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.

Paulo Freire

Posted on September 19, 2018 | Leave a comment

“Paulo Freire (1921-1997): Brazilian educator. His ideas developed from his experience teaching literacy to Brazil’s peasants. His interactive methods, which encouraged peasants fo question the teacher, often led to literacy in as little as 30 hours of instruction. In 1963 he was appointed director of the Brazilian National Literacy Program, but he was jailed following a military coup in 1964. He went into exile, returning in 1979 to help found the Workers Party. His seminal work is Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970).”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Essays/Readings, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

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Cultural Literacy: The Columbian Exchange

Posted on September 19, 2018 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Columbian Exchange, also known as the Triangle–or Triangular–Trade. If you made your way to this post, then I must assume that you recognize and understand the importance of this topic for understanding the world today.

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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Independent Practice: Incan Civilization

Posted on September 19, 2018 | Leave a comment

Continuing with Hispanic Heritage Month 2018 on Mark’s Text Terminal, here are two independent practice worksheets on Incan Civilization.

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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Miguel Barnet

Posted on September 18, 2018 | Leave a comment

“Cuban novelist, poet, and essayist. Born in Havana, he was educated in an American school before the revolutionary years, but in his early adulthood became deeply involved in Cuban sociology, geography, and anthropology, particularly ethnology and folklore. Applying his rich literary imagination to those disciplines, he invented anew novelistic form, the testimonial novel, initiated by his Biografia de un cimarron (1966; tr The Autobiography of a Runaway Slave, 1968). The work is based on the memoirs of a black Cuban centenarian, Esteban Montejo, who experienced slavery, the life of a maroon, the anticolonial struggle, and the disillusionment of continuing racism after independence from Spain in 1898. Barnet continued to develop the genre in his books Cancion de Rachel (1968), Gallego (1981), and La vida real (1986), several of which were made into films. Also an outstanding poet, his books of poetry have appeared at regular intervals since his La Piedra fina y el pavo real (1963), and include La Sagrada familia (1967), winner of the Casa de las Americas prize.”

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

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Cultural Literacy: The Monroe Doctrine

Posted on September 18, 2018 | Leave a comment

If you scroll down one post below this one, you’ll find another Cultural Literacy worksheet on Manifest Destiny. To add a corollary to that, here is another Cultural Literacy worksheet, this one on the Monroe Doctrine.

It is this policy, I think, that has led the United States into making common cause with vicious tyrants across Latin America, but particularly General Augusto Pinochet, Rafael Trujillo, three members of the Somoza Family, and the genocidal Guatemalan strongman, Efrain Rios Montt–and calling him genocidal is no exaggeration, reader, as this particular moral cretin was on trial for genocide when he died.

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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9 Mexican Posadas

Posted on September 18, 2018 | Leave a comment

“The nine Mexican Posadas are a series of dances, candlelit processions, recitals and songs held over the nine nights before Christmas, They tell the story of the Holy Family (the pregnant Mary and Joseph) traveling out of Galilee to Judea to try to reach Bethlehem, On the last night, Joseph once again sings his desperate refrain to an empty door–‘the night is cold and dark and the wind blows hard’–before May accidentally reveals that beneath their travel-worn cloaks she is Queen of Heaven and she is welcomed into a stable by the animals. Then a dance of honour is held and a ‘pinata’ is demolished by a blindfold young lady wielding a cane to shower sweets over the celebrants.”

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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Cultural Literacy: Manifest Destiny

Posted on September 18, 2018 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Manifest Destiny. You will note that I have posted this during Hispanic Heritage Month 2018, and so tagged it using my coding system. I find that editorial decision requires a mild defense.

Manifest Destiny, narrowly defined, refers to a belief in the United States, among its government and citizens, that the nation was obviously destined (simply another way of saying “Manifest Destiny”) to occupy North America in its entirety. Because this frame of mind informed, like it or not, United States policy across Latin America, it is an frame of inquiry in studying Hispanic History. Ergo, it ends up as a Hispanic Heritage Month post here.

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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George Santayana on Fanaticism

Posted on September 17, 2018 | Leave a comment

“Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.”

George Santayana

The Life of Reason vol I, ch 10 (1905)

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

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Puerto Rico

Posted on September 17, 2018 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on Puerto Rico and a comprehension worksheet to accompany it in observance of Hispanic Heritage Month 2018.

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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General Smedley Butler on His Role in Latin America and Elsewhere

Posted on September 16, 2018 | Leave a comment

[This famous quote from General Smedley D. Butler, nicely encapsulates the deleterious role the United States Government played in preventing sovereignty and economic independence across Latin America.]

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

Smedley D. Butler, War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America’s Most Decorated Soldier (Port Townshend, Washington: Feral House, 2003).

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