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, February 28, 2020, Black History Month 2020 Week IV: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Shaka Zulu

OK, here, for the final Friday of Black History Month 2020, is a reading on Shaka Zulu 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.

Langston Hughes on a Dream Deferred

“What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore—

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—

Like a syrupy sweet?

 

Maybe it just sags

Like a heavy load.

 

Or does it explode?”

Langston Hughes

“Harlem” l. 1 (1951)

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

Cultural Literacy: Sharecropping

OK, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on sharecropping, which is the last Cultural Literacy worksheet in my warehouse that deals with topics related to Black History Month. This may well be the least of them. As I look at it this morning, I think I could only use this to introduce the basic concept of sharecropping. In other words, this short exercise does not deal with the practice of sharecropping as a system of economic oppression, and therefore, in most respects, a continuation of slavery,

So, use advisedly, if I may say so.

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.

Contract (n/vi/vt)

Here are two context clues worksheets on contract as both a noun and a verb. As a verb, on the second worksheet, contract is used in the sense of limit, restrict, and to reduce to a smaller size. Contract is used in this sense both intransitively and transitively.

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 Learning

OK, moving right along on this beautiful morning in southwestern Vermont, here is a lesson plan on learning. You’ll need this short reading and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. If you need or want them, here are slightly longer versions of those documents.

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.

Book of Answers: What Is A Moor?

“What is a Moor? The Moors were the mixed Arab and Berber conquerors of Spain in the eighth century. In literature, the most famous member of this ethnic group is Othello, the Moor of Venice (c. 1604).”

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

Cultural Literacy: Plessy v. Ferguson

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Plessy v. Ferguson. That’s the Supreme Court decision, to refresh memories that probably don’t really need it, that made “separate but equal” the law of the land in the United States for almost six decades–and legitimized racism.

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.

Duke Ellington on Fate

“Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn’t want me to famous too young.”

Duke Ellington

Quoted in N.Y. Times Magazine, 12 September 1965

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

The Weekly Text, February 21, 2020, Black History Month 2020 Week III: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Muddy Waters

For the end of Week III of Black History Month 2020, here is a short reading on the late, great Muddy Waters along with the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that attends it.

[Addendum: first, here is a very cool image of Muddy Waters by the great illustrator Drew Friedman; if it weren’t sold out, I would definitely buy it–I’ve already collected a few of Mr. Friedman’s prints. Second, here is Muddy Waters’ appearance at the farewell concert of The Band in 1976, “The Last Waltz.”]

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.

Term of Art: Heuristic

“Heuristic (adjective): Serving as the discovery of truth or furthering investigation, as in the case of a useful and stimulating (if not logical or conclusive) method, presentation, or argument, and especially one used by a student to learn for himself. Adverb: heuristically; noun: heuristic.

‘My coarse distinctions between two kinds of fiction are useful heuristically, but they give a damaging impression of clear boundaries and a misleading impression of two armed camps.’ Annie Dillard, Living by Fiction”

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.