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.

Term of Art: Analogy

analogy: A comparison between two different but related things. The ability to comprehend and create analogies is an important component of critical reasoning capabilities. For example, an analogy might compare the biological process of a tree growing from a small seed to a tall oak, to the human process of development from infancy to adulthood. This analogy would be written;

SEED : OAK AS INFANT : ADULT

Another type of analogy is the visual analogy. For example, in a 2 X 2 cell grid, the two cells on the left might contain blue strs, and the top cell on the right might contain a green square. The person taking the test must then select which of several presented figures (including the correct green square) mts go in the empty cell.

For some students with learning disabilities, understanding analogies may be very difficult. They may process information in fairly concrete ways, and miss more subtle connections between dissimilar things.

Often, however, the ability to reason analogically is a relative strength for students with learning disabilities.”

Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.

Howard Hughes

Somehow, about six years ago, a struggling student I served improbably found her way to the late Jonathan Demme’s early and critically acclaimed film “Melvin and Howard.” The film is a fictionalized account of Melvin Dummar’s account of encountering Howard Hughes in the Utah desert and giving him a ride to Las Vegas. You can click through on the links to read more about this implausible story.

Anyway, my student, an inquisitive young woman, wanted to know more about Howard Hughes. I worked up this reading on Howard Hughes and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet to supply her with some context for understanding the story in “Melvin and Howard.” Incidentally, I watched the movie myself and didn’t care much for it. Having since seen several of his films, I learned that Jonathan Demme just wasn’t my kind of filmmaker, though I did think his rendition of “The Silence of the Lambs” was the best of the various productions around the legend of the brilliant serial killer, cannibal, and psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter.

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.

Suprematism

“Suprematism: An outgrowth of Rayonism, but more immediately of Analytic Cubism, suprematism was a Russian movement founded in 1915 by Kazimir Malevich, who used the circle, rectangle, triangle, and cross as the basis of a purely abstract style and as a vehicle for his spiritual ideas. Suprematism proved highly significant in the development of Constructivism, despite the latter’s more utilitarian outlook.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

Rotten Reviews: The Handmaid’s Tale

Norman Mailer, wheezing lewd approval of some graphic images he encountered in the writing of Germaine Greer, remarked that ‘a wind in this prose whistled up the kilt of male conceit.’ Reading Margaret Atwood, I don my kilt but the wind never comes. Just a cold breeze.”

The American Spectator

Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998  

Atlanta

Here is a reading on Atlanta and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. It’s a short history of the city if you have students interested.

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.

A Lesson Plan on the Fall of Rome

OK! This lesson plan on the Fall of Rome, as below, is the tenth of ten lessons, logically and chronologically, from a global studies unit on ancient Rome.

This lesson opens, if you are so inclined, with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on, unsurprisingly, the fall of Rome. If the lesson continues into a second day, then you might want this context clues worksheet on the verb submit, which is used both intransitively and transitively.

And, lastly for this, the tenth of ten posts (see below), here is the short reading and comprehension questions that are the principal work of this lesson.

That’s it. I hope this material is useful.

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.

A Lesson Plan on Constantine I

Moving along to number nine in a global studies unit of ten lessons on ancient Rome, here is a lesson plan on Constantine I, the first Christian emperor of Rome.

I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the noun wrath; if the lesson goes into a second day as you use it (and as I intended for my own use), then here is another context clues worksheet on the noun legacy.

This is the reading on Constantine I and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that are the work of this lesson.

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.

Lares

“Lares: Household gods of the ancient Romans, usually referred to in the singular (lar), there being one lar to a household. The lares were protective, and were usually deified ancestors or heroes. The lars familiaris was the spirit of the founder of the house who, never leaving, accompanied his descendants in all their changes. See PENATES.”

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

A Lesson Plan on Rome and Christianity

As above and below, this lesson plan on Rome and Christianity is number eight of a ten-lesson global studies unit on ancient Rome.

This lesson opens with this context clues worksheet on the noun treaty as well as a on the verb unite (it’s used both intransitively and transitively) if the lesson, as I intended for my own use, continues into a second day. And here is the reading and comprehension questions that are at the center of this lesson.

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.

Academy

“Academy: Originally, the garden near Athens where Plato taught. Art academies developed in reaction to medieval guilds and became schools for the practical and theoretical training of artists, elevating their status in society. In baroque times they were universities of art, and they continued as powerful arbiters of taste until the end of the 19th century. Rigorous study of the human form and highly structured teaching based on classical standards characterized most academy instruction.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.