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.

The Weekly Text, 18 April 2025: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on the Second Great Awakening

Posted on April 17, 2025 | Leave a comment

The other morning, one of my favorite shows on National Public Radio, On the Media ran a repeat show on Christian Nationalism, the latest scary manifestation of religious lunacy in the United States. The guest, Matthew Taylor, explained well this latest manifestation of what is basically a form of aggressive Protestant cultural militancy with something of a long history in this country.

So, now seems like a good time to post this reading on the Second Great Awakening along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. And if you are so inspired, you might familiarize yourself with the term “Burned-over district.”

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.

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The Doubter’s Companion: Barons: Robber, Press, Etc.

Posted on April 11, 2025 | Leave a comment

“Barons: Robber, Press, Etc.: Individuals operating in spite of—or perhaps thanks to—a severe inferiority complex transformed into megalomania.

As Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller demonstrated, the robber variety can find some inner peace through the semi-physical therapy of having people make and do things. A select few may even come to resemble the sort of medieval barons who bullied King John into signing the Magna Carta. The press sector offers less scope for improvement. Devoid of practical therapeutic tools, it leaves the mentally unstable to pontificate publicly while using their power to bully others into silence. So long as the widespread ownership of newspapers prevents them from limiting the public’s general freedom of speech, these unhappy individuals provide others with the welcome distraction of colorful comic relief.”

Excerpted from: Saul, John Ralston. The Doubter’s Companion. New York: The Free Press, 1994.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Social Sciences

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Word Origins: Fascism

Posted on March 28, 2025 | Leave a comment

“fascism: [E20th] The term fascism was first used of the right-wing nationalist regime of Mussolini in Italy (1922-1943), the Partito Nazionale Fascista (National Fascist Party), and later applied to the regimes of Franco in Spain and the Nazis in Germany. It comes for the Latin fascis “bundle.” In ancient Rome the fasces were the bundle of rods, with an axe through them, carried in front of the magistrate as a symbol of his power to punish people.”

Excerpted from: Creswell, Julia. Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

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Cultural Literacy: Carry Nation

Posted on March 28, 2025 | Leave a comment

OK, for the final documents post of Women’s History Month 2025, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Carry Nation, the once-famous temperance crusader. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences and two comprehension questions.

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.

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Cultural Literacy: Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Posted on March 28, 2025 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Elizabeth Cady Stanton. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences, the first a bit long, and three comprehension questions.

Incidentally, the reading on this document terminates with the imperative to “See Seneca Falls Convention” in parentheses.  You’ll find a Cultural Literacy worksheet on that event here.

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.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, New York City, Social Sciences, Worksheets

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The Weekly Text, 28 March 2025, Women’s History Month Week IV: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Edith Wharton

Posted on March 28, 2025 | Leave a comment

For the fourth and final Friday of Women’s History Month 2025, here is a reading on Edith Wharton with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

And that is it for Women’s History Month for 2025.

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.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, New York City, Social Sciences, The Weekly Text, Worksheets

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Cultural Literacy: Eleanor Roosevelt

Posted on March 21, 2025 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Eleanor Roosevelt. This a half-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences–all of them elegantly simple, single-clause sentences–and three comprehension questions. Just the basics, and if you need more, search “Eleanor Roosevelt” from the home page.

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.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Social Sciences, Worksheets

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Cultural Literacy: Ayn Rand

Posted on March 21, 2025 | Leave a comment

Here, against my better judgment, is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Ayn Rand. This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences–beware the first of them, a doozy of a compound that I am convinced would best be revised and shortened for struggling and emergent readers–and four comprehension questions.

Why “against my better judgment”? I suppose because I find Ayn Rand’s (born in Russia as Alisa Zinoyevna Rosenbaum) “objectivist” philosophy to be little more than a simple minded rationale, dressed up in the most tawdry, yet soaring, rhetoric, for the worst kind of selfishness.

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.

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The Weekly Text, 21 March 2025, Women’s History Month Week III: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Dorothea Lange

Posted on March 21, 2025 | Leave a comment

For the third week of Women’s History Month 2025, here is a reading on Dorothea Lange along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. If you have any students interested in photography, particularly the history of the medium, this material on Dorothea Lange, who was a contemporary and friend of Ansel Adams, should do the trick.

If you want to dig deeper–or your student does–here is a series of eleven worksheets on famous photographers, along with a twelfth on Gordon Parks that is anything but an afterthought–indeed, it was the first of these I prepared.

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.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Social Sciences, The Weekly Text, Worksheets

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Cultural Literacy: Helen Keller

Posted on March 14, 2025 | Leave a comment

OK, moving right along this morning, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Helen Keller. This is a full-page worksheet (which could be pared down to a half-page very easily) with a reading of four sentences and four comprehension questions. This is a basic biography of an important American woman.

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.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Social Sciences, Worksheets

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