By: Heidi Ingram
This post is part of a series focusing on Multiple Intelligences.
The ability to perceive and make distinctions in the moods, intentions, motivations, and feelings of other people (e.g., as a teacher, politician, actor, or philanthropist). The ability to process information both verbally and nonverbally through interpretation of all forms of dance, hand gestures, body movements, and music
(e.g., as a dancer, mime, actor, or musician). This intelligence operates primarily through person-to person relationships and
From an infant's bonding with his parents to the meaningful relationships with others outside the family, the ability to understand other people and their actions, moods, and feelings develops as young children deal with person-to-person relationships and communication. The learning environment should provide opportunities for children to relate to others by cooperatively participating, sharing, negotiating, and communicating in groups or with individuals. Children who show interpersonal abilities learn through listening, cooperating in shared projects, demonstrating leadership skills, seeing things from other perspectives and organizing and negotiating group activities.
Interpersonal intelligence focuses on the ability to recognize and distinguish the moods, intentions, and motivations of other individuals. These children often emerge as leaders and organizers. They are sensitive to the needs and desires of others. Young children with interpersonal talent:
· interact easily with both children and adults
· are sought out by other children for play
· are able to enter an already-playing group of children and be accepted
· can influence other children toward their goals (positive or negative)
· understand cause-and -effect as it relates to behavior and consequences
· recognize when their behavior yields certain predictable results
· can take another child's perspective
· are better at resolving conflicts and negotiating disagreements
· can motivate and organize peers toward their goals (positive or negative)
· have strong leadership abilities
· have a sense of justice and fair play for themselves and others
By: Heidi Ingram
Naturalist Intelligence is the ability to discriminate among living things (e.g. as a botanist, biologist, veterinarian, or forest ranger) as well as sensitivity to other features of the natural world) e.g. as a meteorologist, geologist, or archaeologist). The adeptness to recognize and classify cultural artifacts such as cars or sneakers may also depend upon the naturalist intelligence.
A child's interest in seeing, smelling, and touching a flower, reacting to the sound of a bird, or playing with the family pet demonstrates his ability to recognize important distinctions in the natural world. The learning environment should offer opportunities for exploring outdoors. Also you should bring the outdoors inside by providing field trips, books, visuals, objects and materials relating to the natural world. Children who show naturalist abilities learn through observing nature, being sensitive to all features of the natural world, and enjoying books, visuals, and objects related to the world around them.
Naturalist intelligence is the ability to discriminate among living things (plants and animals) as well as other features of the natural world such as clouds and rock formations. In the past this ability had great survival value (Checkley, 1997). It involves a kind of pattern recognition that is valued in certain sciences. Today this ability may enable individuals to discriminate among makes and models of cars or even sneakers.
Young children with naturalist intelligence:
~ are interested in pets and concerned about their care.
~ are curious about nature and look for and collect plants, bugs, rocks, or other natural objects.
~ are interested in identifying plants and gardening.
~enjoy the outdoors and activities such as hiking, camping and fishing.
~ are curious about the human body and the way it works.
~ may enjoy cooking.
~ are interested in electricity and magnets and the way things work.
By: Heidi Ingram
Musical Intelligence is the capacity to perceive (e.g. music aficionado), discriminate (e.g., as a music critic), transform (e.g., as a composer), and express (e.g., a performer) musical forms. The musical learner also has the ability to pick up sounds and remember melodies. This intelligence is based on the recognition of tonal patterns, including various environmental sounds and also sensitivity to rhythm and beats.
Starting with the prenatal awareness of noises and rhythms and later imitations of sounds and pitches, a child soon develops the ability to produce and recognize simple and then complex songs and to perceive pitch, tone, and rhythmic pattern. The child becomes immersed in the music and sounds of the world. The learning environment should provide opportunities for singing, listening, movement activities, sound awareness, and musical instrument appreciation and practice, while emphasizing cultural awareness through music. Children who are strong in musical-rhythmic abilities think in rhythms and melodies; enjoy listening to music, singing, dancing, humming, and playing musical instruments; and exhibit a sensitivity to environmental sounds.
Musical-Rhythmic Intelligence refers to the ability to use musical elements (pitch, rhythm, tone) at an unusually sophisticated level. Some children may have perfect pitch and the ability to identity a wide range of musical scores when only a few bars are played. Musically talented children are intrigued with and noitce sounds in their environment.
By: Heidi Ingram
Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence is the ability to use one's whole body to skillfully express ideas and feelings (e.g. as an actor, an athlete, or a dancer) and facility in using one's hands to produce or transform things (e.g., as a craftsperson, sculptor, mechanic, or surgeon). This intelligence is related to physical movement and the knowledge/wisdom of the body, including the brain's motor cortex, which controls bodily motion.
From an infant's looking for and grasping different objects to
the strength and coordination of an older child, the ability to use the body for self-expression develops through information gained from muscles, sensations, reflexes, coordination, and movement.
The learning environment should reflect opportunities for physical
challenges throughout the day, not just outdoors but indoors as well. The classroom should facilitate tactile experiences and the use of manipulatives in math, science, and language arts. Children who are resourceful in bodily-kinesthetic abilities learn through moving, doing, and touching. They enjoy physical activities, such as those involving hand-eye coordination and hands-on experiments.
Psychomotor-kinesthetic intelligence refers to the ability to control one's body parts skillfully. These children move expressively and are good at both informal and organized games and sports.
Young children with psychomotor talent:
· are skillful at movements such as running, jumping, and climbing, dancing and other movement activities.
· have an accurate and relaxed sense of both static and dynamic balance (hopping on one foot, walking a narrow line, balancing a beanbag).
· use gestures, body movements, and/or facial expression to show or mimic emotions and ideas and can
adapt motor skills in game situations
By: Heidi Ingram
The ability to perceive the visual-spatial world accurately (e.g. as a hunter, scout, or guide) and to perform transformations upon those perceptions (e.g. , as an interior decorator, architect, artist, or inventor ). This intelligence involves sensitivity to color, line, shape, form, space, and the relationships that exist between these elements. It includes the capacity to visualize and graphically represent visual or spatial ideas.
From the infant's ability to discriminate among the faces around him to the toddler's first steps, the facility to
perceive the visual world with a great deal of understanding continues throughout early childhood. Creating visual images with shape, color, and form opens up new understanding. The learning environment should be a graphic-rich classroom that encourages opportunities for visual processing as well as thinking and planning in three dimensions. Children who are highly capable in visual-spatial abilities think in images and pictures; like to draw, design, and create things, and often see things from different points of view.
Visual-Spatial intelligence is the ability to perceive the visual world accurately and the re-create that visual experience in art or graphics. It involves mental imagery and the ability to manipulate and transform images. These children are adept at puzzles and other spatial problem-solving activities.
Visual talented young children:
· show advanced drawing, painting, and sculpting with both technical skill and fine detail
· remember in detail items ,places and pictures they have seen
· have advanced eye-hand coordination
· show attention to texture, color, and balance
· respond emotionally to photos, paintings, or sculpture
· share feelings and moods through drawing, painting or sculpture
Starting with babies inspecting their world to the recognition of similar characteristics of objects by toddlers, the ability to categorize and to use numbers, patterns, sequencing, and cause and effect to solve problems continues to develop and grow throughout early childhood. The learning environment should offer opportunities to relate math and science to real life situations while providing activities that make math and problem solving fun, relevant, and challlenging.
Children who are adept tin logical-mathematical abilities learn through asking questions in a logical manner, making connections between pieces of information, exploring, and developing strong problem-solving and reasoning skills.
The capacity to use numbers effectively (e.g. as a mathematician, tax accountant, or statistician) and to
reason well (e.g. as scientist, computer programmer, or logician). This intelligence also follows traditional teaching practices, using number facts and scientific principles, as well as observation and experimentation.
Children who are logic smart respond well to "what if" questions.
Logical -Mathematical intelligence is characterized by scientific reasoning, a love for abstraction, and an interest in mathematical operations. These children are interested in graphing, counting, and manipulating numbers. They are fascinated by how things work.
Mathematically talented young children:
· use advanced arithemtic skills
· use highly orginal reasoning
· ask a series of logical questions focused on solving a problem
· apply reason to solve concrete and abstract problems
· enjoy using hands-on tools such as uniflex cubes, blocks, puzzles, and abacus to solve logical- mathematical problems
· enjoy computer games and applications related logical-mathematical reasoning
Linquistic (Word Smart) is the capacity to use words effectively, whether orally ( e.g. as a storyteller,orator,or politician)orin writing ( e.g.as a poet,playwright, editor or journalist). Most teaching today is geared to the expectation that children absorb information by listening, reading, speaking, and writing. From the babbling of infancy to the toddler's simple sentences, the ability to use language and words continues to grow throughout early childhood. Whether written or
spoken, it develops with sensitivity to the order and rhythm of words. The learning environment should include a language-and print-rich classroom with opportunities for reading, writing, speaking, and creative writing. Children who are accomplished in verbal-linquistic abilities enjoy reading , writing, telling stories, playing word games, and communicating effectively.
