Period 1: Nigeria - Building a Power, Day 10 - Class Recap

My brother Maxwell and me, after the commencement ceremony at Western Oregon University, 2008.
Good afternoon class!

I am attempting to get this update up quickly, so those students that need to access the internet at school can check it out before leaving. Today was a day of highs and lows, I think. I loved our discussion on what creates happiness (especially as it relates to thinking about successful countries) and I think that the teaching essays part could have gone much better. As Mrs. DeFrance pointed out to me after class, if there are long periods of silence when I ask for questions, that usually means that almost everyone is confused or does not get what I am asking. So I am interested to see what you can create - maybe you were all completely on board with everything? I doubt it, but we will see.

Essential Questions: How do different structures of power impact the people over whom they govern? Why do some countries thrive while others fail?

Soundtrack: "Smile Like You Mean It" by The Killers. Lyrics here. I really enjoyed the guessing game for why I picked this song! All of your thoughts were very good connections! Yes, I like to smile a lot and am almost always optimistic about things. I have found it goes a long way toward happiness! I also picked this because of our continuing talk on essays, asking you to smile like you actually meant it when we were talking about them.

AGENDA 3/4/09:
Hand Back Work (Sources)
News Brief
The Pursuit of Happiness
Easy Essays

Homework: Final draft of essay finished, to hand in, TYPED. Check blog!

The final essay assignment, which we went over pretty thoroughly in class, can be downloaded here if you lost your copy:

Nigeria Final Essay Assignment
As I stated in class, what I really need is for a clear thesis statement in the first paragraph, followed by the next three paragraphs (or sections) based on a topic sentence (explain what the paragraph is going to be about), two concrete details (what are the facts that support your claim?), a commentary by you (remember, do not use "I" in this paper), and finally, a concluding sentence. This is for each of the three middle sections. Finally, your concluding paragraph should restate the thesis and tell the reader what you just went over.

I know this is a lot, but please use your yellow papers to help you with this! They will help you break down each sentence in a very easy to follow manner. I should have done a better job promoting this in class. If you feel like you can write this essay without help, that is fine. However, I think most of you would greatly benefit from having your thoughts laid out on that paper first.

Remember to have someone else read it before you print off your final copy! I would be happy to take a look and suggest changes if you need. Just e-mail me and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible.

Cite your sources please! Not only inside the paper, but the more complete version at the very end! Here is the website that I think will help many of you out: Purdue University - MLA and Style Guide. Go all the way to the bottom of that page to see how you can cite various different sources (whether they are online or in a book, or something else).

Again, do not hesitate to ask questions! I know that there must be many! Let me know and I will help you, seriously! :-)

News Brief: Alondra brought in a very interesting and timely article on the Sri Lankan cricket team being attacked in Pakistan. Her article can be found here: CSMonitor.com - "Militant attack on cricket team in Pakistan could backfire". Wow, Pakistan really is an area that everyone should pay a whole lot of attention to. I also brought up in class that I was just listening to this story on the way into school this morning. Class, I could not more highly recommend that you listen to NPR (National Public Radio) news whenever you can. It is 91.5 FM here in the Portland Metro area and just outstanding when it comes to talking about the world. Thank you Alondra for the article! Andrew H., you are up for next class on Friday. One current article, having to do with anything outside the United States.

The Pursuit of Happiness: No, not the movie (which spells happiness as "happyness"). Though the discussion this section sparked was probably more interesting than any movie could have been! Here are the two articles that I projected for the class: BBC.co.uk - "Nigeria tops happiness survey" and BusinessWeek.com - America's Unhappiest City: Portland, OR. I do not think I need to recap our class discussion, but I loved all the stories that you brought to it! It is definitely something to think about when you consider how Nigeria is affected by changes in government, or whether or not it is thriving or failing. What is your definition? That is what I want to see in those essays! A fantastic way to get into the lecture on essays, thank you.

Easy Essays: Okay, this was difficult, I am not going to lie to you. As I said at the beginning of this post, I am not entirely sure how much of this actually got through to everyone, especially because the PowerPoint was uncharacteristically pretty dull. Almost all the information that it had is on your yellow sheet and assignment handout, but here it is again, should you wish to review it:

PowerPoint: Writing Essays the Easy Way
I think everything else I pretty much covered in the "Homework" section above, so go back up to that if you need further clarification. Of course, you are more than welcome to comment as well.
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That should do it! Breaking news: I have tickets to the Blazers/Pacers game tonight! The opportunity came up really unexpectedly, but I am thrilled. However, this means that I will probably have very little opportunity to answer your comments until much later tonight. Also, since tomorrow is the second B day of the week and I will not be at Westview full time until after Spring Break, I will not be at the school tomorrow. However, Mrs. DeFrance knows that some of you might need to go to the computer lab, and I told her to hand out passes as needed, so please go check with her. Remember to watch the Blazers tonight (7:00, CSN), and tomorrow night in Denver (7:30, TNT), as well as The Office tomorrow (9:00, NBC), but ONLY if you have all of your homework, including your essay, done first! :-)

Let's work together on this! Please put a lot of effort into these essays - you will be rewarded, not just in my class. Have a fantastic afternoon!