One of the photos that we talked about today in class. The African-American girl in the photo is Elizabeth Eckford, of the so called "Little Rock Nine." You can read a really fascinating account of her life here: Vanity Fair - Through a Lens, Darkly.
Hello and welcome to another class recap!
Generally, I liked how today went. I enjoy the fact that I can trust you guys with a completely random (for the most part) seating chart! I really liked what we did with the pictures of the civil rights movement. I am not sure how clear the talk about the bibliography and your research question for your final paper was, so I am thinking that we will devote most of the class on Thursday to writing notes about your sources and continuing to write the paper.
Essential Questions: How does conflict arise and in what ways have various people responded? What are civil rights?
Soundtrack: "Amazing" by Kanye West. Lyrics here. Selected because I keep hearing it for the NBA playoffs commercials, and because you guys are amazing. :-)
AGENDA 5/19/09: News Brief Recap and Gallery Walk Final Paper Bibliography Research Questions
Homework: Have research question formulated for next class, begin work on writing paper! Read blog recap!
If anyone would like help with formulating a good question, please post a message in the comments with your topic (something that you are interested in studying), and I will try to make it work! Your fellow classmates can help with this too!
News Brief: I don't know about you, but the start of class seemed to drag on for me. This was partially because I had to pass back about 40 papers, and partially because it seemed like we did not have too much to talk about. Sure, there was the Los Angeles earthquake, President Obama speaking at Notre Dame University, and the swine flu cases nearing 10,000. There is definitely so much more going on though! Remember to keep paying attention to everything!
We used this same article to talk about how to write a bibliography for a website later in class. Mainly, I wanted to point out that President Obama met yesterday with Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to talk about exactly what we have covered in class! What should Israel do about the threat of Iran? Should there be a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Again, I try to make everything that we learn about relate to what is currently going on in the world!
So, if anyone would like to step up to do the news brief for next class, on Thursday, in the comments, I would much appreciate it. Thanks!
Recap and Gallery Walk: For this part of class, I asked everyone to get out your note sheets on civil rights and what Martin Luther King Jr. had to say about how to get them. I wrote a few ideas on the board that we talked about last class, using excerpts from MLK's speeches. Then, I had everyone go around the room and look at the pictures from the African-American fight for civil rights in the United States. I asked you to choose four, and write down how they were (or were not) visual representations of MLK's philosophy.
I thought the class discussion on these, using the ELMO to look at a few with everybody, was really fantastic. Look, those were pictures that were supposed to be pretty controversial and get a response out of you! It is no wonder that there was some great thoughts about how the pictures were possible representations of non-violent philosophy. Thanks for this!
Final Paper Bibliography: For this section of the class, I talked about how to create an easy bibliography, using the "cheat sheets" that were stapled in your folders. I used the aforementioned CNN article as an example. Remember, for your final paper, you need to have at least four different sources, and three of them have to be a newspaper article, magazine article, and a book. Wikipedia is NOT a source, but it does frequently link to sources at the bottom of each page!
Research Questions: Abe and I handed out a bright yellow sheet to help you with formulating a good research question. We brainstormed on the board the aspects of a great question, like: being specific, testable, interesting, and easy to follow. For the last 10 minutes or so, we worked in class on developing your questions. Again, please see me if you want any help with it! Begin researching and answering your question! This should be a fairly lengthy paper - about 3-4 pages by the time you are all done. We will continue to talk about great ways to take notes and accomplish all the other objectives for the paper, next class. ---
Whew. That is a lot. I am guessing that a lot of it still does not make much sense, or is really stressful if it does. Let's continue working on this all together! Have a great rest of the day, and please make sure to stay in touch!
The Wordle for what everyone likes about the class. I was really glad to see that most everyone had a positive view of what we do! Thanks again for your thoughts here!
Welcome to your weekend!
First off, thank you for reading the blog. I guess it kind of hit me last night how much effort and time I really do have to devote to it. That was the first time I had really thought about calculating how many pages each recap must be. For the last one to be four pages, that means I have typed around 200 pages for your class alone! I know that is a TON of reading for you to do, but I truly believe that by reading, you will do better in class, and even more importantly, succeed in knowing more about the world. So thanks for checking it out, and thanks for the great class today! I was really happy with how everything went. :-)
Essential Questions: How does conflict arise and in what ways have various people responded? What are civil rights?
