Period 1: World War I, Day 2 - Class Recap

My Great-Grandfather, Joseph Herbert "Bert" Frank, who was a medic for Great Britain during World War I. Photo courtesy of a conversation with my grandmother in 2007!

Hello everyone,

Thanks for another great class! I thought it was a good mix of new content and reflecting on what we have learned so far. I appreciate your willingness to listen and follow your own ground rules.

Essential Question: Why do wars happen?

Soundtrack: “The War Was In Color" by Carbon Leaf. Chosen because the song directly relates to learning about World War I. This was not just some old black and white documentary. I felt like it is probably what my great-grandfather would say if he were still alive and I asked him what it was like. Lyrics here. A sample I love: This black and white photo don't capture the skin/From the flash of a gun to a soldier who's done/Trust me grandson/The war was in color.

AGENDA 1/25/13:
News Brief/Blog Recap
Sparks Into Fire
My Connection
Life in the Trenches
Grades/Make Up Work

Homework: Check the blog and post a comment if you have not done so! Have a great weekend!
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News Brief: Rachael had the pressure of presenting the first news brief for our class and she did an amazing job! Her article was from a while ago (September of last year), but the impact of the event is still being felt today: CNN.com - Another protest turns violent outside U.S. Embassy in Cairo. As I said in class, this same issue was around the time that the US Ambassador to Libya was killed (by terrorists) - you might hear about this in the news as the Benghazi attack. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was testifying about it yesterday: CNN.com - Clinton takes on Benghazi critics, warns of more security threats.

Khushali said that she had heard the term "fiscal cliff" in the news recently. We talked a little about that (basically, being the issue of the US government raising taxes and cutting spending at the same time). If you were interested in that discussion, here's a little more about it (I am guessing it will continue to be an issue, since Democrats and Republicans dramatically disagree on what should be done with it): CNN.com - Obama signs bill warding off fiscal cliff.

I also talked about the United States military saying that women can now be on the "front lines" of combat. Here's an article about that: LATimes.com - Military to lift ban on women in combat.

Finally, I mentioned North Korea threatening the United States, especially in regards to their nuclear weapons program (which is somewhat frightening, living here on the West Coast): NYTimes.com - North Korea Issues Blunt New Threat to United States. You can always count on having at least some discussion on what is currently going on around the world in this class!

Blog Recap: I wanted to make sure that everyone saw again how much effort I put into the class recaps, and why it is so important to check in here! Thank you to everyone that has commented already. Easy points!

Sparks Into Fire: During this section, I showed the class the map animations slideshow for the start of World War I here: PBS.org - Europe in 1914 and here: PBS.org - The Great War. I asked the class to take general notes about what the maps dealt with - especially in regards to the "Western Front" and "Eastern Front" relating to Germany. These are two very famous terms that you will hear about later in life, I am sure. It is important to learn about all of the different "dominoes" that fell in terms of alliances at the start of the war, as well.

My Connection: This section was a short and sweet (I hope) presentation about my great-grandfather's involvement in World War I as a medic. I did not ask the class to take notes. In case you missed class, or wanted to see the pictures again, here it is:

Google Docs - Mr. Fritz's Connection to World War I PowerPoint

I hope it was interesting, and I hope that you ask about your own family history! It was fascinating for me to learn about it from my grandmother over tea. :-)

Life in the Trenches: This section consisted of two parts. First, I showed the class a few minutes of a documentary on World War I (in color!) that talked about how awful the war was from the perspective of those who fought in it. That video can be found here (I started it at 7:49 and stopped it about 11:30 or so into it): YouTube.com - World War I in Color, Episode 2: Slaughter in the Trenches.

After watching the video clip, I talked a little more about conditions in the trenches, which were long lines dug out in the ground, not far away from each other. Over the course of the war, not much progress was made in the battles, since any advance by the opposition was fairly easy to stop. I believe I called the whole idea "stupid" quite a bit in class. It totally was.

When I said that World War I was way different from wars in the past (like the Revolutionary War), especially because of the difference between machine guns and muskets, someone said that a musket could be fired in four seconds. I think I said in class that it took a minute or two to reload. I wanted to look it up, so here's the answer: military.discovery.com - Revolutionary War Flintlock Musket. Twenty seconds and 13 steps per shot. Obviously a machine gun that fires multiple rounds per second is much more deadly to large armies.

I handed out a worksheet of letters home from soldiers on in the trenches, and then had the class imagine they were in the same position. This was what the work was for the rest of the class - making up your own letter on the back of the worksheet. If you missed class, you can download the worksheet and create your letter here:

Google Docs: Life in the Trenches - Letters Home Worksheet

Thank you for your work on this. It should be fairly easy points for me to give you. I am trying to help you out if you are close to that next letter grade!

Grades/Make Up Work: Speaking of points, I posted your current grades in the classroom and gave back your Rwanda speeches. Most of these were graded by me last night (Mrs. DeFrance Gilman understandably could not get to them all before having her baby, so she dropped them off on Tuesday). As I said in class, I apologize that I did not have a lot of positive comments all over your papers. Most of them were fantastic! I just wanted to make sure everyone got them back and knew what revisions had to be made for higher grades. I was up until 1:00 AM grading them last night. Good times! :-)

If you want to turn in any late work or revise your Rwanda speech, you need to have it into me as soon as possible. Definitely by Monday at the absolute latest. You also need to include the original graded copy of the speech, so I can see the changes you made. Sound good?

Have a great weekend! See you on Tuesday!