Period 1: Turmoil in the Middle East, Day 15 - Class Recap

Jasper, one of my cats. We learned today from Scout, Morgan, and McKenzie that animals help bring people together! :-)
Hello and welcome to another class recap!

Today was fun! I was super impressed with most of your presentations, though I must confess the real thing that I am looking for it how you are going to connect what you did with the conflict in Israel, which you wrote about in your explanation paper. On Friday, we will continue the presentations, so come prepared please - even if your name got called and you did not have anything today.

Essential Questions: In what ways are cultures and countries interconnected? How can the Middle East be stabilized? - Today was all about answering both of these questions!

Soundtrack: "Sweet Emotion" by Aerosmith. Chosen because today had a lot to do with the emotional pull on people, and because it is a great rock song.

AGENDA 4/29/09:
News Brief
Student Presentations

Homework: Watch President Obama's address to the nation tonight (5 PM). Dress to go outside on Friday. Read blog recap!

Today marks 100 days since President Obama took office. While it is a completely symbolic day, mostly generated by the media, the President is addressing the nation at a primetime news conference tonight at 5:00 PM. This will be on just about every network imaginable, including ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, FOX News, CSPAN, Telemundo (actually not sure about that, but I wouldn't be surprised)... you name it. Except for the regular FOX network, which controversially decided to show "Lie to Me" instead. I will be in class at Lewis and Clark (for the last time this year, until summer!) from 4:30 to 7:30, so I will not be able to watch it live, just like most of you, I am guessing. Thus, I will post a link to the video when I get back. Please remember to be noting what the President has to say about our relations with the rest of the world!

UPDATE: Here's the video and here's the transcript to read, if you can't watch it.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I am sort of guessing that we may have most, if not all of the class next time devoted to presentations, but should we be finishing in good time, and it is nice out, we are going to go explore the world a little bit. By "explore the world" I mean probably take a walk out to the football field or baseball diamond, sit down, and do a little creative writing. So please be prepared for that, if it should happen.

News Brief: I really love how this class seems like it is tuned in to the news! We had some good topics brought up, like the swine flu and the "Placebo Effect." I'm sure there were other ones in there too, like the fun event that happened last night and will happen again tomorrow night, but I can't remember at this point. The flu symptoms are starting to kick in... ;-)

Oh! I remember one of those topics, related to the panic over the swine flu. I mentioned that there has been a huge increase in the amount of guns and ammunition bought in America since Barack Obama's election. Because I like to be able to give you sources when I say stuff like that, here it is: ABCNews.com - Demand for Ammo Depletes Stores' Stock.

Thuy brought in this news article to talk about: CNN.com - Sri Lankan army claims key rebel strongholds. Remember that Sri Lanka is an island country just to the south of India. The conflict it was describing was between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government. The quote from the end of the article really struck me:

UNICEF, which called the situation in the north a "catastrophe for children," said the displaced lack food, water and basic medical supplies.
advertisement

The rebels estimate the number of civilians still in the territory at more than 160,000.

The Tigers have been fighting for an independent state in Sri Lanka's northeast since 1983. As many as 70,000 people have been killed since the civil war began, and the group has been declared a terrorist organization by 32 countries, including the United States and the European Union.

Just crazy. More than ever, we need to be able to come together and stop conflicts. Luckily, we had the next part of class to start!

Student Presentations: As I said above, generally, I was pretty pleased with these, despite the technical difficulties with some. I am not going to go through and recap them all, but I definitely appreciated everyone's attempts to get people to come together. I am very interested in those connections that you made to the conflict in your explanation paper as well.

For those that were interested in the song that Jazmyne had us dance to, it can be found in the amazing video here.

Remember, at the end of class I asked you to turn in a skills packet (come see me if you need another copy) and the explanation papers. If you need the papers back to help you if you didn't go today, just ask. Also, if you had something tangible (meaning a physical creative product), I want that too. If you did a PowerPoint or something else with the computer, please e-mail me it. Thanks!
---

There may or may not be an event that I will be watching tomorrow night at 6:30 on KGW and TNT. Mrs. DeFrance has convinced me to go all out tomorrow as far as our apparel choices at school, and since I have not done that at all for any game this series, I figure it can't hurt. So come see us tomorrow and smile!

Also, The Office will be guaranteed to make you laugh and smile not matter what else happens on Thursday night. It is on at 9:00 PM on NBC.

I think that should about do it! Is this the shortest class recap of all time? I'm sure some of you would not mind if is was! Keep up the enthusiasm and questions in the comments! We are on streaks of 40+ comments for the last three posts!

Have a great day! You are amazing! :-)