Soundtrack: "Get Up, Stand Up" by Bob Marley. Lyrics here. A fantastic song for thinking about civil rights! I am sad that Robert wasn't in class to hear it today - he has been wanting some Bob Marley for the soundtrack all year!
AGENDA 5/15/09: News Brief Debrief Class Reflections Martin Luther King Jr. Final Paper Note Taking
Homework: Bring sources (at least one more) for next class. Continue to work on research! Read blog recap!
I was really disappointed that we only had about 7 people actually bring in an article for the class today. It ended up being okay, because we did not have time to use them in class (that would have been the next step after Mrs. DeFrance's talk), but seriously, that was one of the easiest homework assignments ever: find something that you are interested in about the world, search Google News, print off an article. You didn't even really have to read it! Next class, I want everyone on the ball please.
News Brief: At the beginning of class, I went over the essential questions, soundtrack, agenda, and homework, then talked a little bit about my friend Ryan, who came in to visit the class, and his trip to Rwanda coming up! We are hoping that we can do some sort of webchat or something, to really tie everything together for the year! Super cool. Here is his post on Biking for Obama about it. Again, exactly what we are talking about in class, with connecting cultures through sports and other similarities!
I also pointed out that The Office season finale was amazing, that Mr. Hardin's Lakers lost (Game 7 on Sunday at 12:30 on ABC), and that the weather is amazing. After that, I started handing back your grades for the Israeli-Palestinian projects. Again, if you did not get something from me today, that means something is wrong and I need you to give me something else. Way too many "somethings" in that sentence. Anyway, please come see me!
A couple really interesting points from the class discussion during the news brief. Again, this section is only as good as you make it! It is your turn to bring up interesting things to talk about!
I have a couple of notes from this. One, was Aaron asked why the United States continues to fund other countries, even though our economy (like everyone else's) is terrible right now. I pointed out that our national debt (click on that link if you are at all interested in this - it is fascinating) is on the upswing again, as we have to borrow more and more money to pay for things. Further, I noted that China holds most of the debt that we owe to foreign governments. A really interesting article about the recent consequences of that in today's economy can be found here: Forbes.com - China's U.S. Debt Quandary.
I'm not sure who asked (it might have been Zack), but there was a question about which country in the world has the most debt. That's sort of a complicated question to answer, because it depends how you look at answering the question. Is the debt as a percentage of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product, which basically means ALL of goods and services within a country in a year)? If so, Zimbabwe is not looking too hot. Source: CIA World FactBook - Country Comparisons - Public Debt.
A lot of mumbo jumbo that you almost certainly do not care about, but the basic gist of it all is this: The United States economy is over three times bigger/richer than the next biggest economy, which is Japan. You can see why when the U.S. has economic problems, the world does too, to a large extent.
Anyway, I know I am a huge nerd for getting into that stuff. Here's something that Abe was excited about bringing in to talk about: CNN.com - Myanmar democracy leader facing trial after American's swim. Honestly, this is a really amazing story. I'm not sure if you guys got all of what I was saying in class about it, so it is really worth a read! Wow, to think I would have had no clue at all about this if I had not been listening to OPB's "The World" on the way home from school yesterday, on 91.5 FM, from 3:00-4:00! Man, I love learning. :-)
I did not assign anyone for next class to do a news brief, so if you would like to bring something in for next Tuesday, please let me know in the comments. Otherwise, I guess I will just do it myself!
Debrief Class Reflections: As I think I said in class, I was up until about 12:30 AM doing this last night (and that wasn't even including the MLK stuff, which kept me up until 1:00). I was really glad to be able to do this, though, as it is always incredibly interesting!
If you missed what I said, or want to see all the answers again, here they are:
1) What do you like about this class? (What about the structure gets you excited to come in the morning?)
Easy, not strict, fun x 3, debates x 2, discussions x 4, news brief x 6, soundtrack x 8, something different, topics x 4, people x 10, community x 2, nothing (too freaking tired), Mr. Fritz (smile) x 5, no homework due (usually) x 2, atmosphere x 3, "wakes me up in the morning," energy x 3, learning x 2, relevance, understandable, "not going to Hardin’s class" and "Hardin is funnier, but overall I’d much rather be in this class," everything, essays, relaxed x 2, the Blazers, work, projects x 2, never boring, activities
2) What could the class improve on?
