Social Studies Reading List 09

Social Studies Summer Reading List

à Students in all regular classes will read the mandatory book and complete the assignment. There are three questions requiring specific skills: Compare and Contrast, Change Over Time, and Historic Significance. The student will choose two of these to be answered in a written paragraph and one as a visual (such as a one-pager - please see the English Department's Summer Reading List for an explanation of a one-pager).

à Assignments related to the readings and movies will compose 10% of the 1^st semester grade.

10^th Grade:

The Ghost Map by Stephen Johnson (Riverhead Books, New York, 2006)

à Assignment: The student will choose two of these to be answered in a written paragraph and one as a visual:

1. Compare and Contrast: Compare and contrast the germ theory of disease with the miasma theory using examples from the book.

2. Change Over Time: The average age of death for working class people in London in 1854 was 16 years of age. Using information in The Ghost Map, explain what factors contributed to this very young age of death before the 1854 Cholera epidemic, and why the average death age began to increase following it.

3. Historic Significance: Explain what The Ghost Map tells us about scientific thinking in England during the 19^th century.

11^th Grade:

Warriors Don't Cry by Melba Patillo Beals

à Assignment: The student will choose two of these to be answered in a written paragraph and one as a visual:

1. Compare and Contrast: Compare the author's educational experience and Central High with your own educational experience.

2. Change Over Time: How was the author's educational experience different from those African-American students of the previous 40 years? How was it different from the subsequent 40 years?

3. Historic Significance: Describe the causes and effects of the integration of Central High School in 1957.

Social Studies Summer Reading List

Assignments related to the readings and movies will compose 10% of the 1^st semester grade.

12^th Grade:

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven Levitt

1. Compare and Contrast: Compare and contrast schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers identifying what the authors believe the two have in common and how they differ. Explain why incentives matter.

2. Change Over Time: Why has technological change had such a profound impact on our lives?

3. Historic Significance: When looking at statistical data over a period of time, what does “correlation” mean? How is it different from “causation?” Do the reasons cited by the authors for the decline in the US crime rate in the 1990s merely demonstrate correlation or do they demonstrate causation?