Tag Archives: questioning/inquiry

A Lesson Plan on the Sciences as a Cause of History

Here is a lesson plan on the sciences as a cause of history. I used this Cultural Literacy worksheet on class (i.e. social class) to open this lesson. Finally, here is the combination worksheet and note-taking blank that students use for this brainstorming and discussion lesson on how the sciences influence the process of history.

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.

The Greatest Game Ever Played

Here is a reading on “The Greatest Game Ever Played,” which, in the opinion of many, apparently, was the December 1958 contest in Yankee Stadium between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants. This vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet  accompanies the reading. This short reading characterizes this football game as the birth of the modern NFL.

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.

Cultural Literacy: The Quality of Mercy

OK, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Portia’s “Quality of Mercy” speech from The Merchant of Venice. I did find it interesting, when I went to check my recall of the character in the play who gave the speech (I’ve only seen the play once), and searched for “who gives the quality of mercy speech in the merchant of venice,” what I got as far as “who gives” and Google auto-filled with “a crap.”

Such cynical times we live in!

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 Assessing Arguments

As I near the end of 2019, I’m developing new materials (e.g. look here, in 2020, for new social studies materials based in Judith C. Hochman and Natalie Wexler’s The Writing Revolution method of instructional design, as well as a new type of vocabulary-building worksheet derived from the Common Core Standard on resolving issues in English usage) while cleaning out some aging folders in my toolbox for this blog.

A couple of days ago I discovered this lesson plan on argumentation that I intended as an assessment of students’ ability to assess arguments and use that assessment either to strengthen the argument or to develop a counterargument. I intended to begin this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the noun treatise. Finally, here is the worksheet at the center of this unit.

If you have used other of the lessons on argumentation I’ve posted over time, then you have some prior knowledge of this unit. I wrote the unit, and I think this lesson has a curiously unfinished quality about it. At some point, I will have an opportunity to review and bring great cohesion to the unit as a whole and to this lesson in particular. So, this material may show up here again in a more-developed form.

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.

Giuseppi Garibaldi

It’s time for me to wrap this up and trudge into downtown Bennington to run a couple of errands. If you teach social studies, particularly European history in the 19th century, you might find this reading on Giuseppe Garibaldi and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet of some use in your classroom. Garibaldi, when it comes to European nationalism, remains a representative figure.

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.

A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Wedding Day”

This lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “Wedding Day” is the finale of the first of three units I wrote to accompany this material; believe it or not, I have 48 more of these lessons to post.

To teach this lesson, I generally start, after the meshugaas of a class change, with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the American idiom “Get Someone’s Goat.” You’ll need this PDF of the illustration and narrative of the case of the “Wedding Day” to guide students through it. Finally, here is the typescript of the answer key that solves 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.

Cultural Literacy: Rites of Passage

Alright: like Dwight Yoakam, I feel like I’m a thousand miles from nowhere this morning.

And here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on rites of passage. Just off the top of my head, I can think of several places where this would fit into either the English or social studies curriculum.

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.

Carbohydrates

Snow day! And it is coming down at a pretty good clip out there. For health teachers, if this is something you cover, here is a reading on carbohydrates and the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that accompanies it.

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.

Cultural Literacy; Rip Van Winkle

Monday morning again, and here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Rip Van Winkle. This character, from the pen of Washington Irving, is an essential piece of American mythology.

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 “An 8-Cent Story”

This lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “An 8-Cent Story” is the penultimate lesson in the first of the three Crime and Puzzlement units I wrote a couple of years ago.

This lesson opens with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the American idiom “Curiosity Killed the Cat.” Here is the PDF of the reading and questions that drive the lesson; finally, here is the typescript of the answer key.

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.