Being more involved (participation), nothing x 2, too cold, music too loud, turning in homework x 6, quietness x 6, tardiness x 2, "stop shouting random comments," respect x 3, attitude, explanation, community x 2, participate more on blog, nicer to Mr. Fritz, annoyingness, listening, "people starting side conversations" x 3, staying on topic x 2, less essays and papers, more group work
3) What do you like about Mr. Fritz as a teacher?
Not strict/lenient x 4, enthusiastic x 13, energy x 4, approachable x 3, potential, positive attitude x 2, optimistic x 2, lets us revise, effort, reaches out, different topics x 3, fun x 2, interesting, nice x 2, no tests, learn a lot, taste in music, effort on blog x 2, understanding x 2, relatable, manliness, cool x 2, plays basketball x 2 "like Michael Jordan," dedication, love, passionate x 2, awesome, "get us to care," motivated, "wants people to do good," ideas, creativity, minimal homework, "not a harsh grader," "makes learning better," activities, "always has something as a visual to explain what you're doing" movies x 2, "relaxed unless you need to get mad," calm, relaxed, helpful
4) What can Mr. Fritz improve on?
Too much time on one topic (news brief, Blazers), explanation x 8, student engagement, nothing x 10, strictness x 2, "not so many projects that make us get up in front of class," "get a job here," "punishing for late work, so people will do it," class outside x 2, quieting down the class x 2, enthusiasm, handwriting x 2, less strict, give more time on projects, not talk about uncomfortable topics (like rape), more movies, "I think you need to make the class respect you more. At times, it’s a little too 'buddy buddy' and we forget that you are our teacher. Which is good, but we still need to know you are our teacher." "talking maybe a little quieter," hands on activities, make homework worth more, keep on topic --- Thanks again for participating in this activity! I really think it is a great way to see how class is going.
Martin Luther King Jr.: For this section, I asked you to get out your notes on civil rights from last class. I then proceeded to hand out a sheet of excerpts from three different speeches, which can be found (along with many others) at MLK Online - Speeches.
The speeches that I quoted from were "Letter from Birmingham Jail," "Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech," and "I See the Promised Land." All incredibly powerful speeches, with some amazing context for when they were given! For instance, check out this excerpt from the end of the last speech he ever gave, "I See the Promised Land":
If that does not give you chills, I do not know what to tell you.
After reading through these excerpts, I asked the class (using volunteers and playing cards) to tell me a little bit about the philosophy behind what MLK was saying. How was he trying to get civil rights? I thought that this was an incredibly productive conversation to have (I took notes on the board and asked you to copy them down). It was a little shorter than I wanted, but that is the nature of things for the rest of the year, since we also have the following section to work on!
Final Paper Note Taking: Mrs. DeFrance had you write down your research topics on the board, and most of them looked absolutely great! I am excited to see what you guys come up with for them! Mrs. DeFrance and I explained the strategy that she really likes for taking notes, using her folder system. She asked me after class if this made sense when she was writing on the overhead, and I told her with 100% confidence that it did. It really is a great system and easy to use! We talked about using the three colored sheets in the folder. One is for a sentence/short thought, the second is for paragraphs and chunks, and the third is for the entire article.
Thanks for listening and being great note takers, during the note taking part of the lesson! Let me know if you were at all confused about this. Again, next class I want you to bring in sources to take notes on! ---
Have a stupendous weekend! Enjoy the great weather! I know that I am ready for a rest. This week has been totaly exhausting. Only 4 days of school next week, and then I am flying off for the long weekend to New Jersey to see my brother at Princeton and help him pack up! Super excited for that. By the way, speaking of airplanes, I will be at the airport tonight working at UPS, seeing some friends (for possibly the last time, as the company I work for out there is losing the contract at the end of May - sad times!). Thus, I will not be able to post or respond to comments from about 4:00 to 10:00 tonight (Friday).
Thank you for being such amazing students. I was not lying when I said that you guys make all of the work worthwhile when I see you in the morning. Please work hard for me too! :-)
EDIT: Just checked, and without the picture and video, in Times New Roman size 12 font, this blog post is exactly four pages long. Whew!
