Period 1: Genocide in Rwanda, Day 5 - Class Recap

EDIT (Tuesday, 5:11 PM): In a stroke of perfect timing, guess what the headline on CNN.com is right now, as I type this? "Live Developing Story: U.N. Security Council meets to discuss Gaza." You can't make this stuff up. Folks, this is another reason why what we did today in class is important, and will continue to be important to the world for as long as the U.N. is around.


A picture of the actual room the United Nations Security Council meets in, in New York City.
Good evening students,

Well, well, well. I'm not even sure that I know what to say right now! I asked for much, and across the board, you delivered. The speeches today were absolutely fantastic, and just what I was hoping for. I was extremely glad to see a whole host of things, but for one, what I was most proud of was that it seemed like you guys really did care about what you were learning about. I saw people that I almost never hear from give impassioned deliveries and pleas. I saw groups that had obviously been working together to figure everything out. All in all, you made me extremely proud today, and you should feel proud of yourselves as well. Mr. Chamberlain and Mrs. DeFrance were absolutely blown away when I talked to them later too. Way to make everyone look good. Now THAT'S what I'm talking about! :-)

Soundtrack for the day: "Welcome Back" by Ma$e. Lyrics found here. The reason for picking this song for today should be fairly obvious. Although I know you all are smarter than this: don't click on any of the ads on any of the sites I link to (it's surprisingly difficult to find lyrics websites that don't have tons of junk around the sides). You are not getting a Nintendo Wii for free. Sorry.

AGENDA 1/6/09:
Welcome Back!
Final Preparation (until 8:15)
SPEECHES
Group Assessments
Debrief
Cause and Effect Chart (if time)

HW: Colonialism to genocide flow chart (due Thursday)

Welcome Back!: I really could not believe the lack of excitement over your winter break, but I suppose that a lot of that was thinking more about the speech. I was going to point out that I had kept the blog updated (and even wrote the address on the board), and that it was amazing that just last month some of the main perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide finally got convicted, but basically I forgot. I hope you felt sufficiently welcomed back. If not, come talk to me whenever you'd like - I would love to hear all about your break and catch you up on everything! :-)

Final Preparation: You guys really milked this one for all it was worth before actually going on to the speeches, but I suppose it was worth it. I was glad to see that almost everyone was participating in the groups, and that those last minute details were being figured out.

SPEECHES: I know I commented a little bit above, but I'll continue on here. I definitely appreciated those who remembered to dress up (all of you that did looked fantastic)! Also, this is somewhat my bad for not writing down the directions, but I noticed some of you gazing off while other groups were going and not writing down your impressions and thoughts. I will collect that paper next class (we ran out of time today, so you got lucky if you only did it partially).

General impressions of the speeches: GREAT eye contact for most of you. As Lauren pointed out at the beginning (and this continued through all of you): the enunciation and projection was fantastic. Just great. Mr. Chamberlain and Mrs. DeFrance gave me a copy of their notes as well, and much of what they wrote were things like "very prepared and organized," "good information," "clear," and "passion."

Now, that's not to say that there was absolutely nothing that went badly or was incorrect. There were those times as well and you should fully expect to hear about those as well when I get back to you. However, my overall impressions of each group were great.

So here's what I'm going to do over the next few days: I'm going to look over your evaluations. I'm going to read what Mr. Chamberlain, Mrs. DeFrance, and myself wrote during the speeches. I am going to look at your individual speeches and the group speeches you handed me today and make comments. I will then type up an individual grade for each of you, and a group grade for everyone in your group. Those will be combined into your overall grade for the project. A lot, I know. It seems daunting right now as I type this! My goal is to get all of this back to you by Monday.

If you do not have your individual speech in: you will get an incomplete until you do, and we need to talk about making things up. If you did turn it in but did not come to class/participate today for whatever reason: I will give you the chance to give a 3 minute speech to me outside of class to make up some of the credit you missed. However, you need to know in the future that I am not kidding around when I say I need homework in on time. If there are any other situations, I will take them on a case by case basis. As always, please e-mail me if you have any questions or concerns about this.

Group Assessments: We didn't really have too much time to be really detailed on these, but thank you very much for completing them and getting them in to me. They will be very helpful to me as I assess that individual grade.

Debrief: We definitely did not have enough time to do this (though the discussing in between speeches was good and did help). I have some general questions for the class that I want to ask on Thursday for this, so we will do that before starting the movie.

Cause and Effect Chart (if time): Again, no time, sorry. However, you have know that this would be turned in for a long time now. If you have any questions about it, let me know. Be creative with it though! You can draw pictures and label, or whatever else you think might help make the point that colonialism leads to genocide. We will be working with this chart in the future.

Homework: The cause and effect chart. Seriously, get it done and turned in on time please. This assignment should take you no more than 30 minutes. No excuses please.

Class, pat yourselves on the back. You did amazingly well and I am proud of all of you. See you on Thursday for our next class, when we will watch Hotel Rwanda (but don't think I won't have you do something during it - you should know me better than that)! Have a wonderful night.