Verbally/Linguistically talented children:
· Speak and read clearly
· Have accelerated literacy skills in stories, poems, drama, and writing
· Use advanced vocabulary
· Employ longer and more advanced sentence structures ( may use words like however and although )
· Make up elaborate, coherent stores and fantasies
· Describe experiences with unusual depth and accuracy
· Memorize and recite stories and poems
· Prefer books with more words and plot than pictures
· May be bilingual or interested in learning a second language
· Are interested in language in its many forms
This post is the first in a series contributed by Heidi Ingram to discuss the overall theory of Multiple Intelligences, the different intelligences and ideas to do with your children to promote growth in these areas.
When you try to learn something new, you may prefer to learn by listening to someone talk to you about
the information. Others prefer to read about a concept to learn it, and still others need to see a demonstration of the concept. Learning Style Theory proposes that different people learn in different ways and that it is good to know your own preferred learning style.
Most of us have a particular preference as to how we channel information to our brain. Some of us are auditory. This means that it is easiest for us to pay attention to information that is presented to us orally.
Others are visual, which means that we learn best when we are allowed to actually look at what is being presented to us. Still others are kinesthetic. This means that we pay attention best when we are allowed to explore “hands on" the information we are trying to learn. In few cases, individuals are equally balanced, which means they use each learning style to the same degree when attempting to learn.
Let's look at an example from the early childhood classroom. When a teacher reads a story, she speaks, which benefits the auditory learner. She shows the illustrations as she read which assists the visual learner.
The kinesthetic learner is involved if allowed to actually hold the book (or a copy of the book) or help turn the pages as it is read. If teachers use all three approaches to learning when they are providing information to children, it is more likely that they will use the channel that is their preference and attend to what is being
The theory of Multiple Intelligences comes from the work of Howard Gardner and was first published in
1983 in his book, Frames of Mind. Until Gardner proposed the existence of seven, and now eight, ways of demonstrating one's high ability levels, popular belief held that intelligence was measured by the score obtained when taking an intelligence test, primarily the Stanford Benet. The problem with intelligence tests was that they measured only an individual's linguistic and mathematical skills. Gardner argued that there were other ways an individual could be smart. For example, musicians demonstrate a high ability to perceive, discriminate, transform, and express musical forms. Actors, dancers, and athletes demonstrate an expertise in using their whole body to express ideas and feelings. Craft persons and sculptors show facility in using their hands to produce to transform things.
Gardner not only expanded the identification of the number of ways an individual can be intelligent, but
also the definition of intelligence. He suggests that intelligence has more to do with the capacity for
solving problems and fashioning products in a context-rich and naturalistic setting than it does with performing isolated task on a test.
Gardner believes that intelligence does not just exhibit itself in the score on a test. As a matter of fact, he used a stringent system of eight criteria through which all potential skills, talents, and mental capacities have to pass before they are determined to be true human intelligences. Thus far, only eight ways of being smart have passed the test to be recognized as intelligences.
Gardner also believes that everyone possesses all eight intelligences in varying magnitudes. Some
intelligence is stronger than others, and the profile of intelligences varies from person to person. Each of the
intelligences can improve with practice and will continue to be enhanced over a lifetime.
In the next part of this series, we will break down the various intelligences. Stay tuned!
Advisor Heidi Ingram:
We take alot of road trips this time of year due to the holidays and stopping and getting fast food is at times unavoidable. If we do end up stopping what are some healthier choices to get?
Typically, fast food is low in nutrition and high in trans fat, saturated fat, sodium and calories..for example, a single meal of a Double Whopper with cheese, a medium order of fries and an apple pie from Burger King contains more saturated fat than the American Heart Association recommends we consume in two days!! Moderation is key. It's OK to indulge a craving for French fries every now and then, but to stay healthy you can't make it a regular habit. Finding a healthy, well-balancd meal in most fast food restaurants can be a challenge, but there are always choices you can make that are healthier than others.
Use common sense guidelines to help you make your meal healthier. For example , a seemingly healthy salad can be diet-minefield when smothered in high-fat dressing and fried toppings, so choose a salad with fresh veggies, grilled toppings, and a lighter dressing. Portion control is also important, as many fast food
restautants serve enough food for several meals in the quise of a single serving.
Tips for making healthier choices at fast food restaurants
· Make careful menu selections- pay attention to the descriptions on the menu. Dishes labeled deep-fried, pan-fried , basted, batter-dipped, breaded, creamy, crispy, scalloped, Alfredo, au graton,or in cream sauce are usually high in calories, unhealthy fats, or sodium. Order items with more vegetables and choose leaner meats
· Drink water with your meal -Soda is a huge source of hidden calories. One 32-oz Big Gulp of regular cola packs about 425 calories, which can quickly gulp up a big portion of your daily calorie intake. Try adding a little lemon to your water or ordering unsweetened iced tea
· "Undress" your food. When choosing items be aware of calorie - and fat packed salad dressings, spreads, cheese, sour cream, etc. For example, ask for a grilled chicken sandwich withour the mayonnaise. you can ask for a packet of ketchup or mustard and add it yourself controlling how much you put on your sandwich
· Special order. Many menu items would be healthy if it weren't for the way they were prepared. Ask for your main dishes to be served without the sauces. Ask for olive oil and vinegar for your salads or order the dressing "on the side" and spoon only a small amount on at a time. If your food is fried or cooked in oil or butter, ask to have it broiled or steamed.
· Eat mindfully. Pay attention to what you eat an savor each bite. Chew your food more thoroughly and avoid eating on the run. Being mindful also means stopping before you are full. It takes time for your body to register that you have eaten. Mindful eating relaxes you, so you digest better, and makes you feel more
Tips for what to AVOID at fast food restaurants
· Supersized portions. An average fast food meal can run to 1000 calories or more, so choose a smaller portion size, order a side salad instead of fries, and don't supersize anything. At a typical restaurant, a single serving provides enough for two meals. Take half home or divide the portion with a dining partner.
· Salt. Fast food restaurant food tends to be very high in sodium, a major contributer to high blood pressure. Don't add insult to injury by adding more salt.
· Bacon. It's always tempting to add bacon to sandwiches and salads for extra flavor, but bacon has very few nutrients and is high in fat and calories. Instead, try ordering extra pickles, onions, lettuce, tomatoes, or mustard to add flavor without the fat
· Buffets - even seemingly healthy ones like salad bars. You'll likely overeat to get your money's worth. If you do choose buffet dining, opt for fresh fruits, salads with olive oil& vinegar or low-fat dressings, broiled entrees, and steamed vegetables. Resist the temptation make sure you are hungry before going back for more.
Less healthy choice
Double-patty hamburger with cheese, mayo, special sauce, and bacon. Fried chicken sandwich, Fried fish
sandwich, Salad with toppings such as bacon, cheese, and ranch dressing, Breakfast burrito with steak, French fries, milkshake, Chicken"nuggets" or tenders, Adding cheese, extra mayo, any special
Regular, single-patty hamburger without mayo or cheese, grilled chicken sandwich, Veggie burger, Garden salad with grilled chicken and low-fat dressing, Egg on a muffin, Baked potato or a side salad, Yogurt parafait, Grilled chicken strips, limiting cheese, mayo, and special sauces.
Heidi's BiMonthly Nutritional Questions Answered! Check out Cape Cod Moms latest nutrition questions to Heidi... if you have questions for Heidi, please email us at email@example.com or comment below! Also check out Heidi's Daycare page on Facebook!
What are your thoughts on LAKE Dyes (artificial dyes, in U.S. foods, banned especially red 40 - rash, head banging, loss of eye contact, basic Dr. Jeckle, Mr. Hyde. After I stopped eating red 40 - I stopped having migraines. If these chemicals have such a bad effect and or reactions, can these chemicals be good for anyone? Why are these chemicals still found in our foods?
What makes Twinkies appear unchanged, even after months on the shelf? In part, it’s the food dyes. Some government -approved food dyes also cause hyperactivity in children, leading the British government to ask food companies to stop using them. Industrialization of the food system, including a rise in food processing, has increased the use of food additives such as food dyes; preservatives and sweeteners. The FDA maintains of list of over 3,000 food additives, which includes those that are FDA-approved as well as those bypassing the approval process because the FDA has designated them as GRAS (generally recognized as safe).
Scientists have long been concerned that synthetic food dyes and other additives may contribute to hyperactivity and other disturbed behavior in children. Water soluble "dyes" are added to beverages, baked and dairy goods, and other products; non-soluble dye versions of the colors, called "lakes,” are used in hard candies, chewing gums and to coat tablets. Since 1990, all synthetic food dyes must be listed in food products by their common name. In 2008, based on recent science, the Center for Science in the Public Interest petitioned the FDA to ban the use of the existing food dyes in the U.S., and to require for the first time that new food additives be tested before going on the market for their toxicity to the brain and behavior. The petition also demands that the FDA remove the obviously false statement from its Web site that there is "no evidence that the food color additives cause hyperactivity or learning disabilities in children." We know synthetic food dyes are unnecessary. So, while more study could shed light on the exact impacts of food dyes on children, we know enough right now to choose safer substitutes, whether as parents, consumers or as food companies.
Things you can do? Eat whole foods, whole foods are better for you, and allow you to avoid the inspection of food labels necessary to avoid toxic food dyes. At home or at restaurants, avoid foods with synthetic food dyes, especially if your child duffers from hyperactivity, ADHD, or other learning or developmental disabilities and finally garden with your kids, visit a farm or join a CSA to help teach your children how ripe whole foods should actually look, smell and taste.
