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.

Word Root Exercise: Dys

Given the current state of human civilization, this worksheet on the Greek root dys ought to be useful. It means baddifficultabnormal, and impaired. This is another of those roots that shows up all over the English language. For instance, if you work in a public school, there is, I will hazard a guess, a very good chance that the adjective dysfunctional has crossed your lips on more than one occasion.

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.

Term of Art: Neologism

“Neologism (noun): A newly coined word or phrase, or novel expression in increasing usage (as contrasted with a nonce word); a new meaning for an old word. Adjective: neological, neologistic; noun: neology, neologist; verb: neologize.

‘He landed in lexicography footnotes first, with an appendix to his M.A. thesis—listing neologisms committed by English romantic poets.’” Israel Shenker, Harmless Drudges.

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

Baseball Cards

If there is a better time than a warm afternoon in late June to post this reading on baseball cards, I can’t imagine when that would be. Here is the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that accompanies it.

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.

Walter Wallace Decodes the Rockingham Meeting House Cemetery

While I realize that it’s not most people’s idea of fun, I like to spend time in cemeteries. I appreciate funerary art. I enjoy the solemnity and quiet of cemeteries. I benefit from the perspective cemeteries provide. And, since the advent of the smartphone, I enjoy using cemeteries as a primary source in historical research. One can learn a lot about the demographics of a town by its deceased citizens.

So, I am pleased to see that my pal Walter Wallace, in Springfield, Vermont, has worked with a local cable access production company to offer this video on Puritan symbolism on gravestones at the Rockingham Meeting House, in Rockingham Vermont, where he is a docent. Incidentally, this meeting house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.

Great work, Walter!

Victor Hugo on Schools

“He who opens a school door, closes a prison.”

Victor Hugo (1802-1885)

Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.

League of 12 Cities–Dodecapolis

“Arezzo * Cerveteri * Chiusi * Cortona * Perugia * Populonia * Veii * Tarquinia-Corneto * Vetulonia * Volterra * Bolsena * Volci

The Aeolian Greeks, Ionian Greeks, and Etruscans all preserved ancient memories of how their ancestors were linked together in leagues of twelve that jointly honored a sacred place. No definitive list survives, however. The cities above are the most widely accepted modern Italian cities that have an Etruscan foundation, though there may have been three separate Etruscan leagues, each composed of twelve cities.”

Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.

Word Root Exercise: Dyn, Dyna, Dynam/o

Here, on a rainy Thursday morning, is a worksheet on the Greek word roots dyn, dyna, and dynam/o. They mean power, energy, and strength. These are, as the worksheet shows, some very productive roots in English. A number of STEM-related words start with this root, among others.

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.

Frank Zappa on Rock Journalism

“Rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read.”

Frank Zappa

Quoted in Chicago Tribune, 18 Jan. 1978

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

Anxiety

This morning seems as good a time as any to post this reading on anxiety and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. If you work with anxious kids, and if the statistics on anxiety in kids are true, I suspect you’ll find a use for this in your classroom.

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.

Memo from John Gardner

“One should fight like the devil the temptation to think well of editors. They are all, without exception–at least some of the time–incompetent or lazy. By the nature of their profession they read too much, with the result they grow jaded and cannot recognize talent though it dances in front of their eyes.”

John Gardner

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