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

First: Mrs. DeFrance Gilman had her baby! From what I've heard, both mother and child are happy and healthy. :-)

We talked a bit about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. today, since we had the day off from school yesterday to honor and remember him. I took this picture of the new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington DC on October 1, 2011.

Hello everyone,

Thank you for a great first class with me as your teacher! It was really fun for me to be back doing my dream job. I hope you didn't mind all the talking at the start. It was necessary to be clear about what class will look like with me as your teacher. Read on, for the recap!

Essential Question: "Why does war happen?" - Essential questions are very broad (they do not have yes or no answers) ways of looking at content. I might eventually have you write an essay, do a speech, make a presentation, or something along those lines, with the essential question for a unit. It will always be highlighted during my opening remarks.

Soundtrack: "Changes" by 2Pac. I will always have some sort of relevant music playing before class starts - for many reasons. I always start new classes with this song, because my classroom should be a little different than what you've had in the past, but some things never change. Lyrics here.

Agenda 1/22/13:
Introduction/Attendance
Create Ground Rules
The Blog
News Brief
Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Causes of World War I

Homework: Check the blog and post a comment! Many of you have already done this. If you have not, go to the bottom of this post and click on "comments" to post yours. Please remember to use your name, so I can give you credit!
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Introduction/Attendance: As it sounds, I introduced how I like to start my classes - with the essential question, soundtrack, agenda, and homework all up on the board. Again, it might take me a bit to learn all of your names - hopefully I am able to by the end of finals next week! Thank you for sitting where you were supposed to be and allowing attendance to go smoothly. The faster I learn your names, the faster we get rid of the seating chart!

Create Ground Rules: This actually did not take as long as I thought it might, nor was it as tedious as it could have been! Here's what your class agreed on as ground rules. I will hold you to these, both in class and on the blog! You will see them on the upper right hand corner of the blog at all times.

Your Period 4 Ground Rules:

- Respect Everybody/Everything
- Be Responsible
- Be Prepared
- Have Fun
- Stay Engaged

The Blog: After making the ground rules, I introduced everyone to this website! Possibly the one time I will allow everyone to have your cell phones/iPods out. Thank you for bookmarking this page - I hope it will be useful for you in the future!

News Brief: I talked about how I like to start each class, with a "current event" section. No worries, though - this involves no writing on your part. Simply find a news article about something that has recently happened outside of the United States, read it, bring it in, and talk about it for maybe 30 seconds. Then I will try and add to it and we will all find the location of the country in the article on the world map. My example from today was this article: CNN.com - For Israeli voters, missile fire, money main issues in Tuesday election. So, I talked a little bit about the election in Israel, the ongoing conflict there, and I had you find the country on your map and highlight it. Not so bad, right? We will begin each class with a current events type focus. Because Global Studies is not just ancient history - it is what is happening right now, especially as the present has been influenced by the past.

Kourtney volunteered to bring in the first news brief article for the class. Please remember it, Kourtney! :-)

Martin Luther King Jr. Day: Since we had yesterday off for a social studies reason, I felt like it was very important for us to talk about why that was. We discussed who Martin Luther King Jr. was and what he was fighting for. Many of you asked if we were going to watch the famous "I Have A Dream" speech. We did not, but you can find it here: YouTube - Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" Speech - August 28th, 1965.

The speech (or at least, part of the speech) that we watched in class was this one - his last speech before being assassinated. His words here make it sound like he knew exactly what was happening:

Very powerful stuff. Martin Luther King Jr. was once called "the most dangerous man in America" by the head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover - who thought he was a communist for being against the war in Vietnam. There is much more to MLK than what most people commonly think of - you could spend an entire unit on him in American Studies or AP US History next year. At some point here, the "Death Star" petition to the US Government was brought up, and I said I would post a link to the official response (which is hilariously awesome). Here it is: WhiteHouse.gov - "This Isn't the Petition Response You're Looking For.

Causes of World War I: The last part of class was devoted to learning a little more about the vocabulary relating to the causes of World War I. The class completed this worksheet and then we went over it together:

Google Docs - Causes of World War I worksheet

Keep this, because we will be using these same vocabulary words next class.

Thank you again for a great first day! I'm looking forward to Thursday. Please leave a comment so I know that you came and did your homework!