My son is 5 and has been beyond a picky eater since we started solid food. He literally gags and vomits when asked to even lick a new food. As the years have gone by he has now begun eliminating foods he has always eaten. He is now down to about 5 foods he will eat. When we bring this up to his pediatrician we are told that he falls on the height/weight chart so we shouldn't worry. This doesn't sit well with me. He basically eats pasta. I am concerned all those carbs are not good for him. We have an appointment for a feeding evaluation, but it's not for a few weeks...Do you have suggestions?
I would recommend involving your child in the preparation of the meals he is to consume, making it a fun time where he has some control and enjoyment in the process. I think the more you allow him to participate, the more he would be willing to try different and new foods. It may also be a matter of texture. Sometimes the texture of the food is a turnoff. I would experiment with different texture foods or possible using smoothies to add nutrients he may be lacking from not eating a variety of foods.
Cape Cod Moms


Courtesy Library of Congress
Music in the Early American Republic
Early American ears pulsed, lips hummed, and feet shuffled to the multitude of sounds infusing life’s rhythms. During the earliest decades of the nation, virtually everyone heard, made, and moved to music. In an age before broadly accessible commercial entertainment, where one’s routine labors begged for distracting relief, song and dance enlivened life’s tedium. Music filled an important social niche in the publically lived do-it-yourself world of early America. During an era before recording devices, the ephemeral life of sound resonated solely around those who made it. Early American music constructed a momentary community of listeners who could create or transcend the young nation’s refashioning social order.
Describing this world of early American music challenges any historian precisely because of music’s ubiquitous presence in the lives of all Americans. Because nearly everyone made music, and because music could be used in any number of ways, the shear variety of sounds and sites of performance preclude easy generalization. Music held the social order together, but it might also be used to challenge the status quo. People sang privately to sooth their sorrows and publically to celebrate joyous events. Song might awaken the sacred forces to one’s aid; it might also embody profane desires and accompany riotous behaviors. Bells pealed to mark the seasons and to call a community to arms. Some worked to music, while others played. Music might even provide one’s livelihood. Musical acumen and literacy gave the educated elite status, while common folk employed music to express equally as meaningful identities. In all these ways, music symbolized, expressed, and transcended the diversities of early America. This essay treats some of the particular music making activities of Native Americans, the enslaved, new immigrants, and American-born United States citizens. Interwoven with an exploration of some of the sounds made by these groups of people, it considers the ways music contributed to their religious, festive, political, and artistic activities. Early Americans made music in multiple sites and for diverse ends. Our recognition of its significance to them opens new avenues of historical discovery.
Native American Music
Native American music styles in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries remained as diverse as there were tribal communities. Despite this, some broad generalization can be made when compared with non-Native sounds and uses of music. Singing rather than instrumental performances grounded Native music making, although drums and other percussion instruments accompanied many songs, as did flutes and whistles in certain regions. Indigenous songs nearly always connected to spirituality even if ostensibly made for other reasons, and the efficacy of a ritual might require the appropriate song to be sung. Yet like music-makers the world over, specific pieces accompanied dancing, storytelling, or even games. Certain songs would be used for a particular ceremonial or seasonal event in traditional and innovative ways. With the increasing arrival of newcomers to the continent, tribal people adopted and adapted European instruments, such as the fiddle, to indigenous music making practices. Records kept by Spanish missionaries in California and New Mexico reveal the centrality of music to their conversion efforts. These priests used fluency with European music and instruments to measure degrees of assimilation, an important gauge in their efforts towards complete and permanent conversion. Yet even after integrating aspects of European music, to Native Americans, as one scholar notes of Ojibwa music, “songs fundamentally did things in the world.” As such, Native people categorized songs in terms of their usefulness, for example as love songs, dream songs, or pipe songs. Songs also mediated personal bonds and functioned as part of ceremonial protocol. Music built and stabilized relationships within a tribe, between tribes, and between tribal and non-tribal people. Native American music facilitated interactions, including those between the human and spiritual worlds.
Music performed in the context of sacred observances was also important to African and European born and descended people. By the turn of the nineteenth century, the hymns of Congregationalist Churches had shifted from ritual to art with a full support system of church choirs, singing masters, published psalters, and singing schools. The first known black American published composer, the African-born former slave Newport Gardner of Rhode Island, emerged from this singing-school movement. By 1810, over 5000 musical compositions by American psalmodists had appeared in print, including Richard Allen’s 1801 hymn collection for his Philadelphia African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first known compilation of sacred music for a black congregation. By the 1820s, singing societies influenced by German Romanticism, such as the Boston Handel and Haydn Society, attached moral uplift to certain song styles. Such institutionally supported sacred music competed with the music culture enlivened by the Second Great Awakening. These styles necessitated accessible and individual expressiveness as part of revivalist religiosity. A lack of musical literacy in the rural areas of the revivals led to call-and-response song patterns and singing “marked by spontaneity, immediacy, emotionality, and the use of well-known tunes.” This trend remained true among black urban congregations as well, in which the act of vocalizing could inspire worshipers even more than a song’s lyrics. A central message of this sacred music style invoked the fundamental appeal of the Great Awakening ideology: God’s grace was available to all.
Often in conjunction with religious purposes, Americans heard an increase in music making during holidays. In primarily agricultural communities, early winter was a time to celebrate after a demanding harvest season. The English wassailing tradition, whereby lower sorts intruded into the homes of the wealthy singing demands for food and drink in exchange for goodwill, continued in early America. Though less meaningful by the nineteenth century with the demise of older traditional hierarchies and obligations, rowdy, raucous, drunken singers paraded at night during the Christmas season even in urban areas. Drinking and singing remained intertwined as significant holiday practices. John Canoe rituals enacted during the Christmas season by African-Americans included public song and dance. In these, parading bands of musicians requested gifts of food, money, or alcohol, taking African-derived song and dance culture to the broader communities amongst whom they lived. Parades remained central to black public musical activities that “typically featured boisterous, improvised music and back-and-forth interactions between male and female spectators and parade performers.” Messages could be sung in this ritualized context not uttered in other circumstances. Cloaked in a garb of traditional holiday license, ridiculing the powerful or “singing the master,” empowered the enslaved to express feelings otherwise forbidden.
Music of the Enslaved
As music scholar Jacqueline Cogdell Djedje states of African American music, “on the one hand very little disappears, but also nothing remains the same.” During the early American republic, music made by black Americans could be decidedly African, but it could also be distinctive from anything heard on that continent. The factors that shaped the nature of the African-derived music in early America largely depended upon a music maker’s exposure to the sounds of the diverse American populace. West and Central Africans made music as varied as the Europeans amongst whom those enslaved would eventually live in America. They carried their local musical expectations to their new homes across the Atlantic, where they accessed multi-continental repertoires. They and their descendants built upon musical heritages both deep and broad.
During this era, diverse African songs, dances, instruments, as well as rituals and festivals, remained significant to enslaved and free black populations. Congo Square in New Orleans, a place central to the survival and dissemination of African-derived performative traditions, persisted as a site where slaves from the city could go to socialize on Sunday afternoons. Here they sang and danced in styles from distinct homeland traditions providing not just entertainment, but also connection to one’s heritage. Some Catholic Congolese slaves performed sangamentos, the highly choreographed mock war dances accompanied with drums and bells crucial to later Mardi Gras practices. This diasporic custom combined traditionalism and adaptability more “inventive” than “invented,” evidence of continued African traditions in America. The persistence of practices such as sangamentos bound new communities together and provided cultural sustenance in the harsh new circumstances of slavery.
Slaves’ lives were filled with labor. Traders might expect the enslaved to sing and even fiddle while marching in the chained coffles to the growing western plantations. Song organized regimented tasks and eased the burden of toil. The call-and-response style helped build and strengthen community. Particular songs might be appropriate for a certain labor activity, such as rowing, hoeing, or shucking corn. Work songs reinforced social bonds and hierarchies, although lyrics might challenge these with satirical rhetoric. Enslaved musicians had to master multiple genres as they performed for both the formal cotillions of elite white society and the livelier jigs, breakdowns, and reels popular with lower class white and black dancers. Black music and dance emphasized improvisation, complex rhythms, artist/audience dialogue, as well as personal stylistic competition in community-approved contexts. These African-derived music ways gained poignancy under slavery. They could even function as political statements for people denied an officially sanctioned political voice.
Music and Politics
Much political activity in the young nation transpired with musical accompaniment, although at times this “music” might more appropriately be called “noise.” Drums (and even pots and pans) drew attention to community grievances, as in the “rough music” used to enforce social norms under threat. They did the same for impromptu public protests and even institutionally sanctioned civic parades. Although political music often took place in the street, taverns hosted politically infused music making as well. Concerts and balls facilitated by amateur and professional musicians raised money for a cause or commemorated significant civic events. Americans marked Independence Day and Washington’s birthday with patriotic songs, balls, and parades. They did the same to honor the Revolutionary War hero General Lafayette on his 1824–1825 tour of the country. This shared musical commemorative culture helped knit the young nation together. In addition, stage performances allowed for the consideration, creation, and affirmation of one’s sense of self in relation to the diverse American population. An Irish immigrant character might sing as a laughable bumpkin or a liberty-seeking republican refugee. Staged characters sung a combination of their old and newly forming national, ethnic, and racial identities during these decades when the traditional order had become increasingly unstable. Music was central to these performances that shaped the nation.
