Category Archives: Social Sciences

You’ll find domain-specific material designed to meet Common Core Standards in social studies, along with adapted and differentiated materials that deal with a broad array of conceptual knowledge in the social sciences. See the Taxonomies page for more about this category.

Cultural Literacy: Clara Barton

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Clara Barton. This is a half-page worksheet–in other words there are two copies on a single piece of paper. There are three questions.

Ms. Barton, who lived a very long life, is well known as the founder of the American Red Cross. She was a self-educated nurse during the Civil War, long before nursing became an academic discipline and the practice assumed professional standards. She was a friend to Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass, upon making whose acquaintance she became, respectively an activist for women’s suffrage and for civil rights. Her accomplishments are many, which is why her name is memorialized around the United States in the names of streets, schools, and medical institutions, and why in 1973 the National Women’s Hall of Fame inducted her into its ranks.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Florence Nightingale on the Definitions of Men

“No man, not even a doctor, ever gives any other definition of what a nurse should be than this—‘devoted and obedient.’ This definition would do just as well for a porter. It might even do for a horse. It would not do for a policeman.”

Florence Nightingale, Notes on Nursing (1860)

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

The Weekly Text, 19 March 2021, Women’s History Month 2021 Week III: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Marie Curie and Radium

This week’s Text, in observance of Women’s History Month 2021, is a reading on Marie Curie and radium with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Over time, there will be a variety of Marie Curie-related material on this blog: I have several things in a Women’s History Month folder, and there is already a brief biography of her posted on Mark’s Text Terminal.

This reading concerns Madame Curie’s work with radium, and the extent to which her discoveries about the element drove innovations in medical care, particularly the x-ray and radiotherapy for cancer treatment, as well as radium’s utility as a way to understand the structure of the atom. The reading also contains a brief biography of Madame Curie and her husband. I hadn’t realized that Marie Curie coined the term “radioactive.”

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Fran Lebowitz on Rearing Children

“Your responsibility as a parent is not as great as you might imagine. You need not supply the world with the next conqueror of disease or a major movie star. If your child simply grows up to be someone who does not use the word ‘collectible’ as a noun, you can consider yourself an unqualified success.”

Fran Lebowitz, Social Studies “Parental Guidance” (1981)

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

Cultural Literacy: Feminism

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on feminism. This is about as bare bones as these worksheets come: a one-sentence reading followed by one question.

Nonetheless, it is a solid basic introduction to feminism, and something that could prompt a conversation on, among other things, whether feminism is a “radical ideology.”

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Belva Lockwood on Women and the Law

[Arguing for the admittance of women to practice law before the U.S. Supreme Court;] “The glory of each generation is to make its own precedents.”

Belva Lockwood, Speech to National Convention of Woman Suffrage Association, Washington, D.C., 16-17 Jan. 1877

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

Cultural Literacy: Geraldine Ferraro

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman, in 1984, nominated to run on a presidential ticket.

Specifically, Ms. Ferraro, at the time a United States Congresswoman, was nominated as the vice-presidential candidate on the ticket the included Walter Mondale, himself a former vice president in the administration of President Jimmy Carter. She served first in 1993 as a delegate to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, after which President Bill Clinton elevated her to the position of United States Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council. Along the way, she served in the various kinds of think-tank and media sinecures (including a time on CNN’s execrable “Crossfire,” as well as on Fox News) generally available to retired politicians.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Book of Answers: Mary Shelley’s Science Fiction Novel

“What Mary Shelley novel is sent in the future? The Last Man (1826). Set in the twenty-first century, it depicts England as a republic and describes the destruction of humanity by plague.”

Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

Cultural Literacy: Charlotte and Emily Bronte

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Charlotte and Emily Bronte. Are the Brontes taught in high school?

If nothing else, this is an interesting artistic family: lesser-known sister Anne also a writer, perhaps because she originally published her novels under the name Acton Bell which may account for her public status among her more famous sister; she also died young, at 29, of tuberculosis. She was also the youngest of six children–in addition to the four siblings mentioned here, two elder sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, rounded out the family. Branwell Bronte, also a writer and an accomplished translator, was also a painter, for which he is primarily known. He too died young, the result of unhappiness and, apparently, drug addiction.

The patriarch of the family, Patrick Bronte (Branwell Bronte carried the full name Patrick Branwell Bronte, after his father and his mother’s–Maria Branwell–maiden name), was a clergyman of humble Irish origins.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Jane Addams

“Jane Addams: (1860-1935) American leader in social work and in the pacifist and woman suffrage movements. Addams is famous for her pioneering work as cofounder of Hull House, Chicago, one of the first and most influential settlement houses in America. In 1931 she shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Nicholas Murray Butler. Besides a number of books and articles on social problems, Addams wrote two autobiographical works: Twenty Years at Hull House (1910) and The Second Twenty Years at Hull House (1931).”

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