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: Jargon

Posted on April 14, 2020 | Leave a comment

If there is a better moment to post this Cultural Literacy worksheet on jargon, I don’t know when it would be. And thanks (!) to all the medical and health sciences professionals who have familiarized the public on the jargon it uses to discuss viruses and their spread; you’ve made this pandemic, to the greatest extent possible, less abstruse and frightening to this member of the public.

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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Term of Art: Welfare State

Posted on April 14, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Welfare State: A term that emerged in the 1940s to describe situations where the state has a major responsibility for welfare provision via social security systems, offering services and benefits to meet people’s basic needs for housing, health, education, and income. More recently, fiscal crises and the influence of libertarianism and other New Right ideas have led many Western democratic governments to make major retrenchments in welfare states.”

Excerpted from: Marshall, Gordon, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

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Posted in Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

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Sugar

Posted on April 14, 2020 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on sugar, certainly a cornerstone of my own nutrition-free diet, and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

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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Jacques Barzun on Baseball

Posted on April 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game–and do it by watching first some high school or small-town teams.”

Jacques Barzun

God’s Country and Mine ch. 8 (1954)

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

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A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Vineyard Gothic”

Posted on April 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

Here is a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “Vineyard Gothic.”

I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the metaphor “gilded cage.” You’ll need this PDF of the illustrations and questions of this case to conduct your investigation. Finally, as always, here is the typescript of the answer key to solve the case.

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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Independent Practice: Samurai

Posted on April 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

OK: here is an independent practice worksheet on samurai. This material is fundamental to understanding feudal Japan, as well as one of the greatest films of all time, Akira Kurosawa’s masterful (I was going to say masterpiece, but Kurosawa produced many masterpieces) Seven Samurai.

If you’ve seen The Magnificent Seven, than you’ve seen Seven Samurai–though arguably a lesser version of it.

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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Word Root Exercise: Ped, Pedi and -Pede

Posted on April 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the Latin word roots ped pedi and pede. These roots in Latin mean simply foot and feet and give use words in English like pedestrian and pedicure. Needless to say, this is a very productive root in English

Please take care not to confuse these Latin roots with the Greek root ped: in Greek, this root, also very productive in English gives us words like pediatrics and pedagogy. I have a worksheet on the Greek root as well, and will publish it in the next couple of days.

Aside: is there a lesson in comparative linguistics here? If the foot is the base of the human body, can childhood be the base of human life? This is a thought I’ve gotten stuck on a time or two. What do you think?

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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Ivan Illich on the Circumscribed Life

Posted on April 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

“In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.”

Ivan Illich

Tools for Conviviality, ch. 3 (1973)

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

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Deport (vt)

Posted on April 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

While I regret posting this at a particularly toxic political moment for vulnerable people on the move across the globe, here nonetheless is a context clues worksheet on the verb deport. It is only used transitively as, alas, people seeking a better life have so harshly learned.

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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William Holmes McGuffey

Posted on April 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

“William Holmes McGuffey: (1800-1873) American educator and textbook compiler, College teacher and president, McGuffey was known to thousands of Americans as the author of their first schoolbook. The series began in 1836, with the First and Second Readers. The Primer, Third, and Fourth Readers appeared in 1837, the Speller, and the Rhetorical Guide in 1841, the Fifth and Sixth Readers in 1844 and 1857. He collaborated with his younger brother, Alexander Hamilton McGuffey, on the “Eclectic Series.” The books sold 122 million copies, with new editions issued as late as 1920. McGuffey was a political conservative who supported the Hamiltonians rather than the Jeffersonians; his Readers reflect his point of view.”

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

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