Period 1: Revolution! Day 7 - Class Recap

The news brief today was about Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez dying. This is a picture of the Venezuelan embassy in Aruba, which is very close to the coast of Venezuela. I remember seeing Chavez on TV when I visited in 2011!

Dear class,

We had sort of a relaxed day today, I think. Lots of talking about the news and what is going on around the world, the quiz, and some work with Soviet propaganda. Make sure to have any missing work in to me by tomorrow, for your progress report grade!

Essential Questions: What brings people together? What tears people apart?

Soundtrack: “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” by U2. Selected for today because it is (or was, growing up) one of my brother's favorite songs growing up. It is his 25th birthday today! Also chosen because not all of my students are being successful, which means we still have work to do. Lyrics here.

AGENDA 3/7/13:
News Brief/OPVL
Quiz Talk
Propaganda Posters
Work Time/Grade Check

Homework: Read the blog! Turn in any missing work for better progress report grades! Daniel K. has the next news brief.
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News Brief/OPVL: Anthony brought in this article to talk about with the class (a really important world news story): CNN.com - What's next? Chavez's death leaves many questions. We talked about Hugo Chavez and I showed three dramatically different opinions about him, as a way of looking at Origin, Purpose, Value, and Limitation.

Continuing with our discussion about privacy during forced choice, I talked the newest rules for what you can take on planes that are going into effect and showed the official TSA website regulations with the update.

We also talked about the story of a Portland man being arrested in connection to a 2009 suicide bomber in Pakistan: KGW.com - FBI: Portland man connected to '09 Pakistan suicide attack.

Plenty going on in the world!

Quiz Talk: I passed back your Russian Revolution vocabulary quiz and we had a somewhat spirited discussion about the results (the class average was 3.1 out of 5, which is a 62%). I was wondering what else I could be doing to help you be successful in the future with these. Obviously something went wrong, even with me giving you the vocabulary words to study for the test, the entire weekend to study, this website with the presentation and vocab to review, AND time in class right before the quiz to study. As I said in class, I take it personally when students are not successful. Let me know how I can help you do better in the future, if this was something you really struggled with.

Propaganda Posters: The next part of class was devoted to checking out some examples of Soviet Union propaganda (it is nice that you already knew what propaganda meant from studying Rwanda) and filling out a worksheet with each slide, then creating your own example on the back. If you missed class, or wanted to add to your worksheet, here is the presentation:

Google Drive: Soviet Union Propaganda PowerPoint

Here is the worksheet that goes along with the presentation:

Google Drive: Soviet Union Propaganda Worksheet

After viewing all of the slides and filling out the worksheet, I gave the class this assignment: 

On the back side of the propaganda poster worksheet, you are creating your OWN Russian poster. Please use at least two symbols. Try to connect to at least one of the vocabulary words. You do not have to use Russian. Use a English caption, please.

This is NOT homework, unless you need to get a good start on it. We will finish these in class next week.

Work Time/Grade Check: For the last section of class, I checked in with students about grades (and invited students to look at your updated grades posted on the classroom board) and gave time to work on either the propaganda poster or make up work. All late and/or missing work for progress reports is due in to me by tomorrow! Grades have to be posted before school on Tuesday morning. Since there is no class on Monday, this means I will be entering in grades tomorrow (Friday).

Please comment or email if you have any questions! Have a great long weekend!

Period 1: Revolution! Day 6 - Class Recap

I told the class today that part of my weekend (aside from chatting with a guy in an HP call center in the Philippines) was watching the Portland Timbers season opener vs. the New York Red Bulls. I've actually been to Red Bull Stadium (it's in New Jersey) for a USA vs Ecuador "international friendly" match in 2011.

Dear class,

Another good day, in my estimation! I have not looked at the majority of the quizzes yet - I hope that you did well! I should be able to get them back to you next class. Here's what we did today:

Essential Questions: What brings people together? What tears people apart?

Soundtrack: “Mother Russia” by Renaissance. Chosen for today because of the obvious connection to what we are learning about. Also, Renaissance is a really great band. Lyrics here. A little more about the composition of the song here.

AGENDA 3/5/13:
News Brief
Pop Quiz, Hotshot
OPVL
Game Time

Homework: Read the blog! Anthony has the next news brief.

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News Brief: I asked the class about your weekends and then told everyone a little about my experience buying a new laptop and setting it up with the help of a guy in the Philippines. It was good times, aside from being crazy frustrating that it would not work for quite a while. Then, Nelson came in with this news article: CNN.com - Blast kills 42, wounds dozens in Pakistani city of Karachi. I talked a bit about the different sects in Islam (like Catholics and Protestants in Christianity), which are Sunni and Shia. There is often violence between those two groups. Remember the forced choice question on religion? In this case, the bombers not only believe that their religion is the one correct one, they believe that their particular branch or way of thinking about their religion is the one correct one.

Pop Quiz, Hotshot: After the news brief, I gave the class a few minutes to study up for the Russian Revolution vocab quiz, as I passed back your forced choice reflections. Your updated grades are posted by student ID number on the board. No excuses for you to not know exactly what you need to do!