Earth, as seen from the Apollo 17. This is probably the most famous image of Earth from space, and is sometimes referred to as the "Blue Marble" picture. Found on the consistently incredible (bookmark and come back every day) NASA.gov - Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD).
Hello everyone!
That sure does feel nice, to type a new unit title! Thank you for participating in everything today. I get the feeling that the rest of the year, every day will be crammed full of stuff to do. We accomplished a lot today! I know there is probably a lot to clear up and write about as well, so let's get on to the recap!
Essential Questions: How does conflict arise and in what ways have various people responded? What are civil rights? - The first one is from an earlier unit (we have now talked about every essential question that the Westview Social Studies department wants us to), and the second is one for the lesson today.
Soundtrack: "Say It Right" by Nelly Furtado. Lyrics here. I'm not sure if anyone really knows what this song is about, including Ms. Furtado, but man, is it catchy. As I said in class, it reminds me of a California road trip I took in 2007! Chosen for today because I searched my iTunes for "right" and this was the best song that came up.
AGENDA 5/13/09: News Brief Reflections on Goals/Unit/Class Civil Rights The Final
Homework: Decide on what topic you want to do (for your research project), bring a source to take notes on next class. Read blog recap!
This will be talked about a little more in "The Final" section. Basically, I want you to decide on what you want to investigate for your final paper, and bring one source in (like a news article, book, magazine, etc) that relates to your topic and that you can take notes on. We will help you do this in class! All I need for you to do is to pick a topic, and choose something to take notes on about.
For anyone that was not in class today, or that has lost (already) the assignment sheet, here it is to download:
Again, we will be talking about this much more. In fact, for the rest of the year, this is what we will be doing. As I noted in class, I am thinking that we will have about half the time devoted to this new unit, and the other half to developing this paper.
News Brief: We really did not have that much to talk about today, for any number of reasons, but that is totally fine. Just so long as you are paying attention to what is going on in the world!
Specifically, Lauren talked about China remembering the one year anniversary of an incredibly deadly earthquake. Source: USA Today.com - A year later, China vows to rise from quake. That was certainly a huge event that will effect that region for a long time to come. I wanted to post a picture of school desks holding up the ceiling of a building that had otherwise completely collapsed. Here is your evidence:
That was after the 1985 Mexico City Earthquake. Though I will admit that this is a pretty unlikely outcome, given a really strong earthquake, at least it is better than nothing. We do those earthquake drills for a reason! :-)
Abe said he will bring something in next class on Friday for us to talk about. Thanks!
Reflections on Goals/Unit/Class: At the start of this section, I had you pull out your goal sheets from the beginning of the semester, that I gave you back last class. I asked you to write a little reflection about how things are going, what you can improve or continue to work on, etc. I read all of these, and generally, I am glad that you are participating on this! It is really important to set goals for yourself, and come back to those goals from time to time. On one paper, someone even wrote something like "I completely forgot about this, but I was right. I have to work harder, starting now!" Good stuff.
I then asked you to get out another sheet of paper to do the activity that we had done at the end of last semester. The questions that I wanted you to respond to were: 1) What do you like about this class? (What about the structure gets you excited to come in the morning?) 2) What could be improved about the class? 3) What do you like about Mr. Fritz as a teacher? 4) What can Mr. Fritz improve on?
To be honest, I have not read all of these yet, but I did glance at them, and I am really thankful for your honest feedback. It really does help me out (and in theory, you as well)!
Civil Rights: To start this section of the class, I asked you to get out another sheet of paper and I projected this quote for you to reflect on (like Mr. Hardin's class): "A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history." - Mohandas Gandhi.
After a really great period of focused work (I could tell you guys were used to doing this), I had everyone come up and write one example or thought you had that came to mind as you were thinking about the quote. I thought all of these were really interesting! We had 9/11/2001, The Blazers, Revolutionary War, 300, V for Vendetta, amongst others. The point to doing this was as a warm up to think about the fight for civil rights.
Next, I asked you to help me brainstorm about what, exactly, civil rights were. To be honest, I think I could have done this portion of the class better. I noticed that a lot of people were tuning out, and at some level, I can't blame you. However, I was really happy with those that participated in this. We had the right to love, live, vote, own land, free speech, and some other good thoughts! Zack T. noted that there is a limit on some of these, like in this instance: ESPN.com - Ovechkin, Caps putting threat behind them. Yes!
