Religion, Day 1 - Class Recap

We started going over some of the world's major religions today in class. The first one in the PowerPoint was Hinduism. This is a Hindu temple in New Delhi, India! Photo taken over Spring Break, 2015.

Hi everyone,

I hope many of you (about half the class turned in the Historical Investigation on time today) are feeling a great sense of relief after being done with the biggest project all year! Today, we started out religion unit. Here's what we did today in class:

Learning Targets: 
Knowledge LT 22: I can explain how religious ideas impact the shaping of societies.
Critical Thinking LT 2: I can explain connections between events, issues, problems and concepts.

Soundtrack: "God Moving Over The Face of The Waters" by Moby. Selected for today because we started talking about religion today in class. This was an instrumental song with no lyrics. Listen to it again if you want here.

AGENDA 4/13/15:

News Brief - Tandra

Turn in Historical Investigation/Russian Revolution Grades
What is Religion?
Religions PowerPoint

Homework: Read the blog! Know your grade and how to improve it - Russian Revolution and finishing Historical Investigation if you have not. Next news brief: Jurnee.

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News Brief: Tandra had the news brief today and selected an article about this story to talk about: Yahoo.com - Russia evacuates over 650 from Yemen: officials. This was an interesting story that I had not heard much about! Sari helped us understand that Iran's relationship with Russia was in part of why this happened. I also talked about Pope Francis saying that the Armenian Genocide was a genocide, which upset Turkey. The 100 year anniversary of the start of the genocide is on April 24. I wonder if President Obama will call it a genocide? We shall see!

We also watched VICE News for the day, before moving on.

The next news brief was assigned to Jurnee.

Turn in H.I./R.R. Grades: As I said in class, I sent and responded to at least 100 emails and blog comments over the weekend, having to do with the Historical Investigation. I was in contact with a ton of students and parents about it, so I hope that there was a lot of productivity happening. I am excited to read the research projects! If you did not turn it in today, it will be an N grade in the gradebook (basically, an F) until you do.

The weekend also gave me time to grade your Russian Revolution packets, which I wanted to get back to you AFTER the Historical Investigation was finished, so you could concentrate on that. I did a pretty simple job of grading on this, and just wrote the two scores on the front of whatever sheet you had on your packet. Here is the breakdown:

Russian Revolution Unit Grades:
Explaining Connections LT 2
Revolution LT 20

1) The Russian Revolution Pre-Assessment/Newsflash activity

2) Vocabulary Notes on Peace, Land, and Bread PowerPoint – LT 20

3) OPVL activity on Russian Revolution Primary Sources – LT 2

4) Propaganda Poster assignment based on Soviet Propaganda PowerPoint – LT 2

5) Vocabulary Quiz (this can be retaken with me if necessary) – LT 20

The first score circled was the LT2 grade (the OPVL/Propaganda Poster). The second grade circled was LT20, which had to do with the vocabulary.

Please make sure to make up what you are missing, if possible!

What is Religion?: We started the religion unit by completing a pre-assessment in class, which students turned in after completing. Remember that there are no right or wrong answers when it comes to what you personally believe. Our study of religion is based on simply understanding what people think about spirituality around the world, which has a huge impact on life. Here's the pre-assessment:

Google Drive - World Religions Pre-Assessment

It seemed like most students were interested in talking about religion, which was good to see! If you would rather remain private about your own religion, I totally understand that, too. It is a very personal decision! Here's the video we watched for the end of the pre-assessment, which does a great job of going over five of the major world religions:

The point here was to learn some new information about major religions! I think it is a really good overview video.

Religions PowerPoint: Next, we started (it will take us a long time to finish) the religion notes, using the Cornell Notes format. These are particularly famous in Ms. DeFrance Gilman's classes. I spiced them up a bit with photos from my travels as a part of the slides! Here is the PowerPoint:

Google Drive: Major Religions of the World PowerPoint

We made it through Hinduism (the first religion covered) today, and will keep going next class. If you want to get ahead of the game at home, go ahead and check out the rest of the slides!

There is definitely a lot to learn about! We are going to keep moving forward with new material. If you are needing to improve your grade (I will update with the Historical Investigation N grades soon), please work hard on that, too! I am here to help! :-)