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.

4 Humours

Posted on April 1, 2019 | Leave a comment

“Sanguine * Choleric * Melancholic * Phlegmatic

The Four Humours or Temperaments were a foundation of European medieval medical philosophy. The ideal was for a balance of the four, which were conceived to be based on the properties of blood (Sanguis), yellow bile (Khole), black bile (Melas), and Phlegm in the body.

A predominance of Sanguine was believed to create an easy-going, sociable, pleasure-seeking type. A choleric character was fiery, strident, and ambitious. Melancholic was watery and emotional and created thoughtful, introverted and intellectual types. Phlegmatic was slow and earthy but also governed the most relaxed, content and quiet of types.”

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.

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Oppositional Defiant Disorder

Posted on April 1, 2019 | Leave a comment

Over the winter, I finished some materials for health literacy that I’d been procrastinated on for, literally, years. I’ll be posting these regularly over the next couple of years, I suppose–I have a total of 76 of them.

Anyway, this reading on oppositional defiant disorder and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet strike me as a good place to start: this has turned out to be relatively high-interest material to the students in whose interest I currently toil.

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: Greece

Posted on April 1, 2019 | Leave a comment

For you global studies (or world history, or whatever your district calls it), teachers, here, if you can use it, is an independent practice worksheet on Greece.

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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Ursula Le Guin Prescribes a Lifestyle

Posted on March 29, 2019 | Leave a comment

“When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.”

Ursula Le Guin

The Left Hand of Darkness ch. 3 (1969)

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

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Everyday Edit: Anne Frank

Posted on March 28, 2019 | Leave a comment

Here is an Everyday Edit worksheet on Anne Frank. And let me say for the last time this month, to give credit where credit where credit is overwhelmingly due, that if you and your students like working on these short grammar exercises, the good people at Education World generously give away a yearlong supply of them–just click on that long hyperlink.

You don’t need to bother with advising me on typos in this document–they’re there for a reason.

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Princess Diana

Posted on March 27, 2019 | Leave a comment

OK, here is a reading on Princess Diana and the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that accompanies it. I have been surprised at how many of the young women I teach took an interest in this.

But then, I guess I’ve never understand the appeal or allure of the British royal family. I know it’s harsh, but I have always concurred with Elvis Costello’s assessment of the royals, uttered in a 1989 interview with Rolling Stone magazine. When asked about playing at a  Prince’s Trust benefit concert at Buckingham Palace, Costello replied: “No. I wouldn’t do anything with the royal family. They’re scum. Why do we subsidize this family of buffoons? What makes them so damn important? I just don’t understand why we subsidize people who seem to just go on holiday all the time. So no, you won’t be seeing Elvis Costello live at Buckingham Palace.”

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 Trenchant Louisa May Alcott

Posted on March 25, 2019 | Leave a comment

“Women have been called queens for a long time, but the kingdom given them isn’t worth ruling.”

Louisa May Alcott

An Old-Fashioned Girl ch. 13 (1870)

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

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Everyday Edit: Dolley Madison

Posted on March 25, 2019 | Leave a comment

Let’s start the final week of Women’s History Month 2019 at Mark’s Text Terminal with this Everyday Edit worksheet on Dolley Madison.

Incidentally (if I haven’t previously clouted this point into tedium), if you like these Everyday Edit worksheets, you can find a year’s supply them at Education World, where the proprietors of that site give them away for free.

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Cultural Literacy: Pocahontas

Posted on March 22, 2019 | Leave a comment

Alright, it’s Tuesday again. Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Pocahontas. I expect this is probably relatively high interest material for certain kids, and certainly those kids who are familiar with the Disney movie about this extraordinary 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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Harper Lee on Power and the Law

Posted on March 22, 2019 | Leave a comment

“But there in one way in this country in which all men are created equal–there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentleman, is a court”

Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird ch. 20 (1960)

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

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