Period 4: Revolution! Day 1 - Class Recap

My view of the 2011 BCS National Championship, between Oregon and Auburn, on January 10. Not a game that I particularly like remembering, but a good example of an activity that brings people together. Before the Olympics, this was the biggest sporting event I had ever attended.

Dear class,

I loved today. It was great to get to talk about all the different current events happening in the world, and so much fun to move on to the start of the next unit! Here's what happened in class:

Essential Questions: What brings people together? What tears people apart? - New essential questions! We will be looking at the answers to both in the revolution unit.

Soundtrack: “Where is the Love?” by The Black Eyed Peas. Chosen for today because we have been talking so much about war, genocide, and revolutions (soon) - I thought we needed to focus a bit on love and what brings people together across the world. Lyrics here. 

AGENDA 2/20/13:

News Brief

Debrief WWI Essay

Grades

Togetherness

Homework: Read the blog! Turn in missing World War I work. Stephen A. has the next news brief.

---

News Brief: I started the class off by checking in about the long weekend - interesting activities the class did, and such. I mentioned that I visited the Museum of Flight in Seattle, which was really cool. I even saw a father explaining to his daughter what happened in World War I with the trenches and why airplanes became a valuable new technology. Just like I was talking about in class! I love it when that happens.

I also talked/bragged about booking a flight to Europe later in May (after Mrs. DeFrance Gilman comes back, which should be around May 1). I will have to keep in touch with you all about that! I'm really excited. :-)

The news brief article for today was selected by Eric. Here is what he brought in (South Africa is the country): CNN.com - Pistorius details night of girlfriend's death. Really sad story, regardless of whether or not Oscar Pistorius is guilty of murdering his girlfriend or not. I talked about who Pistorius is (a disabled Paralympic athlete who was so good with two blades for legs that he made the Olympics) and what we know happened so far. Lots of great questions and other news events were brought up. I really enjoy following the news - it seems like this class does! Maria, you are up with the news brief for next class.

Debrief WWI Essay: Next, I asked the class for general feedback about how the in-class essay went. I really appreciated the responses here. I noted that you will have to do such tests in the future, like for SATs, and this was good practice. That was definitely my hope! Yes, it may have been tough to write so much, in an entire class period. I do think that most of you did very well with it.

Grades: Speaking of grades, I handed back all of the World War I packets that I received to be graded. If you have not turned these in yet, they are late and will be graded accordingly. However, a B on these is still WAY better than a zero, which I will have to start entering as scores soon, for those of you that were missing assignments.

I noted that I do not have your World War I essay tests graded yet. This is partially because I ran out of time this weekend, and partially because 9 students missed the test (or about 25% of the class), so I wanted to get some more in before handing them back.

Togetherness: After looking at the grades, I turned our attention to something more exciting and interesting (I hope): ways in which the world comes together. I showed five consecutive videos (a record, but there are so many good ones out there)! Here are the links to them, if you want to watch again:

"Dancing (2008)"

The world's reaction to the United States Men's National Team winning a critical World Cup game at the last second in South Africa, 2010: YouTube.com - Landon Donovan Goal Reaction.

The "Free Hugs" campaign in Australia: YouTube.com - Free Hugs.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A little different than the others, but still important for bringing people together.

"Dancing (2012)"

I LOVE these videos. All great examples of what brings people together across so many different areas.

Your task after watching this was to start creating a poster of something that brings the world together. Again, this is extremely low stakes - it's not going to be a huge grade or anything. Just a fun activity to remember that there is more to the world than just conflict. We will try to finish these up next class, present, then move on to the revolution unit. Sound like a plan? Thanks for the great class today! Let me know if you have other videos that you enjoy along these same lines! :-)