One good example is the song “Yankee Doodle,” which might accurately be described as the first American national anthem. Singing “Yankee Doodle” exemplified what one scholar has called a “sophisticated rural self-parody.” As a celebratory comparative to British pretentiousness and a glorification of a distinct American character, singing Yankee Doodle in the young nation remained a political act. An infinite array of locally created verses, mostly now lost to modern singers of the tune, reveal a proud articulation of American rusticity (as well as the glorification of sexual adventures and drunken escapades). Other popular early American songs borrowed heavily from British music culture, but were transformed with deep sarcasm to serve American ends. Sailors and boatmen played an essential role in this transition. Music was already crucial to the labors of these men who sang to keep time as they rowed, heaved, and pulled. The centrality of American seamen to securing the legitimacy of the new nation led to the development of maritime-themed patriotic songs in particular.
Though native-born Americans employed music to shape the nation’s identity, the significance of European immigrant musicians to early United States music cannot be overstated. English, German, French, and Italian musicians fundamentally shaped the young country’s sacred, military, social, and concert music. They published songsters, organized bands, performed in orchestras, led educational efforts, and ran music-related businesses. In addition, the growing American sheet-music industry facilitated domestic exposure to diverse immigrant sounds. Published songs denoted as Irish, Scottish, and Italian helped invent the idea of ethnicity in America, even if they were only loosely based on actual regional European styles. Irish ballads and dances remained popular through the early nineteenth century due to immigrants influenced by the Celtic cultural revival, as well as Irish music’s fundamental role in British American culture. Nostalgia-infused “traditional” Irish music (and musicians) found commercial success in the young nation. As such, it became a genre of music that bonded an Irish-American ethnic community together, introduced Irish culture to those unfamiliar with it, and entrenched stereotypes about the Irish. Similarly, Americans held Scottish folksongs in high esteem as they imagined a disappearing Scottish primitivism. Later German arrivals initiated the rise of singing societies, called Männerchöre, which functioned as social and musical organizations. These not only helped keep German culture alive in America by the repetition of musical forms, but they also provided support systems though which immigrant communities could remain active and strong. These same immigrant musicians facilitated the development of formal European-style concert traditions in the United States.
In the earliest years of the century, no musical style or genre was reserved for a particular class of people. Concert halls welcomed all to their performances, although elites remained segregated in boxes from the messiness of the pit. Concert music had existed in East Coast urban centers for a century when in the 1830s wealthy patrons financed via subscriptions the first professional orchestras. Lacking the aristocratic tradition of court and church patronage, the early American music “industry” had to function as locally financed businesses. New Orleans was the first American city to support an opera company. French operas had been performed in the city from at least 1796. A decade later, in the span of four months, New Orleanians could witness twenty-one performances, which included sixteen different operas from nine composers. This town of only 12,000, one third of who were enslaved and who attended performances on discounted tickets, clearly valued and invested in public music performances. An evening listening to opera often ended with dancing at a ball. Though most of these dances were segregated by race, authorities could only enforce this rule with limited success. From the 1790s through the 1830s, the number of theater and concert performances grew, although not until the 1840s did the United States develop the necessary infrastructure to support the performing arts broadly. Immigrant musicians made up the majority of these professionals and typically performed European composed pieces from the traditional European canon.
Yet in these same settings, audiences demanded patriotic pieces. Bands formed from discharged military musicians honored such wishes. Most towns supported at least one band by the early nineteenth century whose members played in the streets as often as in the concert halls. The hugely popular African American composer Frank Johnson led military bands and dance orchestras in the concert halls of Philadelphia and cities across Europe. These democratic assumptions about experiences with music changed by mid-century with the growing sense of moral uplift attached to certain types of music. As a result, musicians transformed from craftsmen to artists. By the 1840s the elite had increasingly withdrawn into performances reserved purely for their own enjoyment (such as Italian opera performed in the original language). Blackface minstrelsy, which both adopted and parodied this now-segregated art music, filled the publicly available musical performance void.
The decade of the 1840s saw a marked shift in American music. By mid-century, music had become a commodity. The broader forces of the market revolution had thoroughly altered American music. Industrial development spurred by transportation innovations, the rise of cities, and an increase in immigration changed the sounds and sites of music in America forever. European virtuosos, such as Ole Bull and Jenny Lind, toured even into the American hinterlands. As the middle class family withdrew into a private sphere, they simultaneously domesticated music making. The parlor piano, the sheet music industry, and the greater access to touring performers reinforced each other; mass commercial sound styles grew. The rise of widely and cheaply available popular music in all its various forms shaped composers’ and publishers’ choices. Blackface minstrelsy developed as a significant part of this phenomenon. Initially occupying the raucous space desired by white working class men, blackface minstrelsy entered the domestic sphere as well. The broadly participatory public music making so normal in the young nation had increasingly been overshadowed by professional commercial activities.
Yet this commercialization only went so far. Attempts to repress the earthy, bawdy, vernacular, oral music cultures considered unbecoming to a legitimate nation only partially succeeded. In the 1830s, when the city of New Orleans introduced a formal parade to officially conclude the carnival season, they hoped to structure and control the chaotic parading accompanied by boisterous song and dance. Instead, citizens continued to march in “rich confusion, up and down the streets, wildly shouting, singing, laughing, drumming, fiddling, fifeing . . . as they wend their reckless way . . . laughing loudly at threatened punishment.” Though much about the sounds, sites, performers, and performances had changed, much still remained the same. An exuberant humanity pulsated with playful, personal, and public music making. Our recognition of their expressiveness provides a richer and more complete understanding of the lives of early Americans.
Ann Ostendorf is Associate Professor of History at Gonzaga University. She is the author of Sounds American: national Identity and the Music Cultures of the Lower Mississippi River Valley, 1800-1860. Her current research is on the histories of the Roma (Gypsy) in the colonial Atlantic world.
 For a concise history of the Early American Republic, see Paul E. Johnson, The Early American Republic, 1789–1829 (2006).
 Victoria Lindsay Levine, “American Indian Musics, Past and Present,” in The Cambridge History of American Music, ed. David Nicholls (1998), 4–12; Kate Van Winkle Keller with John Koegel, “Secular Music to 1800,” in The Cambridge History of American Music, 60–61; Nym Cooke, “Sacred Music to 1800,” in The Cambridge History of American Music, 79; Michael D. McNally, Ojibwe Singers: Hymns, Grief, and a Native Culture in Motion (2000), 26–28.
 Cooke, “Sacred Music to 1800,” The Cambridge History of American Music, 81–83, 97–99; Eileen Southern, The Music of Black Americans: A History (1997), 68–89; Katherine K. Preston, “Art Music from 1800–1860,” in The Cambridge History of American Music, 197.
 Stephen Nissenbaum, The Battle for Christmas: A Social and Cultural History of America’s Most Cherished Holiday (1997), 9¬¬–11, 16–17, 42–45, 261–62, 285–91; Roger D. Abrahams, Singing the Master: The Emergence of African-American Culture in the Plantation South (1992); William D. Piersen, “African American Festive Style and the Creation of American Culture,” in Riot and Revelry in Early America, ed. William Pencak, Matthew Dennis, and Simon P. Newman (2002), 256–68.
 Jacqueline Cogdell Djedje, “African American Music to 1900,” in The Cambridge History of American Music, 103–34. Two classic works on black music in Early America include Dana J. Epstein, Sinful Tunes and Spirituals: Black Folk Music to the Civil War (2003) and Eileen Southern, The Music of Black Americans: A History (1997).
 Jeroen Dewulf, From the Kingdom of Kongo to Congo Square: Kongo Dances and the Origins of the Mardi Gras Indians (2017), xvi; Freddi Williams Evans, Congo Square: African Roots in New Orleans (2011).
 Djedje, “African American Music,” The Cambridge History of American Music, 103–34; Abrahams, Singing the Master.
 William Pencak, “Introduction: A Historical Perspective,” in Riot and Revelry, 5-6; Sterling E. Murray, “Music and Dance in Philadelphia’s City Tavern, 1773–1790,” in American Musical Life in Context and Practice to 1865, ed. James R. Heintze (1994), 3–47; Ann Ostendorf, Sounds American: National Identity and the Music Cultures of the Lower Mississippi River Valley, 1800–1860 (2011), 90–98; Jeffrey H. Richards, Drama, Theatre, and Identity in the American New Republic (2005), 5–8.
 Nissenbaum, Battle for Christmas, 25–26; William Pencak, “Play as Prelude to Revolution: Boston, 1765–1776,” in Riot and Revelry, 141–49; Paul A. Gilje, To Swear Like A Sailor: Maritime Culture in America, 1750–1850 (2016), 157–81; Ann Ostendorf, “The Mythical Musical Boatmen: Integrating National Icons in Antebellum American Culture,” American Music 37 (forthcoming).
