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.

Independent Practice: Charles Martel

Here’s another document on a figure from the early medieval period, to wit this independent practice worksheet on Charles Martel. I’m not sure why I wrote this, but I suspect it was a response to a student’s interest in this relatively important, but little-known figure in global history.

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: Grammar of Schooling

“The assumption that schools have certain invariable features, such as classrooms, teachers, subjects, textbooks, tests, report cards, rewards and sanctions, a certain architecture, and a certain layout of the classroom. Education historians David Tyack and William Tobin are credited with the phrase and the observation that the grammar of schooling is remarkably resistant to change.”

Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.

Cultural Literacy: Academic Freedom

I know I’ve beaten this trope to death lately, which doesn’t make it any less true that our current zeitgeist offers the perfect time to post something like this Cultural Literacy worksheet on academic freedom.

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.

A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “End of a Villain”

OK, here is a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “End of a Villain.”

I use this cultural literacy worksheet on the American idiom “Once in a Blue Moon” to begin this lesson after the class change that brings students into my classroom. Here, from a Crime and Puzzlement book itself, are the illustration, text, and questions that drive this lesson. Finally, here is the answer key for 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.

Book of Answers: The Red and the Black

“In The Red and the Black, what do the colors stand for? In Stendahl’s 1830 novel, the red refers to Napoleon’s colors or the military life, the black to the clergy or religious life.”

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

Genre

“In a broad sense, the term may refer to a type of art, such as landscape or portraiture, within the general category of painting; in a specialized sense, it refers to the portrayal of scenes from unidealized daily life: domestic and tavern scenes, musicales, Fetes champetres, etc. The term applies especially to painting. Genre scenes can be the entire subject or just a detail in a nongenre picture. Explored as a distinct type of Baroque painting in the Low Countries.”

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

The Problem of Evil

This seems like as good (or the best) a time as any to post this short reading on the problem of evil and vocabulary building and comprehension worksheet that accompanies it. This has tended to be high-interest material for the students I’ve served in my career, particularly high school juniors and seniors.

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.

Rotten Reviews: On John Milton

“His fame is gone out like a candle in a snuff and his memory will always stink.”

William Winstanley, diary 1687

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

Learning Support: Timeline of World History

Somewhere, and I’ll post it in the future, I have an entire lesson that attends this brief timeline of world history. For now, I think this document has merit per se.

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.

Cultural Literacy: Wounded Knee

Here is a Cultural Literacy exercise on Wounded Knee and the tragic events that occurred there. It is short, so it serves only as an introduction to the subject, which absolutely warrants greater scrutiny and analysis.

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.