Tiny Tales of Persecution

Tags

execute, persecution, pursue, pursuit

“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” Elie Wiesel

Maurycy Minkowski (Polish, 1881-1930) After the Pogrom, c. 1910. Read about this painting and artist here at the Jewish Museum

We began our collaborative project  (see project at the end of this post) by examining the meaning of various words that will be encountered in our lengthy history unit on The Weimar Republic, the rise of the Nazi Party and the Holocaust. These words, rather than just unit specific, are words that underlie major themes throughout our entire year. We started with a matching activity where students matched a word to its denotation and root. The purpose of this was to read the denotations carefully and begin the process of discussing a word to thoroughly understand its meaning as well as to notice how the root informed the structure of the base element.

 This activity led to a class focus on persecution. Here’s what we have found out. We are able to analyze this into four morphemes < per+ sec+ute+ion> all bound elements; one prefix, one base and two suffixes.

The morphemes of <persecution>

We see the prefix <per-> in the words perfect, perhaps, perchance. We hesitated as to whether to consider<-ute> as a suffix or as part of the base and therefore <secute>. We recognized <-ute> as a suffix finding it in the words: tribute,<trib(e)+ute> and volute (‘spiral ornament on an Ionic capital’) <vol(e)+ute>. What other words shared <sec> as a base element? We discovered <prosecute> and <second> as our evidence. In claiming second as proof of the <sec> base, Amir wondered whether there was evidence for <-ond> as a suffix. We are still considering this! So far not much luck in finding other words where <-ond> appears as a suffix. The matrix below captures our thinking so far:

The bound base <sec> from Latin sequi: to follow. We know that execute, execution belongs here as well. The morphemic boundaries in Latin were not as rigid as in English today hence the disappearance of the initial ‘s’, influenced by the /ks/ of ‘x’ in the prefix <ex->. Sadly we could not resolve how to indicate this on the matrix, so see our thinking in the matrix below.

The variant form of the bound base ‘sec’ occurring only after the prefix ‘ex-‘.

Etymological connections: Other bases from the root

We found sequence and sequel share the Latin root sequi as does the verb pursue and the noun pursuit.  I was interested that these words did not enter English together. Pursue is the elder by a century, attested from the 13th century and pursuit attested from the late 14th century. So far we have bound bases <sec> with its variant form <ec>, <sequ> <sue>and the free base element <suit> as related bases in modern English spring forth from Latin sequi. At the heart of all these bases and the words resulting from these, is the idea of following.

The base <sequ>

The bound base from L. sequi to follow

The prefix <per-> and the free base elements <suit>  and <sue>

We could see how ‘pursuit’ was linked to the notion of following but were initially puzzled by ‘suit’. What is the link between a suit of clothes and following? Entering English from Anglo Norman in the 13th century, the word ‘suit’ originally referred to a band of followers, a retinue, a company. From here it passed on to a set of things in general (Ayto) until the 15th century where it referred to the set of clothes or armour or livery or uniform.(Online Etymology Dictionary)

The prefix <pur->:

The prefix <pur-> was a new consideration for us. OED states this occurs in words entering into English from French where it has the sense of ‘forward’, ‘completely’ or ‘advance’:

‘This is the form in which the prefix <pro- > came into Middle English in many cases, and it is still retained in numerous words, such as purchase n.,purfle n., purlieu n., purloin v., purport v., purpose v., purpresture n., pursue v., purvey v., and their derivatives. In others it has since been altered to the Latin form (as frequently also in French), as in promenade n., etc.’

