Period 4: Revolution! Day 8 - Class Recap

During today's class, we talked about the conclave for electing the next Pope and watched a live CNN feed of the signal chimney. A bird flew on top of it! Later in the day, white smoke came out: there is a new Pope! I am sure we will talk next week about who it is!

Dear class,

I enjoyed the process of finishing your propaganda posters today! Even though it took longer than I thought it would, that is okay. I am more than willing to give the class more time to finish an assignment if it is obvious that it is needed and that students are working well.

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

Soundtrack: “Marry the Night” by Lady Gaga. Selected for today because of it being so dark out when we woke up for school today, thanks to the start of Daylight Savings Time! Fun fact: World War I was the first time the US implemented DST. Lyrics for the song are here.

AGENDA 3/13/13:
News Brief/Conclave
Finish Propaganda Posters
Forms of Governance

Homework: Bring in all Russian Revolution work! Pre-Assessment, Notes, OPVL analysis, Propaganda Poster. Read the blog! TC has the next news brief.

Here are the links to download and complete any of the missing work for the Russian Revolution:

1) Russian Revolution Pre-Assessment (newsflash). The class watched this Whose Line Is It Anyway clip and then pretended to be transported back in time to the Russian Revolution - an event which you probably knew very little about. Write a complete response - you can totally guess and/or make something up, if you don't know!

2) Vocabulary Notes. This was the sheet of terms that I passed out for taking notes on during the PowerPoint presentation "Peace, Land, and Bread." If you are unable to determine what some of the words are from the presentation, you can look them up online, ask me in the comments, or email me.

3) OPVL Analysis. This activity involved analyzing four different sources of information having to do with Russia and looking at the objective, purpose, value, and limitation for two of the documents posted in the classroom (I wanted students to at least look at all four). Here are the documents, if you need to see them again to analyze: Russian Revolution Primary Sources.

4) Propaganda Poster worksheet. On the front side, I asked students to analyze the five different Russian/Soviet posters presented in this PowerPoint. On the back side (blank), students were expected to make your own propaganda poster, using at least two Russian symbols (a symbol can be a color) and tying it to at least one of the vocabulary words (see #2 above) you learned earlier. Please caption this (or write a description) in English! :-)
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News Brief: The news brief today was brought in by Christina: NBCNews.com - Pakistani soldier stoned to death over romance; girlfriend may be shot. After first thinking this was about a US soldier, the question was asked why the US government sends money to other countries when we obviously could use it here, as well. Here is a really interesting article and chart about that (and how much money we give): PBS.org - Foreign Aid Facing Proposed Cuts and a Public Perception Problem.

We also talked a little bit about the long weekend and the "conclave" to elect a new Pope (which is a fairly rare event). Here are the main contenders, apparently. As I am writing this, the white smoke signal went up and a new Pope will be announced soon! Such an interesting time in world history!

Finish Propaganda Posters: This took most of class, which was fine. If you are not finished, please do so by next class! Again, your own example of Russian propaganda, using one of the vocabulary terms, two symbols, and a caption in English.

Forms of Governance: We did not have much time at the end of class, so this was a fairly basic (I mean, REALLY basic - these could be entire year long classes by themselves) introduction to communism, socialism, and capitalism. Here is the fundamental ideas behind each form of government:

Communism: Everyone is "in it together" and thus should have the same amount of stuff (food, land, money, resources, supplies, etc). The goal is to benefit the society as a whole - so that nobody has to be poor and everyone is equal. The idea of communism was formulated by Karl Marx in his book The Communist Manifesto. The choice for the paper grade here would be that everyone in the class gets a 75% C (a passing grade, by the way), no matter how much or how little work you put in. Again, everyone is equal in communist theory.

Socialism: Some people need extra help, so the government takes resources from the most wealthy people/corporations and gives it to those that need support. The choice for the paper grade would be me taking some (but not all) of the points from the best posters and "re-distributing" them to students that did not do as well.

Capitalism: Based on the idea of private property - individual responsibility. This is "everyone for themselves"  - always looking to do what is best for you, not for anyone else. Everyone has the choice of whether or not to work or complete the assignment, even though some may not have the skills needed to get 100% credit and will fall behind those that do have those skills. For this choice, I would grade the poster like "normal" - individual students who did the best get the most credit, while students that did do well will get less (and in some cases, probably fail the assignment).

I asked students to write how you would want your propaganda posters graded on the front of your paper.

That was it for today! Please let me know if you need any help with what to do for next class!