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.

Cultural Literacy: Conspicuous Consumption

Posted on September 6, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of conspicuous consumption–an idea which requires attention, I submit, in our benighted age. This is a simple, half-page worksheet with a two-sentence reading and two comprehension questions.

Which includes a reference to Thorstein Veblen, the progenitor of the idea of conspicuous consumption, as well as conspicuous leisure. Veblen is, I think, an important figure in the history of American thought. I’ve posted several quotes from him on this blog, which you can find simply by searching his name in the search bar above.

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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Common Errors in English Usage: God, god (n)

Posted on September 6, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here, once again informed by Paul Brians’ book Common Errors in English Usage, is a worksheet on knowing when to capitalize the noun god and when not to. This is a full-page worksheet with a short, informative reading and ten modified cloze exercises.

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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Summerhill

Posted on September 5, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Summerhill: A private English boarding school founded in 1921 by A.S. Neill to implement his belief in the value of eliminating all compulsion from children’s lives. The school was initially opened under a different name in Germany in 1921; in 1923, the school moved to a house called Summerhill in Lyme Regis in the south of England, where it enrolled five pupils. Enrollment was never more than a few dozen students, but the school gained an international reputation because of its radical belief in children’s freedom and Neill’s widely read publications. His book Summerhill was a bestseller in the United States in the 1960s and became required reading in hundreds of universities. Neill was a spokesman for the most permissive wing of the progressive education movement, proposing that children should be free to decide how to live, what to learn, and whether they wanted to learn. Neill believed that ‘the function of the child is to live his own life—not the life that his anxious parents think he should live, nor a life according to the purpose of the educator who thinks he knows best.’”

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

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Anarchism

Posted on September 5, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on anarchism along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

This is a relatively short reading, but nonetheless a good general introduction to anarchist philosophy. It also effectively introduces some key figures in the history of anarchism, and allows that this was a political movement that often used violence as a means to achieve its ends. Because many of the teenagers I have served over the years have been what I guess I would call “natural anarchists,” certain students in my classes have taken a relatively high interest in this material.

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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Term of Art: Tracking

Posted on September 5, 2021 | Leave a comment

“tracking: A common instructional practice that assigns students to courses or curriculum programs with others who have similar academic goals or skills. Tracking often occurs as a result of student self-selection into programs or courses of varying levels of difficulty. In the past, tracking referred to the two separate paths that students chose to follow: college or a vocation. Currently, however, the term tracking is used to almost interchangeably with the term ability grouping and applies to all grade levels. As currently used, it refers to a decision by the school to place students in different classes according to their ability levels, the rationale being that it enables teachers to provide the same level of instruction to each group. This practice is criticized, however, by those who fear that students in low-level ability groups (or tracks) never gain access to challenging instruction.”

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

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Cultural Literacy: Green Revolution

Posted on September 5, 2021 | Leave a comment

Now seems like a good time to post this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the green revolution. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two longish sentences and three comprehension questions.

For the record, this document deals with the increase in the 1960s and 1970s in the production of cereals like wheat and rice due to advances in the productivity in seeds and innovations in agricultural technology, and not any kind of political revolution.

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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The Devil’s Dictionary: Adherent

Posted on September 5, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Adherent, n. A follower who has not yet obtained all that he expects to get.” 

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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The Weekly Text, 3 September 2021: A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Cookie Jar”

Posted on September 1, 2021 | Leave a comment

This week’s Text is a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “Cookie Jar.” I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the French noun phrase coup de grace. This is a half-page worksheet with a three-sentence reading and three comprehension questions. Let me caution you that its not the cheeriest of material: remember that the original meaning of coup de grace is “a death blow or death shot administered to end the suffering of one mortally wounded.” If you want a better do-now for this lesson, there are thousands of them on this blog–just go to the word cloud on the home page and click on “context clues” or “cultural literacy.”

To conduct your investigation into the heinous crime committed in this lesson, you’ll need this PDF scan of the illustration and questions that serve, respectively, and the evidence and investigative points for solving the case. Finally, here is the typescript of the answer key to help you bring the offender to justice.

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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Posted in English Language Arts, Lesson Plans, Social Sciences, The Weekly Text, Worksheets

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Theodore Adorno

Posted on September 1, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Theodore Adorno: (1903-1969): German philosopher, one of the most prominent members of the Frankfurt School. With Max Horkheimer, he attacked the philosophical premises of the Enlightenment tradition. Steeped in Marxist theory, Adorno believed that capitalism turned culture into a ‘fetish,’ an instrument of repression; but contrary to Marx, he took a strongly pessimistic view of the long-term course of history. Instead of progress toward the freedom and fulfillment of all individuals, he saw increasing cultural and political enslavement to the capitalist economic system, aided by technology and ‘instrumental reason.’ He called this process the ‘dialectic of the Enlightenment.’ Adorno was haunted by the question of how intellectuals could perform a critical social role without being co-opted by exactly the forces that they sought to criticize; he worried that social criticism might become a part of the problem rather than a part of the solution.

Adorno, who studied composition under Arnold Schoenberg, also wrote extensively about music. Some of his more important works in English translation include Negative Dialectics (1966), Dialectic of Enlightenment (1972), Minima Moralia (1974), and Aesthetic Theory (1984).”

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

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Cultural Literacy: Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

Posted on September 1, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on gross domestic product (GDP). This is a half-page worksheet with three sentences and three comprehension questions. In spite of its brevity–or perhaps because of it, because the basic concept of GDP is simple–this is a good basic explanation of this broad measure of economic activity in a nation state, state, or province.

I would think this would be useful in just about any social studies class, but especially in the second half of high school.

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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