Period 1: Finals Prep, Day 1 - Class Recap

A visual metaphor for climate change - the earth as a fried egg.
Good afternoon students,

I know there is a lot to talk about with our class today, so I am posting this early in the hopes that you can get cleared up as soon as possible. Remember, on Wednesdays I am in class from 3:30-7:30, so I will not have the chance to approve comments or respond to e-mails until after I get back tonight.

First off, I must say that I was pretty pleased overall with how things went today. We certainly had a lot to cover, and at times it felt like I was literally being pulled in 10 different directions during the brainstorming session, but overall, I appreciated the effort and willingness to buy in to what we are doing.

Essential Questions for the day: How does conflict arise and in what ways have various people responded? Is genocide inevitable?

Soundtrack: "Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World" by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole (IZ). I chose this song because we needed a little dose of some hope and good in the world, after talking about genocide and killings for so long.

AGENDA 1/14/09
Debrief Hotel Rwanda
Grades/Late Work
Review
Introduce Visual Metaphor
De-stress
In-Class Work

Homework: Continue to work on visual metaphor and turn in any unfinished work by Friday. Check blog/comment/e-mail with questions!

Remember, the very last day that I will accept any work is this Friday, at the end of my class. Everyone should know exactly what I need from you (if anything), because I have gone over it will each of you multiple times. If you would like any clarifications or have questions, please e-mail me (luke_fritz@beavton.k12.or.us) as soon as possible. For those that need to do a speech for me, I need to see you before class on Friday - or you can come find me tomorrow in the Lower North teacher's cluster before B day.

Debrief Hotel Rwanda: I asked a few questions here... did the movie stay with you the rest of the day after we watched it, or did you sort of just move on? I think many of you said that you just moved on - why? Jordon explained that he felt like he could not really do anything about it. My point here is that you absolutely can do something about it, and you already did a little by doing the speech! If everyone had the attitude that they could not do anything, absolutely nothing in the world would change. Again, this is something we are all guilty of at some level, but we need to be aware that we DO have the ability to effect positive change. I will bring in an example of this for Friday's class.

I also asked if anyone got chills at any point during the movie - I explained that I get those shivers when I am listening or watching something truly great or powerful. Zach N. brought up the example of Jimmy Valvano's speech at the 1993 ESPYs as something that really affects him in this way. I have to agree totally. Here is that speech, for those who have not seen it. It will be a highlight of your day, I promise:



Grades/Late Work: I think we went over this fairly extensively in class, and goodness knows you should have an extremely clear view of how you were graded and why. If you'd like me to e-mail you your slip, please let me know. Again, all late work or revisions must be in on Friday. You will lose points for having it late, but it is still much better than nothing.

Review: These questions were just to gauge your general knowledge of what happened in Rwanda. I will not recap them online because you needed to be in class to take advantage of this preview for the final. Basically, I just want to make sure that you have the facts straight about what we have been talking about. Keep that sheet and refer to it.

I also told you (and the other classes Mrs. DeFrance has too) that I would post the PowerPoint again of the basics of the Rwandan genocide (this was from the very first class that I had you guys):

Genocide in Rwanda: The Basics - PowerPoint
Please do not sweat the final test/quiz on this, unless you were lost today. The questions I give you will be very similar to those. Instead, please focus on the...

Introduce Visual Metaphor: Okay, this was where the class got interesting. As Mrs. Woicke confirmed to me after class, it seemed like about two thirds of the class basically understood the assignment, while the other third was almost completely lost. We are obviously going to go through this assignment again during Friday's class, but until then, you should be working on figuring out your metaphor.

Remember, a metaphor is comparing two seemingly unrelated objects. So, you cannot use a machete, or the radio, or anything like that, because it is directly related to Rwanda. The example I used in class was a quote from the movie Dodgeball, where Ben Stiller's character has a painting of himself grabbing a bull by the horns - a metaphor for how he does business. There are all sorts of metaphors all over the place - in almost every good movie ever made, you can find good metaphors.

I will give you a point of further clarification after thinking it over: if you want, you can have your metaphor relate directly to the Rwandan genocide, not colonialism - but I am going to require at LEAST one connection to colonialism. If you do not know what colonialism is, please look over your notes - it should be pretty clear how foreign countries have affected Rwanda in the past (that led to the genocide in 1994). We will probably be going over this in class on Friday as well, because it seemed like there was a lot of confusion on what exactly I was looking for.

Again, please run your ideas by me first before going on to do the assignment (which I will attach below). I need to hear what you are planning to go for.

If I approve your idea, you can get to work using that blank sheet of big paper I handed to you. You need to draw your metaphor and label each connection that you can find. Things which you have that would probably help: the definition of genocide, the seven pillars of colonialism, the eight stages of genocide, the Rwandan timeline of colonialism (I wrote it on the board during the seven pillars day), and the notes from the PowerPoint presentation.

De-Stress: This seems like as good a time as any to remind you to relax about all of this. Trust me, you will be fine. The in-class activity we did should have helped a bit. I am always a fan of getting you guys out of your seats and moving around as well.

In-Class Work: This was hectic and sometimes way too loud (I'm going to have to go apologize to Mr. Hardin tomorrow), but overall, I thought most of you were really excited about trying to figure something out. My goal for you is to have something for me to check out by Friday. It's okay if you need to keep working on it, but from what I heard, many of you are definitely on the right track. Just keep looking for those connections!

Remember, please let me know if you are having any difficulties or questions! We are definitely going to go over this more on Friday, but the more that you do, the less you have to worry about it next week during finals.

Here is the link to download the assignment sheet in case you lost it:

Visual Metaphor Assignment
Hopefully I will be hearing from many of you soon. :-) Have a fantastic night, and don't forget to watch the Blazers try to make it four straight wins, tonight at Philadelphia (don't worry, the only Philly team I'm a fan of is the Eagles) at 4 PM on CSN (Ch. 37) - only if you have the time though! See you on Friday!