September 11, 2001 - Class Recap

This is part of N591UA, which operated United Flight 93 on September 11th, 2001, and was hijacked for possible use against the White House. Instead, a passenger revolt forced down the plane into a field in Pennsylvania. A part of my 9/11 story is that I once flew on that exact same plane, from Portland to Chicago in 1996. Check out my FlightMemory map of lifetime flights.

Hello wonderful students,

Today, I tried to make sure everyone learned about the basics of the major events of September 11th, 2001, which happened 15 years ago on Sunday. Sometimes, I just want to focus on the moment! Here's the class recap for today:

Learning Targets:
Behavior LT 1: I can manage my responsibilities as a student.
Communication LT 1: I can communicate effectively, both verbally and in writing.

Soundtrack: “Wake Me Up When September Ends" by Green Day. Selected because it is September, summer is over, we are losing sleep, and we discussed the events of September 11th, 2001 today in class. Lyrics (which some may argue directly relate to the War on Terror) here.

AGENDA 9/9/16:
News Brief - Ethan
The Wall
September 11th, 2001
Fear
Maps

Homework: Read the blog recap! Post a comment if you have not. Bring in a photo for the wall that is either: 1) A place anywhere in the world that you have been. 2) A place anywhere in the world that you want to go to. 3) A picture of you and/or your family. Next news brief: Peter.

News Brief: Ethan had the news brief today and chose this story to talk about: Harvard.edu - Gene therapy for sickle cell disease passes key preclinical test. The first news brief of the year! This story wasn't really related to a specific country outside the United States, but Ethan covered it nicely by talking about sickle cell deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa, and selected Madagascar as the country to find on the world map. Thanks for leading us off, Ethan.

Peter was assigned to do the next news brief.

As part of the 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

Hooray for knowing what is going on around the world!

The Wall: As a get to know you and get to know the room activity, I split the class up into six groups. Everyone in the group was responsible for knowing everyone else's name. I also assigned each group to look at one of the big photo posters in the back - trying to analyze where they were taken and different aspects of them. It was just an attempt to try and get everyone to work together and use some critical thinking skills. I revealed during this exercise that I took all of the photos that are currently on the back wall. I love traveling and photography! :-)

Your homework was to find a photo to contribute to the back wall. Just a regular 4 x 6 print is 29 cents at Walgreens (I know, because that's what I used to print some of the photos for the back wall). It has to be able to be stapled up (so don't use the last copy of a precious family photo). Here's what I am looking for (choose one):

1) A photo of a place you have been to before.

2) A photo of a place that you want to go to.

3) A photo of you or your family.

I am really excited to see what everyone brings in! Again, if you need help with this, please email me or comment on the blog. I am hoping for an amazing back wall, full of all sorts of pictures from our adventures, hopes, and families! :-)

September 11th, 2001: To start this section, I asked students to do a free write for about 5 minutes on the following questions:

What do you know about September 11th, 2001? What have you heard about it? Do you remember anything? What have you learned before, in class, or from parents?

After the free write time, we shared responses as a class and I told my story about September 11th. I was starting my Sophomore year at Wilson High School in Portland. It was definitely a day I will remember for the rest of my life. To drive home the point as to what the day was like, I showed this video in class, which was a timeline of the day:

From there, I moved on to discussing how September 11th, 2001 came about.

Fear: We talked about in class about FEAR. To start to look at how fear played a role after September 11th, I showed a couple of videos:

This is United States Secretary of State Colin Powell addressing the United Nations about the "weapons of mass destruction" that the U.S. government thought was in Iraq. It turned out that there were not any such weapons.

This video contains a montage of President George W. Bush and many of the key figures in his government repeating words in speeches that sounded pretty scary.

The last bit to class was another free write. This time, it was about fear in our lives. 

The prompt was: write about a time in which you experienced fear and how you felt. What did you want to do in that moment?

We didn't get to share these in class, due to the shortened assembly schedule day, so we will come back to them next time.

I wanted to make the connection between the fear much of America felt after 9/11. In fact, one of the ways that the government might have helped keep people fearful (or ready) is by making a threat level color coded system.:

In the entire history of the threat level system (which ended under President Obama), the threat level never went below Elevated - meaning we were supposed to be at "significant risk of terrorist attacks," constantly.

That was it for the day! Have a great weekend!