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!

Period 1: World War I, Day 4 - Class Recap

Today was the start of a new semester for our class! A dawn of a new day. This is a picture of the streets in Bogota, Colombia in the pre-dawn light on October 4th, 2009.

Hi everyone,

I was SO impressed with how hard you all worked today in class on the essay! Thank you for putting in a lot of effort and asking questions if you needed. Remember that it is homework if you did not finish it in class. Please feel free to comment if you need any help!

Essential Question: Why do wars happen?

Soundtrack: "At The Beginning" from the Anastasia soundtrack. Lyrics here. Chosen because this is our first class together at the start of the second semester! Also, because the Disney movie is somewhat related to the Russian Revolution, which is what we will be studying after (or as a part of) World War I.

AGENDA 2/4/13: 
Semester 1 Grades
News Brief/Blog Recap
Essay Writing

Homework: Finish your essay! Find out how your family came to America. Check the blog.
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Semester 1 Grades: To start the class (as you were walking in), I told everyone that your final semester 1 grades were posted on the wall. There are a few limited exceptions to these, like students who were just added, or those who got very close to passing and need to prove that they deserve credit. I will be talking with those students on an individual basis. Thank goodness we can start afresh now!

News Brief/Blog Recap: Lots to go over, for sure. We talked briefly about the Super Bowl, then I mentioned the news of a former Westview student being found guilty of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction: HuffingtonPost.com - Mohamed Mohamud Guilty Verdict: Oregon Car-Bomb Suspect Convicted of Terrorism. There is obviously a LOT to talk about with this case. I tried to address the main points in class.

I also mentioned the attempted suicide of an Eastern Oregon teenager, which ended with him being taken off life support. Columbian.com - Oregon teen dies in hospital after suicide try. My main point in bringing this up was to just say that if you ever feel like you need to talk to someone, our school community is here to help you. In particular, please feel free to check in with me at any time. Be good to yourselves, your community, and each other. High school can be a really rough time (I know from personal experience). It gets better.

Finally, I brought up this news story from today: NYTimes.com - Bones Under Parking Lot Belonged to Richard III. How crazy is that? Using DNA matching and all sorts of other forensic evidence, researchers were able to find the remains of England's King Richard III, who had been buried in a shallow grave in a church, which later became a parking lot. What a story.

Vincent had the news brief article today. Here is the article he picked to use: CNN.com - Drone ranger: Unmanned plane to spy on rhino poachers. Very interesting article about people in Kenya possibly using drone aircraft to stop animals from being illegally killed. Thanks, Vincent!

I forgot to assign the next news brief in class, so unless I get a volunteer in the comments, or see Ethan Glaze in person before then, I will just bring something in myself.

Essay Writing: The rest of the class was devoted to finishing the World War I essays that I had you start during finals. Remember to use the same format that we talked about in class! If you missed it, or want to review the presentation again, here it is:

Google Docs - Writing Essays in Social Studies PowerPoint

Remember that you will be peer reviewing these essays next class, and I will have you be looking for the correct format and the vocabulary words/terms on the last slide to be used.

All good? Remember to finish those essays and to make sure you know how your family first came to Portland/America!

Period 1: World War I, Day 3 - Class Recap

Today's talk about writing essays included a bunch of pictures of Alcatraz Island, in San Francisco. Here's a picture of the city from that trip (Spring Break in 2011).

Dear class,

I realize that there has been a lot of me standing and talking to the class this last week! I apologize - hopefully it will not stay that way. I am simply guessing that you would rather hear all of this information personally explained to you, rather than copy notes from the textbook. In any case, I appreciated your effort today during our final class of Semester 1! On to the recap:

Essential Question: Why do wars happen? - There was an obvious connection between this question and what we worked on in class.

Soundtrack: "Waiting on the World to Change" by John Mayer. Lyrics here. Picked because it is a good song and mentions war.

AGENDA 1/29/13

News Brief/Blog Recap
The Most Important Skill
Graphic Organizing
Why Did World War I Begin?

Homework: Check the class blog and post a comment if you have not already done so! Good luck on finals!
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News Brief/Blog Recap: Marsuk brought in this article to discuss: BBC.co.uk - French-led troops secure hold on Timbuktu. I mentioned how this is really interesting because of the connection to colonialism. France was Mali's colonial power, and now feels like they should try to help the Malian government from collapsing. Definitely a big story in the world. Thanks, Marsuk! Vincent, you are up for next class (next Monday). Any news article about anything currently going on around the world outside the United States.

McKenzie asked about New Zealand sea foam. I had no idea, but it appears that there was a big sea foam event in Australia resulting from a tropical cyclone (the link has a pretty crazy video): ABCNews.go.com - Sea Foam Covers Australia's Coast.

I also mentioned two other news events that happened this weekend: the fire in Brazil that killed many people on Sunday. ABCNews.go.com - Brazil Nightclub Fire Kills More Than 230 People. This is such a terrible event. It reminded me of the famous Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in New York City in 1911, which killed 146 people.

Another news topic that I brought up Iran threatening to attack anyone that tries to intervene in Syria (remind anyone of the World War I alliances?): LATimes.com - Iran issues threatening warning against attack in Syria.

All in all, another good news brief section.

The Most Important Skill: I said this in class and I really believe it: the ability to write (especially a good essay) is the most important skill that you will need in order to be successful in high school and college. Thus, this lecture was something I hope you paid very close attention to. Please see the PowerPoint below (remember that if the text doesn't show up in Google Docs, click "File" then "Download" and it should when you have a copy on your own computer):

Google Docs: Writing Easy Essays in Social Studies PowerPoint

The basics: every essay needs to start out with a "thesis statement" in the first paragraph (the introduction). Each of the three paragraphs after that should contain one main point you are trying to make. The format (or recipe) for those "body" paragraphs are like this: topic sentence, concrete detail/fact, concrete detail/fact, commentary/opinion, and then a concluding sentence. Finally, after the three body paragraphs, you will write a conclusion that restates the thesis. This is a LOT of information to try and learn, I know. That is why I am having you practice in class before I ask you to write me a real one at the end of the World War I unit.

Graphic Organizing: Based on the essay question on the last slide of the PowerPoint, I gave three different examples of "graphic organizing" your essay. I asked you to use one of these examples to start up your essay. If you missed class, here is one of the examples that you can use to start thinking about your essay:

Google Docs - Graphic Organizer for Writing Essays

Along with this, I gave the class a good format for writing a thesis (and even included one on World War I to start you off, if you were having trouble):

Google Docs - Thesis Statement Formula and Example

Hopefully this made sense. It is okay if it does not right away. That is why we are practicing!

Why Did World War I Begin? For the rest of class, I had you start up your essays using your graphic organizers - then the actual writing if you finished that. Here are the prompts that we were using (the last slide of the PowerPoint): 

Question: Why did World War I start and what happened at the beginning of it?

Words to use: militarism, alliances, imperialism, nationalism, Franz Ferdinand, Sarajevo, Triple Alliance, Triple Entente, June 28th 1914, trenches, Eastern Front, Western Front.

Use your notes! Cite my presentation as (Fritz Lecture) for any concrete details directly from me. You can also use the textbook, if you like.

Again, we will continue working on this in class. The essay is not homework - I want to help you through each step this time. Next time, it will be an actual assignment/test. You will be including your work here with that final assignment - so it is not like this work will not count.

Phew! I know that is a lot. Please let me know if you have any questions! Good luck on finals - see you next week!