 Edward C. Wolf, “Peter Erben and America’s First Lutheran Tunebook in English,” in American Musical Life, 49–74; James R. Heintz, “Gaetano Carusi: From Sicily to the Halls of Congress,” in American Musical Life, 75–132; Jon W. Finson, The Voices that Are Gone: Themes in Nineteenth-Century American Popular Song (1994), 270–84; Ostendorf, Sounds American, 4–10, 107–72; William H. A. Williams, ‘Twas Only an Irishman’s Dream: The Image of Ireland and the Irish in American Popular Song Lyrics, 1800–1920 (1996), 19–25; Michael Broyles, “Immigrant, Folk, and Regional Musics in the Nineteenth Century,” in The Cambridge History of American Music, 138¬–139, 146–147.
 William Brooks, “Music in American: An Overview (Part 1),” in The Cambridge History of American Music, 38–39; Henry A. Kmen, Music in New Orleans: The Formative Years, 1791–1841 (1966), 44–46, 56–74; Preston, “Art Music,” in The Cambridge History of American Music, 186–187, 192.
 Dale Cockrell, “Nineteenth-Century Popular Music,” in The Cambridge History of American Music, 160–162; Southern, Music of Black Americans, 108–14; Preston, “Art Music,” in The Cambridge History of American Music, 190–91; Lawrence W. Levine, Highbrow Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America (1988).
 Preston, “Art Music,” in The Cambridge History of American Music, 200–04; Cockrell, “Nineteenth-Century Popular Music,” in The Cambridge History of American Music, 158–85; Brian Roberts, Blackface Nation: Race, Reform, and Identity in American Popular Music, 1812–1925 (2017), 25; Nicholas E. Tawa, Sweet Songs for Gentle Americans: The Parlor Song in America, 1790–1860 (1980). This essay does not deal with blackface minstrelsy, the most popular form of entertainment in the United States from the mid to late-nineteenth century. Blackface minstrelsy’s emergence in the 1830s and its surge in popularity in the 1840s falls beyond the chronological scope of the era traditionally thought of as the Early American Republic. However, its significance to American music and dance (among so much else) cannot be overstated. For scholarly treatment of blackface minstrelsy, see Eric Lott, Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (1993); Dale Cockrell, Demons of Disorder: Blackface Minstrels and their World (1997); W. T. Lahmon, Jr., Raising Cain: Blackface Performance from Jim Crow to Hip Hop (1998); William J. Mahar, Behind the Burnt Cork Mask: Early Blackface Minstrelsy and Antebellum American Popular Culture (1999).
 Dewulf, Kingdom of Kongo, 134–35; James R. Creecy, Scenes in the South (1860), 44.


Primary literacy glossary for parents
You'll find basic definitions of important primary-school literacy terms below. For a much more detailed, parent-friendly guide to how children are taught about each of these concepts in English, as well as examples, click on the link in the word.
An adjective is a word used to describe and give more information about a noun, which could be a person, place or object.
An adverb is a word which modifies a verb, which means that it tells you how, when, where or why something is being done.
Often used in poetry, alliteration is the repetition of an initial letter or sound in closely connected words.
Apostrophes are punctuation marks used to show possession and to show contraction (also known as omission).
Articles are words which tell us whether a noun is general (any noun) or specific. There are three articles: 'the' is a definite article and 'a' and 'an' are indefinite articles.
Argument text is a piece of writing which expresses points of view 'for' or 'against' the subject.
Biography and autobiography
Blending sounds means looking at a word and, rather than saying the separate sounds that make it up, linking the sounds together and saying the whole word in one go. Blending is an essential phonics skill which children are taught as part of learning to read.
A book report or review is your child’s written critique of a book. Book reports tend to focus on describing what the book is about, while reviews are more concerned with your child’s opinion of the book.
Brainstorming is a process in which a question or problem is posed, then a group of people give ideas which are noted by a person who writes them down on paper or a board for the group to see.
Clauses are the building blocks of sentences, groups of words that contain a subject and a verb. Clauses can be main or subordinate.
A colon is a punctuation mark that can be used to introduce a list or to separate two independent but linked clauses.
A comma is a punctuation mark that separates items in a list and marks the divisions within sentences.
The comparative form of an adjective or adverb is used to compare one person, thing, action or state to another. Examples of comparatives: sadder, lighter, more famous, worse, more angrily. The comparative is usually formed by adding the suffix -er.
A conjunction is a type of connective ('connective' is an umbrella term for any word that connects bits of text). Co-ordinating connectives include the words and, but and so; subordinating connectives include the words because, if and until.
Consonant and consonant cluster
The alphabet is made up of 26 letters, 5 of which are vowels (a, e, i, o, u) and the rest of which are consonants. A consonant is a sound that is made by blocking air from flowing out of the mouth with the teeth, tongue, lips or palate. Two consonants which appear next to each other are known as a consonant cluster.
Contracted words or contractions
Contracted words are short words made by putting two words together. Letters are missed out in the contraction and replaced by an apostrophe, for example I'm (I am) or it's (it is).
Narrative or creative writing involves writing stories with a structure, using knowlege of grammar and punctuation to present them correctly.
CVC / CCVC / CVCC words
A CVC word is a word that is made up of a consonant, vowel and consonant. CCVC words are made up of a consonant, a consonant, a vowel and a consonant. In CVCC words the sequence is: consonant, vowel, consonant, consonant.
A dash is a versatile punctuation mark that can be used within a sentence (instead of brackets or a colon) to show parenthesis.
Decoding is the process of seeing written words on a page and being able to say them out loud.
A determiner is a word that introduces a noun and identifies it in detail. Determiners can be articles (a, an, the), demonstratives (this, that), possessives (your, his), quantifiers (some, many), numbers (six, sixty).
A digraph is two letters that make one sound. Digraphs can be made up of vowels or consonants.
Direct and indirect speech
Direct speech is a sentence in which the exact words spoken are reproduced in speech marks (quotation marks or inverted commas). Indirect speech or reported speech is when the general points of what someone has said are reported, without actually writing the speech out in full.
DUMTUMS are a way of reminding children how to present their work. The letters stand for: Date, Underline, Miss a line, Title, Underline, Miss a line, Start.
An ellipsis is a punctuation mark, a series of three consecutive dots that can be used to show a pause for effect to increase tension, an unfinished thought, a trail off into silence or that the writer has deliberately missed out a word, sentence, or whole section from a text, without altering its original meaning.
Encoding is the process of hearing a sound and being able to write a symbol to represent that sound.
Exception words are words in which the English spelling code works in an unusual or uncommon way. Children learn to read and spell common exception words throughout their time in primary school, particularly in Reception, Y1 and Y2.
An exclamation mark is a punctuation mark which looks like a straight line with a dot underneath it. It is used to show that an exclamation, an interjection or a statement sentence has finished.
An exclamation is forceful statement which expresses high levels of emotion or excitement.
An explanation text describes a process. These non-fiction texts are usually written in the present tense, with numbered points and diagrams or pictures to make the process clear.
Extended writing is when children are given a set amount of time to produce a piece of writing unaided. An extended writing session often marks the end of a unit of literacy teaching.
A fable is a story that features animals, plants or forces of nature that have been anthropomorphised (given human qualities) and ends with a ‘moral’.
Figurative language uses words and ideas to suggest meaning (as opposed to literal language, which communicates in a plain and obvious way). In primary school, forms of figurative language studied include metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole and onomatopoeia.
A full stop is a punctuation mark used to separate sentences.
A grapheme is a written symbol that represents a sound (a phoneme). This can be a single letter, or could be a sequence of letters (ai, sh, igh, tch, for example).
Guided reading is a regular, time-tabled session in which teachers work with a small number of children in the classroom to analyse a text in detail, making sure each child can read each word and discussing meaning of the text with them.
A haiku is a form Japanese poetry that has three lines. There can be any number of words, but there must be 5 syllables in the first line, 7 syllables in the second line and 5 syllables in the third line. Haikus don't usually rhyme.
High-frequency words are some of the most common words in the English language. A number of them don’t follow phonetic rules, so they must be learned individually by heart. Children start to learn to read and write high-frequency words in Reception, and are given more words to memorise in KS1 and KS2.
Homophones are words that sound the same but have different meanings. Some homophones are pronounced the same way and spelled the same way but have different meanings; others are pronounced the same way but are spelled differently and have different meanings.
Imperative verbs (also known as "bossy verbs") tell someone to do something. They are used in orders / commands and in instruction texts.
An information text is a non-fiction text which gives information about a particular thing. Information texts are sometimes called non-chronological reports, because they are reporting information about something without mentioning the order of events.
An instruction text is a non-fiction text such as a recipe or manual. Instruction texts include lists of items and numbered points detailing how to carry out a certain activity.
Interactive whiteboards are the size of a usual class whiteboard, but are connected to a teacher's computer, so whatever the teacher is doing on the computer will appear on the interactive whiteboard.
While most verbs form their different tenses according to an established "formula", some verbs do not form their tenses in a regular way and are called irregular verbs.
A kenning uses a two-word phrase in the place of a one-word noun in poetry (for example, sea-farer instead of sailor).
Learning objective / WALT
A learning objective is what the teacher wants the children to have learnt or achieved by the end of the lesson. Learning objectives are sometimes referred to as WALT (stands for We Are Learning To).
A letter sound is literally the sound we make when we are reading a written letter of the alphabet.
A letter string is a group of letters that appear in a word. For example, the letter string str is contained in each of these words: string, straight, strike, strain.
Look, Cover, Write, Check
Look, Cover, Write, Check is a strategy used to help children learn to spell. When learning a new word, children are asked to: look at it, cover it over with a piece of paper or their hand, write the spelling again next to the word and finally uncover the spelling to check if they have got it right.