Focusing on Persecution

Our main focus as a class has been in uncovering the meaning and connotations of persecution. It’s not just a matter of spouting a dictionary denotation , although reading the denotation is a indeed a starting point. This has led to rich discussions about persecution. I wanted students to internalize this using their own words, to contemplate when, and why persecution occurs, to consider the nuances of meaning between harassment, humiliation, suffering and victimization. Students noted that persecution was a noun (<-ion> suffix a dead-give-away here), negative in connotation , far stronger than teasing, taunting and harassment. We noted that acts of persecution are intentional, deliberate. We read Wiesel’s words (beginning of post) to consider how silence and indifference perpetuate persecution. Many students wondered if the causes of ‘persecution’ spring from fears of difference. We considered how the root sequi to follow was metaphorical …there is a sense of stalking or following, of relentlessness and cruelty. We found examples of ‘persecution’ in the texts we’d read this year.

Listen to the discussions below as students share their understandings after small group and whole group discussion and written reflection.

 

 

 

These discussions were followed by reading an article on the history of Anti-Semitism where we discussed the heinous blood libel myth, pogroms, the Dreyfus affair, the fraudulent Protocols of Zion: all part of the prelude to our lengthy study of the Weimar Republic, the Rise of Hitler and the Holocaust. Students wrote about their understandings of this word and where they saw it as a theme in the texts they have read.

Read some snippets from student blogs on this topic:

‘Persecution. I think of it as a hostile action with the intention to do harm. There always has to be an oppressor and a victim. The oppressor presses or pushes down on the victim. It’s an act of blaming, separating, or discriminating by the oppressor to the victim. The Latin word sequi, to follow, is the root of persecution. This root connects to persecution because the oppressor follows, hunts, and hurts the victim. Persecution is an inhumane act from the oppressor towards the victim.’ (Hanna)

‘I was really surprised when I first read about this piece of information. I found this distinctly shocking, because one of the first things I learnt as a child was about how everyone is equal and should live in unity. My religion teaches that all religions should be united as one, because that is what will spark the unity of all mankind. Yet, here, I am reading about religions against each other; one spreading rumours and blaming the other to have more power over them, because the other is weak. Surprisingly, both these religions also preach about peace and harmony towards all. The most horrific rumour about the Jews, to me, was the claim that they killed Christian babies for their blood, to make special bread. When I read this, I was completely speechless. Questions flew through my mind, “How would someone even dare spread something like that in the name of religion? Could one really have that much hatred for another human being? Were people foolish enough to believe all those dreadful lies?” All these thoughts, images, and perceptions, still wander in my head. I really cannot accept the fact that a group of religious people can treat others with such detest, such bitterness. Neither can I understand why, and how the Christians developed a loathsome attitude towards the Jews. Of course, there is still much, much more for me to read and find out about anti-semitism, as we have just started learning about it. But these are just some concepts to think about as we go deeper into this topic.’ (Temira)

My teaching colleague and friend Sharon Peters and myself are inspired by The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories– akin to the 6 word memoir, developed as an online collaborative production company hitREcord by actor writer Joseph Gordon Levitt and ‘Wirrow’.(Read more here at Brain Pickings) This interplay of text and image has become another way for students to internalize their understanding of persecution in a concentrated, metaphor-like form. In exploring some of the examples from The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories, students have learned to weigh each word carefully, particularly verbs. We have discussed personification, the effect of the pronouns ‘he’ or ‘she’ and ‘I’, the superfluity of adverbs and adjectives- if the verb is powerful is there any need for further elaboration? Students posted their ‘Tiny Tale’ on a shared doc. anonymously and then chose someone’s that appealed to them to illustrate and to voice.  These tiny tales reveal their understanding of the word and the way it can be shown visually. Below is the collaborative project between the two humanities classes. The students feel proud of this work and all claim to have a much stronger understanding of persecution.

 

 

Our focus through these integrated humanity – word inquiry lessons has been to:

•  help students acquire and understand words- knowing the meaning of the root adds a deeper layer of understanding of the word itself.
• see the connections between the root and the word both in morphological structure and in the way it has evolved in present day English
• understand that a root can lead to several base elements in English with the root meaning echoing through these words
•  develop skills in critical thinking, reading and writing
• cite instances of the word (persecution) from literature and history
• understand metaphor and personification

Stephan’s comment was typical of the class responses noted in their blogs after this word-humanities focus: These readings ‘show society does not tolerate a minority group who then become persecuted just because their ways are different. I wish there was a world where people treat each other as equal and treat each other fairly, a world where people wake up not knowing persecution. ‘

Of Wrangling Scientists

Tags

conscience, inwit, science, scientists

Felix’s illustration of scientists at work.

