Revolution! Day 1 - Class Recap

My view of the 2012 Rose Bowl, between Oregon and Wisconsin. I showed the class a video of my reaction to the end to this game.

Dear class,

I loved today. It was fun to be able to focus on some good in the world and have a little fun being creative! Here's what happened in class:

Learning Targets:
Critical Thinking LT 1: I can explain multiple perspectives and viewpoints.

Knowledge LT 20: I can explain the impacts of nationalism and revolutionary movements.

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 2/26/15:

News Brief - Zahrian/Santiago

Debrief WWI Essay

Togetherness
Create Posters

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

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News Brief: The news brief article for today was brought in by Zahrian and Santiago. The first article was UTSanDiego.com - Stuck in limbo, Bangkok's hidden urban refugees scrape by. This is an interesting article about refugees getting away from conflict in Pakistan, going to Thailand to live.

Santiago (his last day with us in class!) selected this article: CNN.com - ISIS militant 'Jihadi John' identified, U.S. officials say. This is about a Kuwaiti born man that grew up in London, and then joined ISIS and has been featured in some of the horrific videos they have released.

Martin, you are up for next class.

We also watched VICE News today before moving on.

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 well with it. I know it was a difficult assignment!

Togetherness: After this, I turned our attention to something more exciting and interesting (I hope): ways in which the world comes together. Here's what the class came up with when I asked about what brings the world together:

- Food
- Olympics
- Sports
- History
- Vacation
- Holidays
- Music
- Dancing
- Art
- Family
- Laughter
- Games
- Skype/Technology/Internet
- Love
- Relationships
- Pain
- Peace

A good list! I then showed six 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:

The end to this video:

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.

This is my own video from the Rose Bowl. Yes, that's me screaming incoherently at the last second win, and my brother jumping up and down in the video.

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

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 

 "Dancing (2012)"

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

Create Posters: 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! :-)