Monday, September 06, 2010
Engines of Ingenuity: Inventing Agriculture
This is the transcript of a science radio program, from
Houston public radio station KUHF and the
University of Houston, Texas.
Click here to visit the show's website.
by John H. Lienhard
Click here to listen to this program.
Today, a new look at the birth of a very old technology. The University of Houston's College of Engineering presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them.
Scholars have been turning their lenses back on the invention of farming. We know farming began eight to ten thousand years ago in the Middle East and the Holy Land. We also know it began after certain wild wheats mutated.
09/06/10 |
Posted by teacher | Category Senior Humanities
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Monday, September 06, 2010
Another View: Invention Of Agriculture May Have Been A Step Backward
Anthropological texts have always ballyhooed the development of agriculture as one of man's greatest achievements. Not so, says Mark Cohen, of SUNY Plattsburgh. The switch from hunting and gathering to sedentary agriculture, it seems, occurred rather suddenly and was attended by a sharp drop in life expectancy. Ancient human bones reveal much more disease, fewer older people, and more violent deaths for centuries following the adoption of agriculture. Why did humanity give up the surprising degrees of security, freedom, and leisure intrinsic in hunting and gathering? Cohen claims that population pressure was the cause. Unable to stem the human population explosion, ancient humans were forced to adopt a life of toil, disease, and stress.
(Lewin, Roger; "Disease Clue to Dawn of Agriculture," Science, 211:41, 1981.)"
Invention Of Agriculture May Have Been A Step Backward
09/06/10 |
Posted by teacher | Category Senior Humanities
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Sunday, September 05, 2010
A list of figures of speech
Here's a list of the top 20 figures of speech. There are many more. Please consult this list or some other one when writing figurative sentences for your Word Quest. The list is from about.com.
The Top 20 Figures
1. Alliteration
Repetition of an initial consonant sound.
2. Anaphora
Repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or verses.
3. Antithesis
The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases.
4. Apostrophe
Breaking off discourse to address some absent person or thing, some abstract quality, an inanimate object, or a nonexistent character.
5. Assonance
Identity or similarity in sound between internal vowels in neighboring words.
09/05/10 |
Posted by teacher | Category English Two
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Sunday, September 05, 2010
The World's Greatest Outside Reading Project - TIES for Honors English Two
UPDATED TIES materials especially developed for Honors English Two students are attached below. Click "Read More" to access the materials.
09/05/10 |
Posted by teacher | Category TIES
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Saturday, September 04, 2010
The World's Greatest English Class Rules and Grading Standards
Welcome to The World’s Greatest English Class. Read the following sheet very carefully. Contained herein are the rules, regulations, and policies that you will be expected to follow. The literary material we cover in this class will somewhat loosely correspond with the historical material you will be covering in your World Studies class. In this class, you will be assessed in several different ways, from essays and papers to speeches and group presentations. Our overarching objectives for this year are that each member of The World’s Greatest English Class is prepared for the high school exit exam, has significantly improved their reading and writing skills, and has learned some appreciation for literature in its many forms. All of the class materials will be available for download on the class webpage at www.worldsgreatestenglishclass.com. This is hardly a new concept, but one we will be taking to new levels this year. This will require additional foresight on behalf of the students, the teacher, and parents.
Download a copy:
Rules and Grading Standards for English 2 and English 2 Honors. Part One
Rules and Standards Part Two
09/04/10 |
Posted by teacher | Category General
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Friday, September 03, 2010
Prehistory Reading for Humanities
Excerpted from Philip Van Ness Myers, Ancient History, Revised Edition
(Boston: Ginn and Company, 1904), pp. 1-12]
The Antiquity of Man.
In ages long past, when both the climate and the outline of the continents were very different from what they are at present, primitive man roamed over them with animals now extinct; and that, about 5000 B.C., when the historic curtain first rises, in some favored regions, as in
the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates, there were nations and civilizations already venerable with age, and possessing arts, governments, and institutions that bear evidence of slow growth through very long periods of time
The Prehistoric Age and the Historic Age:
09/03/10 |
Posted by teacher | Category Senior Humanities
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Thursday, September 02, 2010
Cyrano De Bergerac Chrestomathy Materials
This is the first of four chrestomathies each student will be required to complete this year in The World's Greatest English Class. The three links below are the guide for the materials that are needed for completion of the unit:
The first is the Table of Contents for the unit. This will be the first page of the completed chrestomathy. It shows what pages will be needed and in what order the materials will be presented.
The second is the Unit Specifics sheet for the unit. This sheet will not ultimately be included in the chrestomathy but is essential for knowing which options are available on each assignment. For example, included are the words available for the Word Quest and the topics available for all the types of writing in the unit, Narrative, Persuasive, and Response to Literature. The student will be refering to the sheet often.
The final sheet is the rubric that The World's Greatest English Teachers will be using when grading the chrestomathy. The student should print out a copy of this rubric so they will have a good idea how they will be graded, but it will not be included in the chrestomathy.
09/02/10 |
Posted by teacher | Category Cyrano de Bergerac
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Thursday, September 02, 2010
The World's Greatest Outside Reading Project - TIES for English Two
In
The World's Greatest English Class, we can't do things the same ways they do them in other English Classes. That wouldn't be great. Greatness is different than mediocrity, so those who would be great must do different things.