As I went and got Mrs. DeFrance, I asked you to take notes on our brainstorming session. Next class, we will work with this! :-)
The Final: As I think Mrs. DeFrance and I said in class, this "historical investigation" project is one that every freshman at Westview is working on, as part of the common assessment for Social Studies. If you remember, the first semester version of this was the visual metaphor. Thus, this is a really big deal!
Mrs. DeFrance talked about her really amazing folder system for helping you write papers. Seriously, if I had this in high school, I think I would have written 10 page long papers with ease. It is really a pretty incredible way to keep track of everything. Please keep everything in that folder - including all the sheets of paper tucked inside!
I linked to the final paper assignment sheet above. We read that together in class, as I tried as best as I could to introduce this as something that you do not have to stress out about. Make it interesting to you! After reading everything together, we started brainstorming ideas for "issues of global significance" on the board. I took a picture of the results:
Pick one of these, or any other issue for your homework, and bring in something to start you off on the project on Friday! I want you to be excited at finding out information about the world, that you may not have really had the chance to learn about in class this year!
Put it this way, there are entire college courses devoted to just these topics. In fact, I was in one last year at Western Oregon University! It was called History 492: World Problems. I ended up writing a 10 page paper on the search for Osama bin Laden. It was a really interesting class!
If you are still totally unsure about what to do, try a Google search for "world problems" or "globalization" or something along those lines. If none of that sounds interesting at all, come talk to me and I am sure we can get you started. :-)
Finally, at the end of class, I read an article about the Pope (the head of the Catholic Church) visiting Jerusalem and calling for peace. Here is that article: CNN.com - Pope visits Jerusalem's holiest sites. I wanted to read this off as an example of an issue of global significance, directly relating to what we just learned about!
By the way, I just found this article: AP - Pope in Bethlehem endorses Palestinian homeland, which I think is really a fantastic example of why everything we learned about in class is important. I think almost all of you will understand everything in it now! Woo hoo! :-) ---
For anyone that is accustomed to reading the blog right after (or during) school, sorry about getting this up late. It kind of reminds me of before I started being at Westview full time! Very relaxing and easy to write the blog at home, I must say. Seriously, I am very busy lately. Here is what I did after class today, for anyone interested:
Put away projector and put files, folders, and laptop on desk. Enter attendance for class on eSIS. Complete grading the Israeli-Palestinian projects before lunch (by the way, these are all done, if you provided me with both a paper and the creative product, if possible). Create lesson plans for Periods 2 and 4 tomorrow. Make copies of final assignment sheets for both. Make copies of Promises conversation assignment for Period 4. File away everything for easy retrieval tomorrow. Enter grades for everything I have recently graded on eSIS. Read goal sheets we did today in class. Do quick update on blog. Miscellaneous grading of late work. Help Mrs. DeFrance with a PowerPoint question. Finish reading and responding to Period 2's Promises conversations.
Yeah. I was busy. I'm sure I am forgetting stuff there too. Thanks for bearing with me, if this is a little late!
Other news of interest: Brandon Roy was selected to the All-NBA Second Team! This is a really huge honor! The first time a Blazer has made All-NBA since Clyde Drexler in 1992. Source: BlazersEdge.com. Brandon Roy is simply incredible. What a guy.
The Office Season Five finale is tomorrow night (Thursday)! It is totally worth checking out, even if you have never seen it. The fun starts at 9:00 PM, on NBC (Channel 8 for most of you). The Office is my favorite television show of all time. I am really quite sad that the season will be over and we will have to wait until the fall for a new episode! Every year this happens, and there is a huge cliffhanger, and it just kills me.
There is a TON of sporting action going on. I am sure that Westview's spring sports are all worth checking out. Add to that two Game Sevens in the NHL, the Lakers-Rockets and Celtics-Magic series in the NBA (both Game Sixes), and Major League Baseball, all tomorrow. Wow. It is a great time to be a sports fan!
Whew! That was quite the recap! It took me much longer than usual to put together. The life of a teacher, rolls on! Have a great evening! Come see me if you want to see your grade or need any help at all! Feel free to continue the conversation in the comments. See you on Friday! Thanks for being amazing! :-)