I recently visited my nephew in London, a bright, lively 7 year old who loves being read to. He is, however, a little more reluctant to read himself and is uninspired by the limited “readers’ he is sent home with as practice. His conversation is entertaining; he plays with words, his vocabulary is rich and extensive. He is curious, creative and active. Yet recently a creeping erosion of confidence is seeping into his self perception as a reader. I listened to him read – a little hesitant and over reliant on sounding out words to limited avail…how does sounding out every letter help with words like ‘call’, or with a words like ‘one’ , ‘enough’ ,’people’? So much of reading involves being read to, being in an environment where reading is apparent and valued, all of which young Felix has in abundance. He has a sense of narrative, sees humour, irony, and can discuss the theme in the books and stories that are shared with him.

Yet where I wonder, is he being taught to look for the orthographic structures that will help in both reading and writing? Where do we learn about the structure of words in our teacher training? I am continually reminded of this as I work with Grade 7 students and in discussion with teaching friends and colleagues also concerned about reading and writing ( Sharon Peters, Lyn Anderson, Imogen Whiting, Dan Allen, Skot Caldwell in the present tense, Skot Caldwell past tense, and Mary Beth Stevens).We see the importance of morphological knowledge for all students from high school to the very youngest of students. I too am aware of the importance of alerting young students to the ubiquity of digraphs and trigraphs in the structure of a base element. Developing awareness of orthographic structure , teaching spelling, real spelling, teaching handwriting, real script, is a critical element of teaching reading and writing. Focusing on a word and its morphological, etymological and phonological structure is providing students with the signposts they need when making sense of words on a page. What applies to one word will apply to hundreds.

In conversation with Felix I asked what two words he really wanted to know how to read and write. What two words did he think were really important for children his age to know how to write and read? “Scientists and monsters “was his instant reply! Of course- these are critical words when you are seven and if like Felix you are a regular visitor of London’s Science and Natural History Museum.

Scientists

So here’s what we discussed about <science> and discovered about< scientists>. The word< scientists> has four morphemes: <sci+ent+ist+s>. The base element <sci> has 2 phonemes made up of three letters. Felix had not encountered the terms base element or suffixes, let alone phoneme or grapheme. However, this does not mean that he cannot be exposed to these terms and gradually use them. We discussed that every word has a base element , it’s the heart of a word and I explained to him that the bound base in this word was <sci>, it needed other morphemes to make sense. We discussed suffixes and the frequency of the plural suffix <-s> coming up with loads of examples. We also discussed <-ist> as a suffix and talked jobs: people who did things: as in a dentist, an orthodontist, an artist and an archeologist! At this stage I didn’t go into great detail about the suffix <-ent>, rather we focused on the base element <sci> and how the letters ‘s’ and ‘c’ formed a digraph<sc>, two letters working as a team to form the initial phoneme /s/ in the word <scientists>.

When I asked Felix if he could think of any other words built around the base <sci>, Felix immediately identified <science> and quickly added <scientific> and <scientifically>. I told him that all these words had come from a Latin root :scire: to know, the language spoken by Romans hundreds of years ago.  I also asked if he knew what it was to be unconscious, there was instant demonstration, prone on the floor, tongue lolling! We discussed that when you are alert and knowing, you are conscious and when you are unconscious you are unknowing. Here in these examples it is the base element that gives the meaning despite the difference of pronunciation of the base base element in the words conscious and science.