A metaphor is a comparison which is not literally true. It suggests what something is like by comparing it with something else with similar characteristics (for example, my brother is a piglet).
Mini-whiteboards are A4-sized wipe-clean surfaces which come with a whiteboard pen. Children are usually provided with a mini-whiteboard each, and use it to write on in the classroom.
A modal verb is a special type of verb which changes or affects other verbs in a sentence. Modal verbs are used to show the level of possibility, indicate ability, show obligation or give permission.
Modelled writing is when a teacher writes a passage of text in front of the class. It differs from shared writing in that the teacher does not ask for the input of the class.
A multi-clause sentence is another term for a complex sentence.
A mystery story is one in which an unexplained event (often a crime) has occurred and the reader discovers how events unfolded by reading the text.
Myths and legends
A myth is a traditional, ancient story that is fictional. Myths were often written to explain natural phenomena and quite often involved gods and fantasy creatures. A legend is a story which takes place within human history. Legends are widely believed to be rooted in the truth, but will have evolved over time and taken on fictional elements.
A non-chronological report is a non-fiction report which is not written in time order. Explanation texts, recounts and instruction texts are non-chronological reports.
Any text that is not a story is non-fiction. Non-fiction texts studied at primary school include instruction texts, recounts, information texts, explanation texts, persuasive texts, biography, journalistic writing and argument texts.
A noun is a naming word. It is a thing, a person, an animal or a place. Nouns can be common, proper, abstract or collective.
The object of a sentence is the thing or person that is involved in an action, but does not carry it out ("The cat chased the mouse.").
Onomatopoeia is a word that names a sound, but also sounds like that sound. For example: boom, honk, pop, crack, cuckoo, crack, splat, tweet, zoom, sizzle, whizz, buzz, hiss, rip.
A paragraph is a section of writing consisting of one or more sentences grouped together and discussing one main subject.
Parenthesis is a word, phrase, or clause inserted into a sentence to add extra, subordinate or clarifying information. Brackets are also known as parentheses and usually used to show parenthesis.
Past continuous (or progressive)
Personification is a type of figurative language which gives an object human characteristics (emotions, sensations, speech, physical movements).
Persuasive text is non-fiction text which aims to make the reader do something. Adverts, posters and travel brochure are all kinds of persuasive text.
A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound.
Phonics is a method of teaching children to read by linking sounds (phonemes) and the symbols that represent them (graphemes, or letters). Phonics is the method used in primary schools in the UK today to teach children to read.
A play script is a piece of writing written for the stage. It is likely to include a list of characters, may be divided into acts (which are then divided into scenes) and contain dialogue and stage directions.
A plural word indicates there is more than one noun.
A prefix is a string of letters that are added to the beginning of a root word, changing its meaning.
Prepositions are linking words in a sentence. We use prepositions to explain where things are in time or space.
Present continuous (or progressive)
A pronoun is a word used to replace a noun. Examples of pronouns are: he, she, it, they. Pronouns can be personal and possessive.
A question is a type of sentence that we ask or write to gain further information from a person or people responding.
A question mark is a punctuation mark, or a symbol, that shows that a question has ended.
Reading comprehension means understanding what is being read and being able to engage with a text on many levels, understanding its layers of meaning.
A recount is a non-fiction piece of writing that gives details of an event that has happened. Diary entries, newspaper articles and letters are all forms of recounts,
A relative clause is a type of subordinate clause that adapts, describes or modifies a noun by using a relative pronoun (who, that or which).
Rhyme is the repetition of similar sounds in words, usually at the end of lines in poems and songs.
A root word is a basic word with no prefix or suffix added to it. By adding prefixes and suffixes to a root word we can change its meaning.
'Scaffolding' learning means providing a framework on paper that will support a child in learning a particular skill.
A semi-colon is a punctuation mark that is used to separate two independent (main) clauses that are closely related.
A sentence is one word or a group of words that makes sense by itself (a grammatical unit). Sentences begin with a capital letter and end with a full stop, a question mark or an exclamation point. Sentences usually contain a subject (doing something) and a verb (what is being done).
Shared writing is a process teachers use o help children to understand how to write a particular kind of text. It involves a teacher producing some text on the board with input from the class.
A simile is a comparison phrase which finds similar characteristics in two objects and compares them, always by using the words 'like' or 'as'.
Simple, compound and complex sentences
A simple sentence has a subject and one verb. A compound sentence is formed when you join two main clauses with a connective. A complex sentence is formed when you join a main clause and a subordinate clause with a connective.
When a noun is singular, it means there is only one person, place or object.
A spider diagram is a planning tool used to help children make notes on a particular subject.
A digraph is two vowels which together make one sound (as in the words tail, boat, found or read). When a digraph is split by a consonant it becomes a split digraph, sometimes known as 'magic e'.
Standard English is the "correct" form of English, taught in schools and used in formal written communication.
A statement is the most common type of sentence. Statements are sentences that express a fact, idea or opinion.
Story map / Story mountain / Story flowchart
Story maps, mountains and flowcharts are diagrams used in the classroom to help children analyse the plot and the structure of a text.
A story setting is the location in which a story takes place. The setting could anywhere, from a park to a home to an alien planet.
The subject of a sentence is the thing or person who is carrying out the action described by the verb ("The cat chased the mouse.").
The subjunctive is a verb form used to express things that could or should happen, for example: If I were to go... / I demand that he answer!
A subordinate clause needs to be attached to a main clause because it cannot make sense on its own, although it contains a subject and a verb.
Success criteria / WILF
A success criteria is a list of features that a teacher wants the children to include in their work during the course of a lesson. It is sometimes known as the WILF (What I'm Looking For).
A suffix is a string of letters that go at the end of a word, changing or adding to its meaning. Suffixes can show if a word is a noun, an adjective, an adverb or a verb.
The superlative form of an adjective or adverb is used to compare one person, thing, action or state to all the others in its class. Examples of superlatives: saddest, lightest, most famous, worst, most angrily. The superlative is usually formed by adding the suffix -est.
A syllable is a single, unbroken sound of a spoken (or written) word. Syllables are sometimes called the ‘beats’ of a word.
Synonyms are words with the same or similar meanings.
Talk partners are pairs of children who discuss topics in the classroom. The use of talk partners is a common technique in the primary-school classroom.
Text-marking is highlighting, circling, underlining or labelling the features of a text. The purpose of text-marking is to make children aware of how different texts are set out and which features are used.
Time connectives are words or phrases which tell the reader when something is happening. They can also be called temporal connectives.
A traditional tale is a fairy story or fairy tale, a story that has been told and re-told for many years and almost everyone knows. Examples of traditional tales are Cinderella, Goldilocks and the Three Bears and Little Red Riding Hood.
A trigraph is a single sound that is represented by three letters, for example tch, igh in fight or ear in bear.
Verbal reasoning is a form of problem-solving based around words and language. Verbal reasoning tasks include solving word problems, following written instructions to come up with a solution, spotting letter sequences and cracking letter- and number-based codes.
Verbs and powerful verbs
A verb expresses a physical action, a mental action or a state of being. Powerful verbs are descriptive, rich words.
Verb tenses tell us the time when an action took place, in the past, the present or the future.
The alphabet is made up of 26 letters, 5 of which are vowels (a, e, i, o, u) and the rest of which are consonants. A vowel is a sound that is made by allowing breath to flow out of the mouth, without closing any part of the mouth or throat.
Word banks are lists of words to support children with their writing. These will vary according to the age of the child and the task given.
A writing frame is a blank diagram used to show children how to set out their writing and to remind them to include certain features.
Have we missed any literacy terms that you'd like to see explained? Email requests for new glossary entries to us at [email protected]
You'll find maths and numeracy terms and vocabulary explained in our Primary numeracy glossary for parents.


A Sense of Place in American Literature
Caitlin McGrail, 2018
Clinton High School
Honors English, Grade 10
These lessons are created for a tenth grade honors level course at Clinton High School. This is a course designed for highly motivated students as a survey of American literature with exposure to the American short story, novel, play, poetry, and nonfiction. It is designed to recognize the links between literature and history and to integrate vocabulary, grammar, thinking, speaking, reading, and writing skills necessary to function in an advanced/college setting. This sequence of lessons will enhance the themes of this year-long course: American identity, the relationship between the community the individual, and society, civil disobedience, and the American Dream.
A sense of place will intertwine within the existing units as students explore how a place influences identity. Within this course, the term place will become an extended definition of setting, as students are encouraged to think about setting in terms of a physical setting, a historical setting, and a social setting. A sense of place will be explored at different levels – how place influences an author as he/she is writing, the effect that place has on the characters and plot in a text, and finally extended to the impact that place has on a student’s own identity.
This unit contains six lessons that will be used with other texts and units throughout the year. The year begins with an introductory unit relating to personal identity leading into the idea of American identity and concludes with two texts that focus on community and an individual’s roles and responsibilities within that society.
