An Air India 747-400 at Newark International Airport on Memorial Day weekend. If not for Gandhi, it is possible that Air India would not even exist today! Picture by Mr. Fritz.
Hello and welcome to a ridiculously short class recap!
I am guessing that I am going to spend way more time writing this blog post than we actually had in the whole of class today, due to the senior assembly going WAY over time. Because of this, we had roughly 20 minutes in class together, and I really had to condense (or eliminate) a lot of things that I wanted to do. Such is life! Follow along, let's go!
Essential Questions: How does conflict arise and in what ways have various people responded? How did the concept of nonviolence develop and become implemented?
Soundtrack: (Would have been) "We Can Work It Out" by The Beatles. Lyrics here. Because most of you were already in the class during the assembly period, it turned out to be pretty pointless to play the song as a soundtrack. It is a great one though!
AGENDA 6/5/09: News Brief Who Was Gandhi? First Draft Check-In The Old Man
Homework: E-mail either Mrs. DeFrance (audra_defrance@beavton.k12.or.us) or me (luke_fritz@beavton.k12.or.us) so that we can give you advice on how to revise your paper to be turned in on Tuesday, to be graded!
This was the revised homework - we would have used the class time today to go over each paper with you, but there was simply no way to have this happen in the time that we had left. If you are at all concerned about your paper (and really, your final grade in the class), please e-mail one of us and we will help you out!
News Brief: We talked about the enormous lightning storm that happened in Portland last night! It was certainly something to take notice of. I was inside watching the NBA Finals. Good times.
There was a really scattered news brief today, but I want to specifically mention that I showed this clip to the class, about how President Obama tried to create some sort of peace in the Middle East through getting people to come together - your assignment for the Israeli-Palestinian unit too!
This was at the end of the President's speech in Cairo, Egypt yesterday. You can watch a clip of President Obama talking specifically about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the speech here. Good stuff. You can watch the entire speech as well as click on a link for a transcript to read here: WhiteHouse.gov - The President's Speech in Cairo: A New Beginning.
Cameron asked why we never hear any news about Australia. Well, that is partly because nobody brings in articles related to it, but partly because there really is not that much to Australia outside the main cities. However, here is an article about something interesting happening in the country: CNBC.com - Australia Escapes Recession ... For Now.
Maritza, if you could bring in a news article for next class, that would be great. Thanks!
Who Was Gandhi? I apologize that I really had zero time to set this up well, but we ended the class by watching a short biography of who Gandhi was and what his philosophy of nonviolence was about, which can be found here.
We had to scrap pretty much everything else, but the main points of the class were these: E-mail your paper to either Mrs. DeFrance or myself. President Obama had a speech in the Middle East talking about exactly the same stuff we talked about in class. Gandhi tried to get independence for India from Britain by using the tactic of nonviolence. ---
Whew! Yes, that took me a while. Still, I hope you enjoyed class! Have a great weekend and let me know how I can be helping you out! See you for the second to the last time on Tuesday! Ahh!
A "peer review" by sea lions at the Oregon Zoo, last summer. Picture by Mr. Fritz.
Hello and welcome to another class recap!
Thank you for the good hard work today (for the most part). I was glad to see everyone actually working on something during class. Whether you needed to continue working on your rough draft or you needed some really good peer review feedback, I think you should have had a great amount of time to actually do this today.
Essential Question: How does conflict arise and in what ways have various people responded?
Soundtrack: "Get Up, Stand Up" by Bob Marley. Lyrics here. A fantastic song for thinking about civil rights!
AGENDA 6/3/09: News Brief Peer Review/In-Class Work Questions Rubric
Homework: First draft of paper (typed) due. Read the blog and ask questions!
Remember that you need a typed bibliography at the end of the paper, with your sources in alphabetical order! I know this is a lot of work, so please let me know how I can be helping!
News Brief: Sometimes we spend a lot of time on this section of class, talking about what is going on in the world. I am sorry if this gets boring for some of you, but I really like talking about everything that is happening! It is a good way to stay connected to what is happening. Today we had:
Also, we talked about Osama bin Laden coming out with a new audio tape that just aired this morning (or we got news about it). This is a recap of what we currently know about that all: NYTimes.com - Message on Obama Attributed to Bin Laden.
Really interesting stuff right? Haley continued this section by bringing in this article to talk about: FOXNews.com - Large Chunks of Air France Jet Found in Atlantic Ocean. This was related to what we had talked about last class and earlier today as well, about the crash of the Air France jet off the coast of Brazil. Really a sad and mysterious story.
Maritza, please bring in a news article for next class, about anything currently going on around the world outside the United States. Thanks!
Peer Review/In-Class Work: At this point in time, I handed out papers to peer review your rough drafts, if you had that done (which was your homework). We went through and read exactly what I was looking for in regards to the paper, and how everyone could be helping each other revise. I trust that this section was helpful for everyone!
For those that did not have the homework completely done, or needed more time, I had you quietly work on developing your paper. Some of you really worked hard during this - thank you! Others in the class seem like they are still in need of a lot of help and/or effort on this. Please let me or Mrs. DeFrance know what we can do!
Questions: At the end of class, I took a few questions about everything that is going on - though there seemed to be about five other conversations going on. I just hope that everyone is clear about what we are doing!
