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.

Suetonious

Posted on June 21, 2022 | Leave a comment

Suetonious: Latin Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (AD 69?—after 122) Roman biographer and antiquarian. Suetonius’ family was of the knightly class. His writings include De viris illustribus (“Concerning Illustrious Men”), short biographies of literary figures what were the ultimate source of nearly all that is known about the lives of eminent Roman authors. Lives of the Caesars, his other major work, is seasoned with bits of gossip and scandal related to the first 11 emperors; it is largely responsible for the vivid picture of Roman society and its decadent leaders that dominated historical thought until modified in modern times by the discovery of nonliterary evidence.

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

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Term of Art: Touchstone Text

Posted on June 21, 2022 | Leave a comment

“touchstone text: A book or article that serves as a model for writing assignments.”

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

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Cross of Gold Speech

Posted on June 21, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on William Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold speech,” delivered to the audience at the 1896 national convention of the Democratic Party. Bryan is often used as a metaphor for the 19th-century American Populist movement–known as the People’s Party–and indeed the party nominated Bryan as its candidate in the 1896 presidential election.

The speech itself is both a representative ideological screed of populism, but also one of the classic pieces of American rhetoric. Bryan was a gasbag, so this speech is a stem-winder. As an illustration of certain tendencies in American political discourse, this speech is nonpareil.

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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Problem of Induction

Posted on June 20, 2022 | Leave a comment

“problem of induction: Problem of justifying the inference from the characteristics of observed instances of a general concept to unobserved instances of the same concept. For example, if all emeralds I have ever seen have been green, what entitles me to draw the inference that all emeralds are green, given that my past observations do not strictly entail (or deductively imply) that are emeralds are green? May we infer that the characteristics of a sample taken from a population are characteristics of the entire population? A quality-control engineer who looks at a sample of 100 lightbulbs produced by a particular manufacturing process and finds that five are defective may conclude that 5% of all bulbs that  have been and will be produced by the process are defective. For the engineers inference to be justified, two criteria that must be met are (1) that the sample be random (i.e. every subset of 100 bulbs has an equal chance of being selected for the examination), and (2) that the sample be sufficiently large (in a mathematically precise sense). See also statistics.”

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

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Truth

Posted on June 20, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on truth along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. This is an Intellectual Devotional reading on truth as a problem in philosophy; like most of the readings I’ve developed into avenues of inquiry, this is a good general introduction to the problem of truth. But make no mistake: truth is a complex and often tendentious topic in philosophical discussions. Student interested in the topic will soon need something more substantial than this set of 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.

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The Devil’s Dictionary: Agrarian

Posted on June 17, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Agrarian, n. A politician who carries his real estate under his nails. A son of the soil who, like Aeneas, carries his father on his person.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000. 

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Bessie Smith

Posted on June 17, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Bessie Smith: (originally Elizabeth) U.S. blues and jazz singer, one of the most distinctive stylists of classic blues and the most successful black entertainer of her time. Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Smith sang popular songs as well as blues on the minstrel and vaudeville stage. She began recording in 1923 and appeared in the 1929 film St. Louis Blues. Her interpretations represent the fully realized tradition of the rural folk tradition of the blues to its urbane structure and expressiveness. A bold, supremely confident artist with a powerful voice and precise diction, she became known as ‘Empress of the Blues.’ She died from injuries sustained in a car crash, having apparently been refused treatment for reasons of racial prejudice.”

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

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The Weekly Text, 17 June 2022: Summer of Soul Lesson 3

Posted on June 17, 2022 | Leave a comment

If you’ve been following along for the past couple of Fridays, then here is the third lesson plan of the Summer of Soul unit I wrote last spring to take advantage of high interest in that superb documentary and the events it records and assesses. To carry out this lesson, the third of four, I begin with this short reading with three comprehension questions on the Baby Boomer generation as a do-now exercise. The primary work of this lesson involves this truncated reading on Woodstock and its accompanying discussion guide and note-taking worksheet.

If you would prefer longer-form materials on Woodstock, you’ll find those here. Otherwise, that’s it for another week.

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 Prophet Muhammad on Education

Posted on June 16, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave.”

Muhammad (571?-634?)

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

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Tropic of Cancer

Posted on June 10, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Tropic of Cancer: A semi-autobiographical novel (1934) in experimental form by the US writer Henry Miller (1891-1980). Unashamedly exhibitionistic, the book reflects Miller’s bohemian life and sexual activities during the 1920s and 1930s. Tropic of Capricorn (1939) is a companion volume, recalling his childhood and earlier life in the United States. Both books were banned in the United States until the 1960s. Of Tropic of Cancer, the poet and critic Ezra Pound (1885-1972) commented: ‘At last an unprintable book which is readable.’ The Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn are two parallel lines either side of the Equator between which the sun can be directly overhead at noon. Miller commented that

‘Cancer is separated from Capricorn only by an imaginary line… You live like a rock in the midst of the ocean; you are fixed while everything about you is in turbulent motion.’

A film version (1970) was directed by Joseph Strick.”

Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.

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