Together we used mini matrix maker, with Felix typing in the word sums for these words with help from me. He was duly impressed when hitting ‘update’ to create the matrix and could then read many of the words contained therein. He certainly was aware of <sci> and at the end of this discussion and through the process of constructing the matrix and spelling aloud each morpheme as he added it to the matrix maker, he knew how to spell and write <science> and <scientists>. This was a first but productive step into the world of morphology and etymology.

Here is the matrix we created:

Felix’s first matrix

So what’s Felix gained in this brief session?

He :

• has heard/been introduced to terms like base element, bound base element, morpheme– this has been reinforced through kinaesthetic movement ‘ s-c-i ‘(hands up) e-n-t (hands up) i-s-t’.
• has been introduced to the terms prefix and suffix
• has become clearer about vowel letters and consonant letters ( we noted the vowel letters on our hands)
• knows that words have a story, a past history ( etymology)- he knows that the language of the Romans has come into English, often via France
• has been exposed to the concept of digraphs, two letters working together to make a phoneme ( the meaningful unit of sound in a word)
• is aware that the plural marker is <-s> is a suffix
• has seen that there is a relationship of meaning between words with the same base element

So much of this knowledge builds up and accumulates rather than a ladder like approach of ‘teach’ the term, ‘test and retest’ for understanding. Immersion and continuous exposure builds understanding.

Grade 7 Students and Science

I became further interested in the word <scientist> after a lunchtime discussion with my Grade 7 students  when discussing my ‘science’ holiday conversation ( and yes they think I am sad and obsessed!) I was prompted to ask my students about this word as they were talking about their next class, science! I wanted to see what they understood about the structure of the word. Many of the questions I asked these 12 year olds were similar to the questions I asked young Felix:

Can you think of other words that share the base <sci>?

To Felix, who had never heard of base elements, I asked the same question, but added can you build onto the word, add other suffixes, like we did with scientist and scientists?  He came up with science and then scientific. It’s this process of making the connections in meaning from the early grades right through school that is critical.

Here the Grade 7 students Tatiana, Shania and Nikki are discussing the morphology of <science> and <scientist>:

 

 

And here they are investigating the etymology of <scientist>. Intriguingly we know who coined this word< scientist>: the Rev. William Whewell- a Cambridge University polymath, as we discovered.

 

 

Here’s what they wanted to share with Felix when they realized he had been working with the base <sci>. I’m sure Felix would be interested in Whewell coining the word scientist, hence my challenge to the students. I’d also thought if he watches this, it may reinforce some of the concepts and terms we covered in our brief discussion.

 

 

Here’s what they discovered about other words sharing the same base element:

 

 

What we found interesting was the period these words entered English. Words, like physical artifacts, can be a reflection of society,of a culture, of ways of thinking. Both these girls and myself were fascinated by the gap between science ( in the late Middle English period c.1340) and Whewell’s coining of scientist (1834). It made us reflect on the process of meaning change. This word existed before the Renaissance and had a broader sense of knowledge. Since then, science, according Geoffrey Hughes, acquired the more specialized sense ‘of a discipline which rigorously follows systematic procedures of observation, experiment and deduction.’ Today it’s applied to a variety of fields. Words belonging to science , once belonged to alchemy and alchemy too spawned words in the field of mathmatics: zero, cipher, zenith and nadir as Hitchings discusses in the Secret Life of Words. Hughes lists the following words as examples of the powerful way science influences ways of thinking as these words, now common, have acquired generalized meanings:

problem (Greek) 1382

solution ( latin) 1375

experiment (Latin)1362

idea (Greek) 1531

method (Greek)1541

theorem (Greek)1551

theory (Greek)1597

diagram (Greek)1619

system (Greek)1638

Conscience, Ayenbite of Inwit and Prickes of Conscience

We were also interested also by the word conscience, <con+sci+ence>. This word entered English early in the 13th century, perhaps before science via Old French where it meant innermost thoughts, desires,intentions. This had developed from Latin conscientia with a sense of knowledge of within oneself, sense of right. Hitchings discusses The Pricke of Conscience, a popular text in Middle English, existing in over 100 manuscripts which as he states ‘boosted the profile of conscience’ replacing the expressive Middle English word ‘inwit’, later revived by Joyce in Ulysses. 