Rubric: Finally, at the end of class, I handed out the rubric for the historical investigation paper. We went over this briefly - please take a good look at it if you can! It will help you out! There may be sections that might be confusing (for instance, the "summary of evidence" section is about your concrete details), but I trust it will be helpful for you. ---
Remember that there is Nike SPARQ testing after school today from 3:00 to about 4:30. Also remember that I am crazy busy these last few weeks, so I might not be able to post and respond to your comments on the blog instantly. Please be sending them though! I love hearing from everyone, and helping as much as I possibly can!
Have a great evening, thanks for being so awesome! :-)
Earth, as seen from the Apollo 17. This is probably the most famous image of Earth from space, and is sometimes referred to as the "Blue Marble" picture. Found on the consistently incredible (bookmark and come back every day) NASA.gov - Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD).
Dear Period 4,
I really liked how today went, despite a few areas where I thought I could have done a better job teaching how to write the paper, and where the class really needed to be focused on actually writing the rough draft. Other than that, I loved the participation, engagement, and overall focus. Thanks!
Essential Questions: How does conflict arise and in what ways have various people responded? What are civil rights? - Wow, we have been seriously neglecting the essential questions, but I am really hoping that we will be able to come back to them at some point!
Soundtrack: "Say It Right" by Nelly Furtado. Lyrics here. I'm not sure if anyone really knows what this song is about, including Ms. Furtado, but man, is it catchy. As I said in class, it reminds me of a California road trip I took in 2007! Chosen for today because I searched my iTunes for "right" and this was the best song that came up.
AGENDA 6/1/09: News Brief Writing the Paper Quiet Base Group Work Conferences
Homework: Rough draft of paper due for peer editing. Read the blog and ask questions!
To be clear here: I would like a typed copy of the rough draft of your historical investigation (including everything that we talked about in class today - an introduction, body paragraphs, conclusion, and bibliography) for your peers to help review in your base groups next class.
Please be sure to be asking questions and asking for help in the comments if you need it at all!
News Brief: Two stories that I wanted to highlight this morning as items of interest that everyone should know about were these - AVHerald.com - Crash: Air France A332 over Atlantic on June 1st 2009, aircraft lost. Check out that second picture of the extreme weather patterns in the area. As I mentioned in class, it would be hard to pick a more remote place in the ocean. I also said that I would upload a picture of the "black box" or flight data recorder that is virtually indestructible and can be used to help determine what happened in an accident. Here is one from an Evergreen International Airlines 747 that I worked on two winters ago:
Really a horrifying event. Though for any of you that are concerned about flying, know that you have a way higher chance of dying from a car accident on the way to the airport than you do the actual flight you are on. Flying is really one of the safest modes of transportation in the world. It just so happens that every so often, things go terribly wrong.
The other story I wanted to point out was this: CNN.com - GM bankruptcy: End of an era. Really an incredible day. General Motors was the biggest car company in the world for something like 90 straight years before losing its position to Toyota. Many people and dealerships will be out of jobs, though the company is expected to remain mostly intact through the bankruptcy (as it tries to get rid of the huge debt it has).
Tyler asked about someone calling Sonia Sotomayor (President Obama's Supreme Court nominee) racist. That is an interesting debate, some of which can be recapped here: CNN.com - Sotomayor: GOP cries racism, Dems cry foul.
Finally, Maddie was wanting to see and hear about the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Here is an article about how he has denied that the Holocaust happened. Associated Press - Rival criticizes Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial. Go searching on YouTube if you want. He is a weird guy.
Brenan brought in the following article to talk about for the news brief today: CNN.com - Israel stages biggest-ever war drill. Again, Israel and many other places in the Middle East are involving in really long running conflicts that are almost sure to continue. Very interesting to learn about!
Haley, you are up for a news article for Wednesday. Anything currently going on around the world that is happening outside the United States. Thanks!
Writing the Paper: During this section of class, there was a really fantastic discussion about the finer points of citing a source and how we want you to write the paper, which would be impossible to entirely recap on the blog. However, if you were paying attention in class, I feel pretty confident that you understand what is going on. If not, please ask questions in the comments about how to construct a paragraph and cite a source! Remember, we do not want you using a ton of direct quotes. Pick a couple really key ones, and summarize the rest! You still have to cite them, but now you are showing me what you think about your research!
Remember that the format of the paragraphs is there to just give you a general idea of the sequence that we want: topic sentence, concrete detail, concrete detail, commentary, concluding statement. Those do not all have to be single sentences! In fact, if you elaborate each point, your paper will probably be much easier to write!
Again, let me know if you have any questions about all of this!
Quiet Base Group Work: Perhaps I should have underlined "Quiet" here, because I really doubt that most of you used this time effectively. I wanted you to check in with each other about how things are going with the paper, then get right down to writing your rough draft. Some of you chose to utilize this time, some did not. During this, we also did...
Conferences: Mrs. DeFrance and I really like doing these. It is always awesome to get to check in with everyone! I started from the bottom of the class list and she started from the top. If you did not get to chat with either one of us today, the questions that I asked were: how are you feeling about your research question and sources? Does this paper make sense? Do you need any help with it? Do you feel confident about writing the rough draft this weekend? Finally, I showed everyone their grade and gave out ways (if possible) to get it up.
Thanks for visiting with us! I really value the opportunity to sit down and chat one-on-one, because that happens way less frequently than I would like. ---
Again, please let me know how I can be helping you out! Do not stress about this, but please get it done! Thank you!
I will be involved in many football meetings and practices this week after school, but should be able to respond to comments.
