Period 1: Nigeria - Building a Power, Day 11 - Class Recap

My intramural basketball team at WOU, which won the 2007 championship (and those sweet T-Shirts), out of 32 teams. From left to right: Clarke, Kyle, Brandon, Mr. Fritz (without beard!), and Cody. Not pictured: Jake, who had to miss the final game. Basketball = an activity that I love! Remember to do your homework by doing an activity that you love this weekend and reporting back!
Hello class!

What a positively BEAUTIFUL day out! I really hope that you have found some way to enjoy it, because coming Sunday, more snow is in the forecast! I enjoyed what we did in the assembly shortened class today. Thank you for your engagement in what we were doing! I am especially excited to read the Nigeria final essays and see your thoughts on the essential questions of the unit.

Strange to think about, right? Next week we will begin to move out of Africa, into the Middle East! All sorts of new and extremely interesting things to talk about. That is what I will be doing for most of this weekend (besides playing some basketball, to fulfill my own assignment): grading papers, writing papers, and writing the unit plan for the next few weeks. Any suggestions on things that you would like to do? Let me know!

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

Soundtrack: "Duel of the Fates" by John Williams. There are no lyrics that make sense for this song, but the music video (which apparently appeared 11 times on TRL, according to Wikipedia) can be found here. Man, I love Star Wars. Also, chosen because you probably had to really duel with that essay. :-)

AGENDA 3/6/09:
News Brief
Homework
The Office & Nigeria
Essay Peer Review/Sharing
Exit Ticket

Homework: Mandatory activity that you love. Spring forward! Check blog!

I am not kidding about this assignment. You MUST do something that you love doing (again, I will caution you that your activity has to be safe and legal please) and be prepared to report back on how it went in the comments section of this blog (if possible) and in-class next Tuesday. Have fun with this, but do not take this assignment lightly! Something that you truly, really, love to do. I am excited to hear about what everyone can come up with!

News Brief: At the start of class, I asked about what everyone was excited for this weekend. We then went over the essential questions, soundtrack, and agenda, before diving right in to talking about Andrew's article, which was probably this one: CNN.com: British cruise ship in 'pirate attack' scare. Way to bring something in about Somalia! It is hard to believe that more than 1,000 people were taking a cruise off the Gulf of Aden, though the story does say that it was an around the world trip. Certainly one way to spend your hard earned cash! It's like the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland, only real. Thanks for the article Andrew! Carson, you are next up for Tuesday! An current news article, having to do with anything outside the United States, please.

Homework: I really enjoyed this discussion. Some of the words that I heard tossed about when I asked what your general impressions of homework (throughout your life) were: stressful, inconsistent, time consuming, inconvenient, good practice, and lack of communication. At least, that is what I can remember. We also talked about homework specifically in my class, and there were some interesting suggestions and feedback that came out. Specifically, we talked about the idea of having someone be able to make up credit through other activities, which I struggle with a little bit as a teacher. Ultimately, the main goal of any class is actual learning taking place. I think that can come in a variety of different forms.

I will pledge to keep considering the amount of homework that I give, when I give it, and other avenues to get credit. As Zack T. pointed out, it is not really fair to have someone slack off for an entire term, and then turn it on at the very end to pass the class, while someone else might be getting everything in on time, but still struggling with the concepts. We also talked about my class and how we use homework in class to prove other points. Very rarely (if ever) do I give you homework that does not have some specific use in class that can translate to direct learning. Also, I would point out that the reason that we almost never do worksheets out of the textbook is because Social Studies is not about memorizing facts and figures for tests that you are immediately going to forget (trust me, I have been there too). In this class, I really want to have us be focused on abstract problems that promote different ways for you to think about an issue (this is called critical thinking). Anyway, it was a very good discussion to have, so thank you again for participating.

The Office & Nigeria: I started off this section by showing the class a clip from the currently running commercial promoting Tanzania (Brooke's African country) as a tourist destination:



Now doesn't that look absolutely incredible? Tell me that you do not want to go climb Mount Kilimanjaro now! A great final reminder that Africa is a continent that can and should be traveled to.

Next, I showed a clip from The Office episode "Michael's Birthday," from Season 2. I cannot find it online, but if you have the money, I cannot more strongly recommended buying or renting Season 2 of The Office on DVD. Really one of the best television seasons in history. The point of showing the clip was to see Michael say "when the son of the deposed King of Nigeria e-mails you for help, you help!" We then went on to talk about the threats of the Nigerian scam e-mails. In particular, I showed you the Snopes.com article on the fraud. Also, you may want to check out the Wikipedia article on advance-fee fraud. It is crazy to think that the roots of the scam are in the 1920s! I also mentioned that Citibank had recently fallen prey to the scam too, and almost lost 27 million dollars. Read the New York Times article to learn more. Finally, this whole thing is so big that the US Embassy has an entire website, with sample e-mails, devoted to countering it.

Again, the point of this was to really let you know to NEVER click on any links in any e-mails that are asking you to input passwords (no matter how legit it looks), give money, or get personal information from you. The very high likelihood is that it is a fraud.

Essay Peer Review/Sharing: I liked this! I am concerned about those of you who neglected to turn it in today (please e-mail me as soon as possible with any missing work!), but overall, I think that this part of the class went well. I really enjoyed hearing those thesis sentences! The vast majority sounded great. As I stated in class, I will have them graded and given back to you by next class.

Exit Tickets: Thank you again for filling these out and providing feedback on the essay writing process and class in general. I will definitely look over them all and try to address any problems that I see in class next week. As always, if you ever have anything else you feel uncertain about, please come talk to me, comment here, or e-mail. I really do care about what you have to say and want to work hard for you! At this point I think it is pretty hard to deny that. Let's make it a two-way street! :-)
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Blazers are at home tomorrow against Minnesota (7:00, CSN) and Monday against the Lakers (7:00, CSN). It also happens to be my brother's birthday, but since he is all the way across the country in New Jersey, I am thinking the e-mail and phone call will have to do. Hopefully I will be getting some good basketball time in - I will be sure to comment on how that goes as well! Today's lunch game was way too short, but definitely still fun. We played in the gym, and eventually got some 5 on 5 going! Alas, the pep assembly had to kick us out, but it was great to see all of you that showed up to play!

Thank you so much for your hard work this week everyone! Enjoy the weekend off and come refreshed for next week! Tell everyone about doing the activity that you love in the comments!