Hitchings discusses how in Latin the word conscientia indicated abstract knowledge and in English how conscience  acquires a sense of the mind, the moral faculty. By the 1350, the time The Pricke of Conscience had been written, its new meaning was entrenched indicating a ‘whole new dimension of English’ articulate about the inner world of thoughts and feelings.’ Another devotional manual of this period was written in Kent, Ayenbite of Inwyt (1340), literally the ‘again-biting of the inner wit’ , or the ‘Remorse of Conscience’ .The Pricke, of Conscience is, drawn from diverse books, but Dan Michel of Northgate’s  Ayenbite of Inwyt is apparantly a literal translation of a French treatise, entitled Le somme des Vices et de Vertues. Again Joyce alludes to this in Ulysses breathing life again into ‘ayenbite‘ a literal English rendering of Latinate ‘remorse‘.

And who exactly is Whewell?

William Whewell (1841-1866) polymath and second wrangler, Collection: Trinity College, University of Cambridge

Whewell’s agility in mathmatics led to a scholarship to Trinity College in Cambridge in 1912. Not only mathmatically agile, he too appears to have been a dab hand with words winning the Chancellor’s Gold medal for poetry in 1814. Further success occurred when he became ‘second wrangler’.  He later became fellow and tutor of his college, master and a professor of minerology and Professor of Philosophy (then called “moral theology and casuistical divinity”) from 1838 to 1855. He was childless, outlived two wives, and died falling from a horse in 1866! I am particularly amused by one of his contemporary’s statements about the Reverend Whewell: “science is his forte, omniscience is his foible”.

Wrangler

Whewell’s title of ‘second wrangler’ and not of cattle, horses, argument or even as a wearer of a particular brand of jeans ( these being the only senses in which I was familiar with the word) was another fascinating discovery.

The three senses of wrangler :

Sense 1.a One who wrangles or quarrels; an angry or noisy disputer or arguer.

?1518 Cocke Lorelles Bote sig. B.iij, Here is gylys Fogeler of ayebery..With wallys the wrangler.

b.One who engages in argument, debate, or controversy; a debater, disputant, or controversialist.

1561 T. Norton tr. J. Calvin Inst. Christian Relig. iv. xviii. f. 145v, Nowe least any wrangler shoulde stirre vs vp strife by reason of the names of sacrifice and sacrificing prest.

c. The name for each of the candidates who have been placed in the first class in the mathematical tripos at Cambridge University.

Sense 2.Western U.S. One who is in charge of a string of horses or ponies on a stock-farm; a herder.

3. Also Wrangler. A proprietary name for jeans. Freq. pl. orig. U.S.

It was so interesting to discover, as I write this post, the specialized sense of wrangler as in sense 1c (above). This term is particular to Cambridge University. According to a citation in the OED:

‘A wrangler is a student who gains first-class honours in the third year of the University’s undergraduate degree in mathematics, the Mathematical Tripos, a Cambridge mathmatical examination,that tested speed and problem-solving techniques. The term wrangler derives from the tripos and takes the form of an oral dispute or ‘wrangle’. (I am of course reminded of the digraph <wr> and its phonesthetic sense of twist as in wringing, writhing, and wracking one’s brains which must have been considerable during the wretched tripos!)

The senior wrangler is the student who gains the highest score, second wrangler being the student who gains second highest marks and indeed that was our polymath Whewell in 1816. To be awarded ‘ Senior Wrangler’ was considered “the greatest intellectual achievement attainable in Britain”. Many students in order to participate, needed to be coached like ‘racing thoroughbreds’.

