Government, Day 6 - Class Recap

My dad took this photo of me at a "Turkey Bowl" on Thanksgiving, in 2011. I hope you enjoy your break!

Hello everyone,

Welcome to your Thanksgiving break! Thanks for doing your homework and checking in on the blog to see what we are up to. Here's what happened in class today:

Learning Targets:
Knowledge LT 17: I can explain how and why world societies organize themselves and how power is established and maintained.
Communication LT 1: I can communicate effectively, both verbally and in writing.

Soundtrack: "Thank You" by Dido. Selected for today because of it being the week of Thanksgiving. I am very thankful to get to be your teacher, and for all of you! Lyrics here.

AGENDA 11/24/15:
News Brief – Kai
Lost!
Shibboleth

Homework: Read the blog. Complete any missing work and have it ready to turn in. Have a great Thanksgiving! Next news brief: Byron

News Brief: Kai had the news brief today and selected an article about this story: CNN.com - Putin calls plane's downing by Turkey 'stab in the back'. We found Turkey on the world map (which is perfect, because it is Thanksgiving week), and I talked about how this is a developing news story, and what is happening. Russia and Turkey having a major conflict would be a very bad development, for many reasons, so hopefully that doesn't happen.

Byron was selected to do the next news brief.

We also watched the one minute BBC World News update. Here's the link to see the latest one minute update, at any time of day (it will probably be different from what we watched in class):

BBCNews.com - One-minute World News

Finally, we checked in about the upcoming break and what everyone is up to. I hope that it is a great time for everyone, and I also know that the holidays can be hard for a variety of reasons. Take care of yourselves!

Lost!: I really enjoyed the group responses to this activity! It was pretty funny to listen to the group leaders, laws, punishments, and priorities.

Google Drive - Lost Island Government Group Activity

Thanks for your participation in this! It was a fun way to review what we learned during the government unit.

Shibboleth: In keeping with the theme of Thanksgiving, and our work looking at various forms of  government, we closed class before the break by watching this episode of The West Wing, which had to do with Thanksgiving, immigration, school prayer, direct democracy, and representative democracy. There were no notes or any other requirement - it was just a relaxing way to end the class and go out to Thanksgiving Break. Here's the funniest scene of the episode, in my opinion:

That was it for the day! Thank you so much for your focus and hard work! See you next week. Enjoy your Thanksgiving break!