History of Your Hometown
Jessica Parfitt, 2018
Pittsburg High School
U.S. History or A.P. U.S. History, Grade 11
Either as an individual or in a small group, students will explore the history of their hometown. Their task will be to pick one small aspect of the history of their town that they would like to explore. For example, there may be some historical building or event or person that lived in their town, or there may be political, social, or economic history they would like to know more about. They will work their way through the research process to find their information and create some sort of physical project that will be used to add to the public history of their town, (in the city of Pittsburg, we have a local Historical Society who has offered to place their projects out as an exhibit in the Pittsburg History Museum.)
Each lesson will walk them through a step of the research process, so that they can complete this project like real historians. They will be given guidance for each step, but it will be up to them to do the work to complete each process and produce a viable piece of public history that can be viewed and enjoyed by the people of Pittsburg.
Place and Identity
Robert Guastella, 2016
Natick High School
English, Grade 9
As Transcendentalism is studied in greater detail during Junior year, this is only meant to be a brief introduction to the concepts, specifically those of Thoreau, with a focus on sense of place and identity, the latter being Natick High School’s focus for 9th grade English. The first lesson of this unit is geared towards priming students with Transcendental concepts on which they have to take a stance, as well as getting them thinking about sense of place by connecting to ideas of home, and how that contributes to one’s identity. The homework applies these ideas to a short story. The second lesson goes over the homework story and then explores the concept of nature and how places in nature can help people feel a sense of home and find themselves. The nature walk during class and the subsequent homework assignment will get students out in nature, away from their usual technology-dependent routines, and more in touch with themselves. The third lesson explores the idea of utopias to get students to think about how and why societies are set up they way they are, and to really contemplate what their individual priorities are and what will make them happy; they will then be asked to think about this happiness in terms of real places, where they feel the most like themselves. The homework is to apply these ideas to a short story, focused on noticing the differences that various places have on in the protagonist throughout the story. The fourth lesson builds on the idea of place and identity, and explores the concept of truth. Students will think about what truth means, what is true for them, and what will truly make them happy. They will begin the final assessment of the unit, a creative project that expresses one “truth” about identity as connected to a specific place, whether it’s nature, home, or someplace else. The project has them interview five people to find out others’ perceptions of happiness and identity as related to place in order to construct their own views on the idea. The fifth lesson comes back to the concept of self, and has students think about what makes them most “awake” and alive. They then get class time to work on their projects, as well as teacher assistance and feedback. The homework is to finish the project.
Tim O’Brien and Thoreau: Identify Formation through a Sense of Place
Anna Schechinger, 2016
Belmont High School
English, Grade 12, College Prep
The overarching theme of my Senior year English class is “The Search for Identity.” At this stage in their high school careers, students are at the advent of a new beginning, whether they are college bound or joining the workforce. We will examine selected stories from Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried in conjunction with the theme of identity formation. The protagonist of these short stories, Tim, is similar to my students because he is faced with a difficult decision at the outset of his adult life: the choice between fighting a war he does not support or defecting to Canada when he receives his draft notice. As he writes about his moral dilemma and the setting of the Vietnam war itself, O’Brien reveals that our ‘sense of place’ impacts how we perceive ourselves and our actions in relation to the world around us.
How Did Stone Walls End Up in the Middle of Forests?
Barbara Barker, 2015
Simsbury High School
Environmental Science, Biology, Ecology
The purpose of this unit is to introduce students to the interrelationships of ecosystems and the changes they undergo due to the natural process of succession. The focus will be on forests so that students will understand how a state like Connecticut evolved from being mostly deforested to becoming one of the most densely forested states in the country. This unit will provide a sense of place by increasing student understanding and appreciation of forests which will foster their stewardship of them. While exploring the process of succession, students will learn how areas that are disturbed by natural disasters or human activities can change ecosystems from systems that support a limited number of organisms to climax communities that support a wide diversity of organisms. Students will also learn how crucial the interaction between biotic and abiotic factors in an ecosystem is crucial to its health and sustainability.
Acknowledging and Embracing a Sense of Place
Lisa Clark, 2015
Arlington High School
US History, Grades 9-12
The purpose of this unit plan is to teach students about their sense of place, to embrace the connection to their current location, and to take a closer look at the environment that surrounds them.
Perceptions of American Dreams and How or If We Live Them
Jennifer Cohen, 2015
Lexington High School
American Literature, Grade 11, Honors
The honors American Literature course is organized thematically around four visions of the American Dream: Exceptionalism, Prosperity, Equality, and Self-Determination and the Essential Question for each vision: How do American authors extol and/or question the American Dream of __________________________. Because these visions are related and overlap, the distinction affords a convenient method of text organization and is not intended to be a rigid divide among these ideas. Transcendentalist ideas and texts weave through the last three units, providing both support and criticism of these dreams. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau’s writings (excerpts from Nature and “Self-Reliance,” chapters of Walden, and “Civil Disobedience”) will help to attune students to their own views of country and their place in it.
The readings and lessons will take place throughout the year and are connected under the big idea of the individual’s relationship to self and country. Individual lessons will focus on developing reverence for place, being present/simplifying, , examining views about race and potential for change in our society, and personal responsibility. Assignments will range from formative journaling assignments to a culminating personal essay.
“Let Us Consider the Way in Which We Spend Our Lives”: Thoreau and the Autonomous Learner Model
Karen Downing, 2015
Valley High School
West Des Moines, IA
English, Grades 10-12, Talented and Gifted
Students in this unit will use ideas from Thoreau as an extended metaphor of self-reflection throughout the semester in partnership with the course program model of Autonomous Learning to better understand their interior/exterior sense of place.
Thoreau and the Art of Journaling
Rebecca Jha, 2015
Shrewsbury High School
English, Grade 12, Honors
In order to become a strong writer, students need to learn how to develop their “voice” and to begin to feel confident in the ability to have something worth saying and expressing. Journaling provides students with ample opportunity to hone the skills associated with developing their persona, their voice, their writing style in a format that is more creative, more stream of conscious, and less formulaic than formal essay writing. With this in mind, this unit will use both the journals of Henry David Thoreau and his piece entitled “Walking”, as vehicles to reveal to students the value of journaling and being attentive to the world around them, for both personal and educational reasons. Additionally, this unit will provide students with opportunities to read some of Thoreau’s less- read works, with opportunities to feel and discover a bit about Thoreau’s sense of place, and with opportunities to use the works of Thoreau as springboards to learning more about the writing process, more about the art and purpose of journaling, and more about themselves as participants in the overall human experience.
Nature in Our City: Engaging with an Urban Environment
Colette Morton, 2015
English, Grade 10
The St. Louis metro area is very large and exploring the woods can be nearly impossible for poor, urban teenagers. The purpose of this unit is to inspire students to interact with nature in new ways, all while developing a sense of place. First, we will examine writers who have inspired many to step out into nature. The reading list will include selections from Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, Aron Ralston’s Between a Rock and Hard Place, The Wilderness World of John Muir edited by Edwin Way Teale, Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods, and John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley. Throughout this unit, the students will journal “in the field,” using classical field notes in their urban environment. Finally, we will Skype Yosemite National Park, attempting to get Shelton Johnson to speak with our students (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelton_Johnson). Finally, we will invite the last mayor of Times Beach, Marilyn Leistner, to speak with our students about the ecological disaster that occurred only a few decades and miles away.
Sense of Place and the Creative Process: Looking at Where You Are and Where You’re Going
Dana Phelan, 2015
Ridgefield High School
Visual Art, Grades 9-12
This unit will guide students through a process of finding and attending to the sound of their “own drummers”. It is inspired by the seven iterations of the Different Drummer passage gathered by Jeffery Cramer. This collection of quotes is a fascinating example of how creative minds play with and work out ideas and develop them over time. Students will observe, reflect on, and interpret their local place through a series of discussions, journal entries, contour drawings and photographs. Along the way, they will consider passages from Thoreau and the visual images (and creative processes) of artists such as Hokusai, Albrecht Durer and Helena Emmans.
Awakening Our Senses: Discovering Place, Discovering Self
Lindsay Dent, 2014
St. Pius X Catholic High School
American Literature, Grade 11
This unit is designed to be taught at the end of the first semester of a year-long American literature survey course. The overarching theme for the semester concerns living mindfully and intentionally: what it means to the fictional characters we meet, what it means to essayists (such as Henry David Thoreau and Annie Dillard), and what it means for us. My students explore this theme in each of the major units of study; since the semester concludes with Transcendentalism, they are uniquely positioned to reflect and reconsider this theme in light of both the individual unit and term as a whole. In this unit, students will explore the notion of mindful and intentional living through a variety of texts and experiences ranging from a “tech toss” to a sense of place field trip to a sustainable community outside of Atlanta. The goal is for them to consider ways—big and small—in which they can more authentically connect to their natural environment and gain self-awareness and quietude in the midst of a chaotic world.
Henry David Thoreau, Walden, and Myself in this Place
Heather Ellis, 2014
South Hadley High School
South Hadley, MA
American Literature, Grade 11, Honors
Students will engage in this ‘unit’ throughout their entire 11th grade academic year. In the beginning of the year, students will learn a basic understanding of Henry David Thoreau and the New England Transcendental period, particularly 1846-1847. Throughout the year, students will not only come away with a rich understanding of Thoreau, Transcendentalism, the Transcendentalists, and the New England Renaissance, but also a deeper understanding of themselves as human beings, as well as their sense of place in a complex world. Journal writing, creative writing, and outdoor experiences will take place throughout the unit.