A case in point are the "outside reading" assignments so commonly made in the run-of-the-mill English classes. While reading outside of class is of great value in learning to read well, and critical to becoming an excellent reader, the World's Greatest English Teachers have found such assignments to be too vulnerable to cheating, too consuming of class time, and not as valuable in addressing the California Language Arts Standards as they could be.
Hence, we're going to fulfill the outside reading requirement in a different way — the TIES way.
TIES is an acronym for Thematic Investigation, Exposition and Synthesis. The program is intended to get you to read an an extended written work, such as a novel, and use that as a launch pad to explore and relate the themes and subjects in that work to other works from other media — films, audio files and webpages, for examples — and from other authors. It's intended to be difficult to fake your way through.
When you click "read more" below, you'll find links to several files you need to fulfill this class requirement.
One of the files contains the TIES "bundles," which are groups of thematically related works which, after choosing one, the student must find and examine completely before moving on to the next step, which is preparing the required essay or speech summarizing the works and "synthesizing" a response which explicates a deeper, less obvious idea which unites all the works.
Also included below is a TIES permission slip, which must be filled out and signed by a parent giving the student permission to do that bundle, an outline of what the "synthemic essay" must contain, three pages of instructions for the TIES speech assignment and a rubric for grading the TIES speech.
09/02/10 |
Posted by teacher | Category TIES
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Thursday, September 02, 2010
Artist Project:Humanities
DUE October 22, 2010
Your assignment is to research the life of a prominent artist, chosen from the list I provide. The list is first-come, first-served, one-student-per-artist. From your research, prepare a five minute oral presentation which tells the story of the artist’s life and career. You must have visual aids to support your presentation, in the form of an electronic slideshow I’ll show you how to make. You must also prepare a multi-page written report on the artist, which includes a bibliography prepared in according to the guidelines taught in social science classes. Links to formatting and citation conventions are available on the main page in the links section.
09/02/10 |
Posted by teacher | Category Senior Humanities
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Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Senior Humanities Grading Policy
Grading: This class will be graded on a standard scale, 90-100: A, 80-89: B, 70-79: C etc.
The points will be divided according to the following system:
43% Writing and Project (This may change after the first weeks of school)
24% Reading
8% Listening and Speaking
5% Class Participation
20% Final Exam
Extra credit will be handled on an individual basis and is not guaranteed to anyone. Rounding up in the tabulation of grades is my purview and is never done on a wide basis.
Materials: You will be expected to bring the following items to class
EVERY DAY regardless of whether you think you are going to need them:
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
The Chrestomathy
Students and Parents-
Below are the materials you need to complete the bulk of the homework in The World's Greatest English Classes. You may not need all of the materials for every unit, so before you download any of the files, make sure you know which files you need for each unit. You may find this information on the Table of Contents page for each unit. Check the blue links on the right side of the page.
To access these materials, click "Read More..." below and enter the appropriate name and password. (Parents, you may get the passwords from your students or send us an email.)
-The World's Greatest English Teachers
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Questions on "The Hunters" for Senior Humanities
Answer these questions in complete sentences after watching the film "The Hunters."
1. Where does the film take place? Be specific.
2. About how long ago where these events filmed?
3. List the tools do the people used.
4. List the materials of which the tools were made.
5. Of what are their houses made?
6. Which members of the family hunt for animals to eat?
7. Which members of the family hunt for plants to eat?
8. Which groups supplies the most food for the family?
9. Are these people poor? Explain
10. Summarize what you learned from this film.
"I might just fade into Bolivian, you know what I mean?" — Mike Tyson
09/01/10 |
Posted by teacher | Category Senior Humanities
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Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Read More about Hunters film maker John Marshall
The film we've been seeing in class,
The Hunters, was made by John Marshall when he was 18 years old.
Here's an excerpt from an essay about him and his important work, from
newenglandfilm.com.
John Marshall first went to the Kalahari when he was 17. In 1950 he accompanied his father, Laurence Marshall, on a search for the "Lost World of the Kalahari." A year later he returned to the region known as Nyae Nyae, with his entire family on an expedition to look for "wild bushmen." He received a 16mm Kodak camera from his father with the advice, "Don’t direct, John, don’t try to be artistic, just film what you see people doing naturally." John’s mother, Lorna, subsequently published a number of ethnographic papers based on the lives of the people they lived with. His sister, Elizabeth, published "The Harmless People," a popular account of their expedition.
John Marshall filming in the Kalahari Desert.
09/01/10 |
Posted by teacher | Category Senior Humanities
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Friday, August 27, 2010
What are the Humanities?
According to Mr. Hannigan's favorite online definition, the Humanties are
"the study of the manmade arts such as art, literacy, music that convey the cultural aspects of humanity."
Click here to go to wikipedia, which has more information about what the Humanities are.
Mr. Hannigan's class will focus on the history of the visual arts and the development of humankind. We'll start with prehistoric man and try to find the roots of the ways we live today in our common past.
The philosopher Plato is one of the greatest figures in the Humanities
08/27/10 |
Posted by teacher | Category Senior Humanities
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Monday, August 23, 2010
Formatting Your Essays — James Logan Style
When writing essays for the Worlds' Greatest English Class, students are required to follow rules for formatting, or arranging the appearance of, their papers.
08/23/10 |
Posted by teacher | Category General
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