I'm not going to recap the quiz itself, other than to say that I hope everyone did well. If you were following along during the presentation and did your homework to review, I'm sure you were fine.

OPVL: After the quiz, I introduced a new way to think about various different documents in history. I used the textbook as an example. OPVL stands for Origin, Purpose, Value, and Limitation. Your assignment was to take the paper I handed out in class and go through the four documents on each side of the room to assess them. If you missed class, or needed to complete this outside of class, here are the links to both the OPVL sheet and the documents I posted:

Google Drive: OPVL Worksheet

Google Drive: Russian Revolution Primary Documents for Analysis

Let me know if this assignment is at all unclear. You will be turning this in as part of the Russian Revolution packet later, so please keep it with you or in your folder in class!

Game Time: At the end of class, I introduced a game that I really like to play with my global studies classes - the World Map quiz. The record so far this year is 121 in about 13 minutes (how much time you had), by Period 2. You were able to get to 117 before class ended. Funny how people were demanding that we keep going, haha! We will come back to this later, I'm sure. For now, practice away! I have managed to get all 197 in 15 minutes once or twice (a couple of years ago). My current record in the last month or so (I haven't played in a while) is something like 170. Here's the game:

Spocle.com - World Map Quiz

I loved the energy and enthusiasm here! My thanks to Rachael for being my assistant caller (I think it was pretty obvious what would happen if I didn't have someone helping - people just yelling at me, haha.

See you on Thursday!

Period 1: Revolution! Day 5 - Class Recap

This is a picture I took of Maria Sharapova carrying the flag of the Russian Federation at the Opening Ceremony of the London Olympics. The flag is different from the one the USSR had after the revolution!

Hi everyone,

I had a fun time last night making all of the content to go over today, and I think it went very well! Thank you for working with me on the "newsflash" pre-assessment and during the Russian Revolution presentation. Please see below if you missed out on anything!

Essential Questions: What brings people together? What tears people apart?

Soundtrack: “Sunday Bloody Sunday” by U2. Chosen for today because 1) this song came up last night when I was listening to my iTunes library on shuffle, and 2) because "Bloody Sunday" (not the same one as the song, but still) is a really important event in Russian history. Lyrics here.

AGENDA 3/1/13:

News Brief

Debrief Forced Choice

Newsflash

Peace, Land, and Bread

Homework: Study for quiz on Russian Revolution next class. Read the blog. Nelson, you have the next news brief.

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News Brief: Alyssa brought in this news article to talk about: CNN.com - 18 killed as hot air balloon explodes, plummets in Egypt. Obviously an awful event. I've never been on a hot air balloon, but I have done other risky stuff, like bungee jumping! Thanks for bringing in the article, Alyssa.

Debrief Forced Choice: We devoted a few minutes after the news brief to talk about our reactions to the "forced choice" exercise, that we spent most of two days doing. I really enjoyed all of your responses. I appreciated Andrew saying that he liked the activity because it made him think of answers to questions he had never really had to consider before. That was definitely a main reason I do the activity. I also answered some of the questions myself, because I believe in being honest about my own perspective on the world. After this, I had everyone turn in the reflections on the activity, which were due as homework if you had not completed them last class.

Newsflash: This is absolutely my favorite way to start a new unit. Good teachers always try and assess where students are at before they teach any specific content (otherwise, we would have no idea if you had actually learned anything or not). If you wanted to see the hilarious "Whose Line is it Anyway?" clip again, here it is:

So awesome. Next, I passed out the "pre-assessment" paper that was geared around going back in time to Russia in 1917. If you did not complete this in class, you absolutely need to do this BEFORE going on to reviewing the presentation. If you missed class, or lost your copy (I will have you turn this in later), here it is to download and print:

Google Drive: "Newsflash" Russian Revolution Pre-Assessment

Again, it does not matter if you do not know very much: make an educated guess!

Peace, Land, and Bread: After the newsflash activity, I started up the Russian Revolution content. Here is the vocabulary list that students were filling out during the presentation (the quiz will be on these terms, next class):

Google Drive: Russian Revolution Vocabulary Terms

I helpfully three hole punched these, as well. See? I listened to your feedback about making notes easier!

Here is the main event - the PowerPoint of the basics of what happened during the Russian Revolution:

Google Drive: "Peace, Land, and Bread: The Russian Revolution" PowerPoint

On slide 6 of the PowerPoint, I stopped and played this video from YouTube (it should start at 41:11 in, and we watched almost to the end) about the process of how Lenin was able to come back to Russia from his exile, with the help of Germany during World War I.

I finished the presentation with about two minutes left in class, so I hope that I gave enough time for everyone to finish writing the notes, balanced with my need to make sure I was able to get through the entire presentation, so you had all the terms for the quiz next class.

We definitely packed quite a lot into class today. I hope it was all clear! Absolutely ask me questions if you are at all confused or need clarification. I really appreciated your focus and attention today. Have a great weekend!