Be Thoreau: Naturalist Journal & Wildflower Garden to Measure Climate Change
David Albano, 2013
Fox Lane High School
Bedford, New York
English, Grade 12
This unit will build a sense of place through the study of Thoreau’s writing, wildflowers, phenology, and climate change. The study will enable students to interact with nature on the school campus, then at local nature preserve and ultimately in a wildflower garden; these places are focal points for observations as a way to use a naturalist approach to journaling and ultimately witness the impact of climate change. The first part of the unit (lessons #1-#8), focus on writing and building the skills of a naturalist. The second part of the unit, focuses on the garden, gathering data, and climate change. Students will explore the scientific concepts of ecological succession, phenology, and conservation while also working to enhance their observation skills, interpretive thinking, and collaborative skills. Subjects included: environmental science, art (drawing and photography), writing and literature (creative nonfiction).
The Symbolic Significance of Place in a Narrative
Laura Kerr, 2013
Walpole High School
English, Grade 9
This curriculum unit explores the symbolic significance of place in various literary works. The goal for the unit is for students to consider the deeper meaning of place, location, details of the exterior and interior landscape and its function in a narrative. For each text, students will ponder and reflect upon the following overarching essential questions: How do the settings of a literary work inform the identities of the characters and the narrative itself? How does the narrator manipulate the setting to express the symbolic meaning of the narrative? The students will respond to these questions in a journal that I will hold onto throughout the year and then return to them prior to their final assessment. Individual lesson objectives will vary for each literary work (please see lesson plans). The unit will span the entire year and will culminate in an analytical essay that asks students to compare and/or contrast the significance of place in two works from the year. One of the two works that they choose must be one for which we did not explicitly analyze the significance of place – i.e. a literary work that is not included in this unit.
A Sacred Place: Exploring the Concept and Importance of Place in Human Experience
John Finneron, 2012
Wellesley High School
English, Grade 11
This curriculum unit explores the significance of place and how a place can impact one’s development as an individual. While the term “place” might appear general or generic to students, this unit forces them to look more closely and see that a place consists of many things, some physical and some more abstract, perhaps even spiritual. Students will consider that a place is also the people that comprise it as well as the experiences in which these people participate. In fact, a place is as varied and dynamic as each person who lives there; places are perhaps sacred, and students will begin to consider whether they might have their own sacred place. Additionally, many have asserted that “we are products of our environment,” and this unit attempts to investigate the extent of truth in that statement. In order to do so, students will approach the concept of place in literature and through their own lived experience.
Students will read Michael Patrick MacDonald’s memoir, All Souls, in which the author revisits his childhood city, South Boston, recalling the people and events of his youth. As MacDonald remembers the joy and camaraderie, the hatred and the suffering, students will begin to see the complexity of place and will start considering all of the possible characteristics that make a place unique. Using All Souls as the starting point, students will then begin to investigate a special place in their own lives. While they are welcome to choose any significant place – town/city of childhood home, town/city of favorite vacation spot, town/city of grandparents’ house, etc. – students must focus on one particular place for the extent of the unit. Beginning more generally, students will investigate historical and cultural aspects of the place such as famous figures, important events, a common custom or tradition. Going further, students will ultimately reflect upon what role the particular place has played in their own lives.
Developing a “Listening Point”
David Nulf, 2012
Fairfield Ludlowe High School
English, Grades 11 and 12
This unit asks students to engage in some of the “slow and difficult / Trick of… finding” (Mary Oliver, “Going to Walden”) Walden in a local open space. Following the example of naturalist writers like Mary Oliver, Annie Dillard, Sigurd Olson, Hal Borland, and Henry David Thoreau, students will establish and develop a close relationship with a parcel of designated “open space” in their home landscape. To do this, they will visit this space many times over the course of the semester, completing a variety of lessons designed to help them observe closely, getting to know some of the flora and fauna, and to record their observations and reflections in their field journals. They will also do some research about the ecological and more recent social history of this space, tracing its story as they are able. After they have come to know this particular open space in a richer way, they will publish an informational pamphlet (or, alternatively, a web document on a “Wikispace”) including a map and visuals (to be kept in a Call of the Wild classroom repository of local places to hike/explore), as well as a short piece of creative non-fiction which communicates some of the highlights of what they have observed and learned from this process over the course of the semester, about the place, about themselves, and about their home environment.
Experiencing John Brown’s Kansas
Cortney Kinyon, 2011
Central Heights High School
Language Arts, Grade 11
Students often overlook the history in their own neighborhood because we, the schools, teach them history lessons from a different part of the world. This unit forces the students to interact with the Bleeding Kansas history by reading pieces of literature, examining a painting depicting the scene, and writing nature / impact journals while at the historic battlefields. Students will read pieces of literature expressing the importance of Bleeding Kansas, will see a copy of a painting depicting the battle, experience the history in the local museums, and will write in a variety of forms from graphic organizers to student questions to journals to academic essays.
Cape Cod, A Place to Call Home: Connecting to a Sense of Place on Cape Cod through Literature, the Environment, and Cultural History
Elaine Aschettino, 2011
Chatham High School
Chatham,MA American Literature, Grade 11, Honors
This unit is a local journey, both physical and metaphorical, for grade 11 students. It is a trip that will enable them to discover a sense of place on Cape Cod by exploring some of the area’s natural environs and an historic landmark and relating those discoveries to the work of Transcendentalists and other writers. The goal is for students to better appreciate and understand the richness of the place they call home.
Writers & Their Worlds:A Journey into the Landscapes of Wordsworth, Thoreau, & Whitman
David Paul Heller, 2009
Sharon High School
English-Language Arts, Grades 9-12
This curriculum unit is sculpted and woven together to reveal a single key truth about the literary world: writers are bonded – regardless of their disparate visions – to the worlds that minted them. This is to say, quite simply, that the environments and settings, which coat writers as they grow into their role as artists, do have a major impact upon their work. The power of landscape is clearly evident as a force revealing the deeper thematic threads of literary texts. And it is for this undeniable reason that students should cull the full implications of this dynamic – place impacts people, people give shape to place. This unit, delineated through four lessons, will help young scholars access how this premise is fully realized through the study of the work of the following writers: William Wordsworth, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman.
Boston – Where the Wild Things Are
David Kujawski, 2005
Boston Collegiate Charter School
Environmental Science, Grade 12
As Thoreau states in Walden, “Things do not change; we change.” This simple, yet poignant statement speaks of how humans, as individuals as well as a community, grow and change greatly during our lifetime. The people we know and the places we experience seem to change over time largely because of the personal and cultural transformation of our perceptions (for better or for worse!). This unit uses journaling and mapping as a way to build an appreciation and understanding between students and their natural surroundings and local history, as seen through the students own set of personal and cultural lenses. Students will develop a greater understanding of map interpretation and the mental associations they may conjure, as well the ability to read and interpret maps. The transcendentalists will be used throughout the unit to reinforce the purpose of the exercises and serve as models. Through encouraging students to discover and see their surroundings in a new light, they will eventually make a detailed map of their home towns.
The Mathematics of Space and Place
Janet Platt, 2005
Boston Day and Evening Academy
Math, Grades 9 and 10
This lesson plan is a math unit for 9th and 10th graders who are developing and improving their 8th grade skills while they study algebra, geometry and trigonometry. This mathematics unit will try in a very concrete way to examine the role of PLACE in community, and trying to quantify a place. Students will use pace as a measuring tool to draw the school yard and city blocks to scale, and to analyze the use of property and other space in a block or two of the city. Property use will be categorized, converted to percent, and presented in a pie graph. The data gleaned from these activities will be used to describe the types of businesses and activities that occur in that place. Ultimately, all of this information will be used to try and answer the “essential question” – What does community mean?
The Academy of Art, Science, and Technology and Henry David Thoreau’s Life
Nancy Flasher, 2005
Provincetown High School: Academy of Art, Science and Technology
Cape Cod, MA
Interdisciplinary, Grades 9-12
This unit is designed to cultivate student interest in the life of Henry David Thoreau not only as a local resource to draw upon, but especially as an excellent and timeless model of a spirited self-directed and lifelong learner. It is composed of three core lesson plans: the first focuses on some of the initial activities that will assist students in creating a “toolbox” of lifelong learning skills, knowledge and habits; the second focuses on teaching and guiding students to keep a lifelong learning project journal, a thorough, reflective and relevant documentation of their individualized study; the final plan focuses on using the journal to review, isolate, choose and further develop key information and inquiries found in imbedded in project journals (editing, revision, and exploring a variety of means for presenting info).
Forbidden Places and Forgotten Spaces
Bill Goncalo, 2004
Bishop Connolly High School
Fall River, MA
American Literature and Composition, Grades 9-12
Young people like to get out of the classroom, and this lesson will provide ample opportunity to do so. Not only will students be outside, they will be in a wooded space not usually accessible to the public. The area contains the ruins of a 19th century ice house and two old homes, one of which that had elaborate gardens surrounding it, the remnants of which are still visible. Students will also be able to create media that will be used to eventually promote the area and educate the public concerning the resources there. Students will read Tunnel Visionary, an article written by Stephen P. William for Smithsonian Magazine, April 2004. The article describes how “Intrepid explorer Julia Solis finds beauty in the ruins of derelict urban structures.” Students will journal about the “derelict urban structures” which fascinate them and why.