World War I, Day 1 - Class Recap

Your anonymous feedback for what you like about this class! :-) 

Hello everyone,

Welcome to a new semester and a new unit to study! Today, we started looking at World War I and making connections to what we have already learned about as far as imperialism in Rwanda, the Holocaust and the rise of Hitler, and everything else we have talked about. Here's what happened today:

Learning Targets:
Critical Thinking and Analysis LT 2: I can explain connections between events, issues, problems, and concepts.
Knowledge LT 20: I can explain the impacts of nationalism and revolutionary movements.

Soundtrack: "Brand New Day" by Sting. Selected for today because it is a brand new semester and a chance to start again! Lyrics here.

AGENDA 2/1/16:
News Brief - Spencer
Review Class Feedback
Ominous Beginnings PowerPoint
Murder of the Archduke

Homework: Read the blog and post a comment again! Finish the reading questions if you did not in class. Next news brief: James

News Brief: Spencer had the news brief today and selected this article to talk about: BBC.com - Migrant crisis: More than 10,000 children 'missing'. Instead of highlighting or putting a star on all of Europe, I said that students should do so for the country of Greece. This is obviously a hugely important story and will continue to be for the rest of this year.

James was selected to do the next news brief.

We also watched the one minute BBC World News update. Here's the link to see the latest one minute update, at any time of day (it will probably be different from what we watched in class):

BBCNews.com - One-minute World News

I also talked about today being the Iowa caucuses, which help decide who the presidential candidates in November will be. This will be interesting to follow, for sure!

Review Class Feedback: We looked at the anonymous feedback that students gave me before the Ladkah semester final about how the class was going, and how I am doing as a teacher. Here it is again if you want to check it out:

Google Drive - Period 1 January Class Feedback

Some observations:

1) It looks like students really love what we learn about in class, which is awesome to see!

2) The class knows it could get better at participating.

3) You like that I am good at explaining concepts and that I am a fun teacher.

4) However, some students feel like I could do a better job of not being too happy (if anything at all).

Ominous Beginnings PowerPoint: I went over the definition of "ominous" and used the example of music in a scary movie: you know something bad is about to happen. The rest of the PowerPoint was about the M.A.I.N. causes of World War I. The class took Cornell Notes on each slide - which will come in handy at the end of this unit. Please review the presentation if you missed class, or did not have enough time to finish up your notes:

Google Docs - World War I: Ominous Beginnings PowerPoint

Thank you so much for your focus during this part of class! You all seemed to really be getting what I was talking about, which is great to see.

Murder of the Archduke: I passed this document around, and read it aloud to the class, trying to describe what happened in the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. - Borijove Jevtic: The Murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo, 28 June 1914. This is the story of how World War I started. I had the class answer the analysis questions at the end, as well. It is such an important event in history - all set up by the MAIN causes of World War I. The questions at the end were what we finished class with. We will start next time by going over the answers together.

This was what we ended class with! Thank you for your participation and focus today! :-)