According to an article in the Smithsonian:

‘Candidates typically sat for five and a half hours of exams every day for eight days—12 papers and 192 progressively more difficult questions in all. Those in contention for the title of Wrangler then sat for a further three days of examinations consisting of 63 still more testing problems. The most serious candidates invariably hired tutors and worked more or less round the clock for months. The historian Alex Craik notes that C.T. Simpson, who ranked as Second Wrangler in 1841, topped off his efforts by studying for 20 hours a day in the week before the exams and “almost broke down from over-exertion… found himself actually obliged to carry a supply of ether and other stimulants into the examinations in case of accidents.” James Wilson, who topped the rankings in 1859, had a nervous breakdown immediately after his exams; on his recovery he discovered he had forgotten all the math he ever knew except elementary algebra. And James Savage worked himself so hard that he was found dead of apoplexy in a ditch three months after being named Senior Wrangler of 1855.’ ( Smithsonian) Gruelling indeed!

The Masculinity of Wranglers

Apparently the outcome of the Tripos (named after three legged stools) involved much speculation and heavy betting. The term wrangler must have been familiar in 1890 when, shock and horror, the young and decidedly female Miss Phillipa Fawcett beat all males , scoring 13 % higher in the tripos in 1860! However, she was denied the title of Senior Wrangler, this title sacrosanct for males only until women were allowed to receive degrees at Cambridge from 1948 ( Oxford allowed this in 1920, Harvard allowed women in to medicine in 1945).

Read more about the indomitable and intellectually intrepid Miss Fawcett here– no studying all through the night for our Phillipa with head shrouded in wet towels as was the inclination of her male colleagues… rather she followed “a disciplined and orderly life,” rising at 8 a.m. and rarely going to bed later than 11 p.m., studying a mere six hours a day.

The student Philippa Fawcett in 1890. Although Cambridge allowed women to take the examinations, it did not allow them to be members of the University, nor to receive degrees until 1948! Therefore they could not be known as ‘Wranglers’, and were merely told how they had performed compared to the male candidates. Fawcett was declared to have finished “above the Senior Wrangler. The male undergraduates responded to the announcement with loud cheers and repeated calls to “Read Miss Fawcett’s name again.” Back at the college, “all the bells and gongs which could be found were rung,” there was an impromptu feast, bonfires were lit on the field hockey pitch, and Philippa was carried shoulder-high into the main hall—”with characteristic calmness,” Siklos notes, “marking herself ‘in’ on the board” as she swayed past.

Read more: The Woman who Bested Men at Math

So what next for Felix? Where could we build on from here?

• I’d make sure he was clear about vowel letters and consonants- able to use kinaesthetic movement to name the vowel letters on his hand. This will help make clear to him that every word has a vowel letter and prepare him for recognizing vowel and consonant suffixes.
• We’d perhaps begin a list of words with <-ist> as a suffix, asking the family to add to them as he came across them.
• I’d talk to him about my discoveries about the word wrangler– Felix too is deft in the art of wrangling- he can come up with good arguments as to why he should be allowed to do various things, and I know he’d be interested in the idea of senior wrangler– top mathematician and second wrangler. Perhaps from here we could build a list of digraphs. We’d have :<sc> for /s/, <wr> as one of the ways for /r/, perhaps look at  the trigraph <igh> for /ʌɪ/ as the free base element <sigh> is a homophone for the bound base <sci>.
• If we examined word <wrangler> we’d look at the suffix <-er> another agent suffix like<-ist>and continue to add to this list. Inevitably <-or> would come up and again we’d be on the look out for words containing this suffix.
• We’d certainly explore the <le> in wrangle and begin a collection and categorization of words where this final syllabic element occurs.

As is obvious from this post, one word leads to another. I would encourage Felix, as I do my Grade 7 students, to wonder about words: think about the meaning, look at the structure, make connections between words. Felix and other young students need to become aware that spelling indicates meaning and with that in mind and the fact that words tell stories of the past and give clues as to their relatives, young Felix can begin to wrangle with words and become a word scientist.