Tag Archives: readings/research

A Documents-Based Questioning (DBQ) Lesson on The Popol Vuh

OK, we made it! This lesson plan on The Popol Vuh, the creation myth of the Quiche Maya, which brings us back to the first lesson in this unit on the Rig Veda, below. This is, then, the tenth of ten lessons (and the tenth of ten posts, therefore) in a global studies document-based questioning unit on reading, analyzing, and interpreting primary historical documents.

The short do-now exercises that I have for this lesson are arguable only tangentially related, but are useful parts of a general inventory of global studies work. These are two Cultural Literacy worksheets: the first is this half-page reading and writing exercise on colonialism and the second is this full-page worksheet on Pancho Villa, the Mexican revolutionary general.

And, lastly, here is the reading on The Popol Vuh with its accompanying comprehension questions to take teacher and students through the lesson.

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 Document-Based Questioning (DBQ) Lesson on the Magna Carta

As above and below, this DBQ lesson on the Magna Carta is the ninth of a ten-lesson global studies on reading, analyzing, and interpreting primary historical documents.

In my taxonomic system, I tagged this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concepts of checks and balances in government, but as a short document to get students settled at the beginning of the class period, this isn’t appropriate. It’s a full-page document that might be better used as independent practice (i.e. homework) as it solidly complements the reading from the Magna Carta.

This Cultural Literacy worksheet on the divine right of kings is a half-page exercise and a better fit to begin a class period. It also dovetails conceptually with the content of the Magna Carta.

And, of course, you and your students will need the reading from the Magna Carta with comprehension questions to teach and learn the lesson about political power from the Magna Carta.

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 Document-Based Questioning (DBQ) Lesson on The Pillow Book

Here is a DBQ lesson on The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, a text whose fame has endured the centuries. This is the eighth lesson on a ten-lesson global studies unit on reading and interpreting primary historical documents.

Because the word appears in the text, I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the noun self-satisfaction, a fairly strong compound. If you move into a second day with this lesson–given the historical importance of the text, as well as the numerous concepts it contains, it might be appropriate–then here is another context clues worksheet on the adjective hateful, which also appears in the text.

And of course you’ll need the worksheet with the reading passage and comprehension questions to conduct this lesson.

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 Document-Based Questioning (DBQ) Lesson on the Qur’an

As above and below, this DBQ lesson plan on the Qur’an which is number seven of ten in global studies unit on document-based questioning.

This lesson opens, especially if you need to get students settled after a class change, with this context clues worksheet on the noun compassion. If you take the lesson into a second day, or have a use for it in general, her is another context clues worksheet on the related noun mercy.

And here, at last, is the worksheet with reading and comprehension questions on a passage from the holy book of Islam, The Qur’an.

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: Plato’s Republic

“In what book of Plato’s Republic (c. fourth century B.C.) does the Cave Allegory appear? Book VII.”

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

A Document-Based Questioning (DBQ) Lesson on the Fire in Rome, AD 64 from The Annals of Tacitus

OK, last but not least on this essentially perfect summer afternoon in southwestern Vermont,, here is a DBQ lesson on Tacitus’s account of the deadly fire that swept through Rome in 1864. Nero was emperor, and it is from this event that the expression “fiddling while Rome burns” originates. Nero was believed to have sung (“of the destruction of Troy”), not fiddled, as the city burned down around him.

This Cultural Literacy worksheet on the ancient Roman metaphor for decadence, “Bread and Circuses,” opens this lesson. For some reason, I included in this lesson’s folder this second Cultural Literacy worksheet, this one on the concept of a capital offense.

And here is the worksheet with the reading and comprehension questions that is the primary work of this lesson.

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 Document-Based Questioning (DBQ) Lesson on the Apology of Socrates

As above and below, this DBQ lesson on Apology of Socrates is the fifth of a ten-lesson global studies unit on document-based questions.

This lesson opens with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on allusion, and here is a second one on status quo in the event the lesson goes into a second day–or you just want the worksheet around to elucidate this Latinism so common in the English language.

You’ll need this reading and comprehension questions on Socrates’ Apology to conduct the essential work of this lesson.

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.

3 Graces

Aglaea * Euphrosyne * Thalia

In ascending order of age we have Aglaea (Splendour), Euphrosyne (Mirth) and Thalia (Good health or happiness). The three sisters have been obsessively painted and sculpted for thousands of years as the embodiments of beauty, charm, and creativity. As the benign face of the ancient triple goddess, even Hesiod and Homer can seem vague about their origins, and so there are conflicting stories of them being the daughters of either Aphrodite, Apollo, Zeus, or Dionysus. Like the furies, their chapel stood in the caves around the Acropolis, where ancient mysteries were performed.”

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.

A Document-Based Questioning (DBQ) Lesson on Pericles’ Funeral Oration

Moving right along, and as above and below, this lesson plan on Pericles’ funeral oration as drawn from Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War, is number four of a ten-lesson unit of document-based questioning materials.

This lesson opens with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the epic as a poetic form and as a means of recording history; it the lesson goes into a second day–and that I included another on the Peloponnesian War suggests that I planned that it would–you can use that second Cultural Literacy worksheet. Like the first one on epics, the document on the Peloponnesian War is a half-page worksheet.

Finally, here is the reading and comprehension questions that is the primary work of this lesson.

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.

Historical Term: Appeasement

[As I have mentioned previously on this blog, several years ago some colleagues of mine found students struggled with the concept of appeasement as well as its manifestation as a historical process in the years before World War II. The passage below does a nice job of summarizing this complex series of events, and here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Munich Pact to complement it.]

“Appeasement Foreign policy based on the conciliation of the grievances of rival states, usually involving some sort of concession as an attempt to avoid conflict or war. The term is most often applied to the pre-World War II policy of Britain and France of attempting to satisfy the demands of Hitler with regard to Germany’s grievances over the Versailles settlement. The policy, based on agreements with Germany and Italy, is particularly associated with Neville Chamberlain’s premiership (1937-40). As a result of appeasement Germany was able to occupy the Rhineland, the Sudetenland areas of Czechoslovakia, and to achieve the Anschluss with Austria. The policy is held to have ended when Hitler broke the 1938 Munich agreement and occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939.”

Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.