Period 1: World War I, Day 5 - Class Recap

The now famous ball of yarn.

Dear class,

Whew. I found that I needed to take a big breath and reflect during lunch today. Simply put, I am struggling with how to do interesting and fun activities (like the ball of yarn), with 43 students. This is not a complaint at all. I continue to be absolutely delighted to have the opportunity to be your teacher. It is just that after a while, it gets tough to either 1) continue to do presentations with me talking and students taking notes/doing worksheets/reading (what I would generally say is somewhat boring) or 2) activities where I feel like students are constantly talking when they should not be or not focused on what I am asking the class to do (difficult in class this large).

In the second area (most of today), I felt like the yarn activity and the peer review could have gone *much* better than I thought it might. The class hung in there with both, but I just sensed that the focus (understandably, since it took most of the class to do the yarn activity) was not there. I will keep thinking about this - I might have to alter the plan my classes tomorrow. In any case, on with the recap:

Essential Question: Why do wars happen?

Soundtrack: "We Belong Together" by Mariah Carey. Picked for today because of the yarn activity. Lyrics here.

AGENDA 2/6/13
News Brief

Class Unity Activity

Peer Review

Homework: Read the blog!
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News Brief: McKenzie had the news brief today, after she graciously said she would do one after I forgot to tell Ethan last class (he has it for next class). Here is the article she chose, with an event in Norway: TNP.no - Man Declared Dead Comes to Life in Norway. Crazy! I would SO not want to be in that situation on either side. Daniel Tailor said that a similar situation happened with the "running of the bulls" event in Spain, and I promised to look it up to post on the blog. I looked for a while and couldn't find anything with 35 people being knocked unconscious, being thought to be dead, then coming back to life. There have been 15 deaths in the main running of the bulls since it started. Feel free to try and find it yourself, Daniel, and post a link in the comments!

I also mentioned two other news events (one was helped by Trae): 1) Part of England's Parliament voted to legalize gay marriage there. CNN.com - UK lawmakers approve same-sex marriage in first vote. This is obviously a big issue here in the US as well. I noted that the US Supreme Court will likely have something to say about it later this year.

2) Trae showed me an article about the big earthquake (then tsunami) last night: Guardian.co.uk - Solomon Islands earthquake triggers tsunami.

Ethan, you have the news brief for Friday. Anything going on around the world outside the United States.

Class Unity Activity: I really enjoy doing this with my classes. First, I think it is cool to get the web of connections. Two, we are all connected to each other in some way! Three, it is the job of the class community to help pick people up who are falling down! I really appreciated your effort here, even though it was hard to focus with 40+ students. If you missed class, I asked students to say their name and how their family came to America/Portland. Other thoughts are above.

Peer Review: Again, I do not think we got even close to as much done here as I was hoping we would. We will pick back up for a bit next class. The main thing is just to help you prepare for the in class final essay for the unit, where I will have you be writing a very similar essay. This whole process was to make you feel ready for that (possibly next week).
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I would love to hear thoughts, questions, or concerns about today's class, or any feedback at all. Post a comment - anonymously if you want. Have a great day - see you on Friday!