutes are sometimes included. Finally, the piano plays both rhythm and melodic parts.

There are some interesting facts about salsa unknown by many.

• Although salsa is essentially a dance-oriented genre and many songs have little in the way of lyrics, it also has a long tradition of experimenting with lyrics. In fact, old-school singers were expected to be able to improvise verses around the song’s theme using a predetermined rhyme scheme.


• Few people know that the birth place of salsa is not Latin America, but New York City, the experimental music center of the world, at that time.


• There were several non-Latin musicians who played an integral part in the development of salsa. For instance, Barry Rogers—the most influential trombone player in salsa history (and the single reason why I picked up the instrument as a young boy)—and Larry Harlow—one among the best piano players and an authority in Afro-Cuban music—were two Jewish kids from the Bronx and Brooklyn, respectively. Larry’s brother Andy was an excellent flutist and Louis Kahn a great violinist.

And now for the grand finale, here’s the obligatory multimedia sample of a quintessential salsa song: “Vamonos pa’l monte” (Let’s go to the mountains), performed by the Fania All Stars.