Friday, April 10, 2015

Historical Investigation, Day 8 - Class Recap


A tree with prayer flags on the Great Wall of China at Mutianyu. It was quite an experience to climb up to this point! There are multiple students studying an aspect of a Chinese revolution for their historical investigation. Photo taken in 2014.

Dear class,

I have to say, I am pretty disappointed with where many students were at today in terms of the peer review on the historical investigation. Well over half the class was missing big aspects of the paper, which means there is a lot of work ahead this weekend! Here's what we did today in class:

Learning Targets: 
Knowledge LT 20: I can explain the impacts of nationalism and revolutionary movements.
Communication LT 3: I can effectively use the conventions of writing.
Research LT 1: I can develop and refine a research question or topic.
Research LT 3: I can responsibly and accurately cite sources.
Critical Thinking LT 2: I can explain connections between events, issues, problems and concepts.

Soundtrack: "You've Got A Friend" by Carole King and James Taylor. Selected for today because a good friend doing a peer review helps a lot, and I wanted everyone to know I was going to try to help as much as possible to get you in a position to be successful on this project. Lyrics here.

AGENDA 4/10/15:
News Brief - Mary
Peer Review
Work Time
Conferences

Homework: Read the blog! Final draft (printed copy) of Historical Investigation is due next class. Next news brief: Brenden.
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News Brief: Mary had the news brief today and selected an article about this story to talk about: Yahoo.com - Kenyan police official says Kenyans should resist militants. This is especially connected to the 147 college students killed as a part of a terrorist act earlier in the week.

We also watched VICE News for the day, before moving on.

The next news brief was assigned to Brenden.

Peer Review: Today's class was supposed to be focused on getting as many good peer reviews on your historical investigation as possible. Here was the sheet I passed out in class for people to use.


Make sure that you look to correct spelling and grammar, as well as the format issues!

Work Time: The rest of class was devoted to working on review or doing whatever possible on the historical investigation. Here is the final assignment, again, if you need to look at it:


And here is an example of a historical investigation done by another student, which might help with formatting. The OPVL/Part C is different in this student paper, so ignore that aspect.

Conferences: As students were working on review, I called each student in the class up to talk about where they were at, what support was needed, what changes I saw needed to be done, or in some cases, just asking what in the world has been going on for the last month, since there was so little productivity to be seen. For many students, there is a LOT of work over this weekend to be done.

As always, if you are confused about what to do, please email me or comment and I would be happy to help. I suspect at this point most students know what to do - they just wanted to put it off until the very last moment to get it done. Well, that moment has arrived. Work hard this weekend, please.

19 comments:

  1. Do you want our final draft to also be double spaced?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Skylar,

      Yes, please! With the exception of within citations in your Part E - Bibliography/Works Cited, which should be on a separate page, anyway. Thanks!

      Delete
  2. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Part C..... One paragraph for each source mentioned in part B?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, one paragraph detailing the Origin, Purpose, Value, and Limitation for each source. Remember that the origin is not only where it came from, but the date it was published, the place it was found, etc. Don't just start every sentence with "The origin of this source is..."

      Delete
    2. Can we use "I" in Part C? (i.e: I found blajdisdfh as a reliable source its origin is.....)

      Delete
    3. No, you may not. Just say "blajdisdfh is a reliable source because..."

      See how much more authoritative that sounds? You know what you are talking about! :-)

      Delete
  4. For part B I'm I suppose to find answers for my research question or I'm supposed to write the whole revolution

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi there,

      You are supposed to find research that helps answer your research question. That's what a research project is all about! :-)

      Delete
  5. Hey Mr.Fritz
    After using four different sources, can we use the same source twice for Part B.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi there,

      What do you mean, use the same source twice? You are expected to cite the sources more than once in Part B - otherwise, they aren't all that good at relating to your research question!

      Delete
  6. if we are not done by the due date do we still have a chance to turn it in after that?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes. You will receive an N (basically, an F) in the grade book until it is turned in, though, which will drastically impact your overall grade in the class. I also reserve the right to not give 4 - Highly Proficient for work that was not turned in at the same time as the due date for all other students.

      Delete
  7. How many points is the essay worth? how will it affect our grade?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As you know, we have a proficiency system at Westview. There are no points on assignments. That said, this assignment offers 5 different opportunities to demonstrate proficiency on learning targets. Three of those are targets we have not done so far. Basically, it's very difficult to pass the class (especially at the progress report) without doing it. Students will almost certainly have an F or D if it is not turned in.

      Delete
  8. Do we need a title for our research paper? If we do, what should it be like?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You do not need a title, no. If you want one, it could maybe be the title to your revolution, or something that relates to your research question.

      Delete
  9. I've done everything for my paper except the opvl and all i need help understanding is how to do the origin part can you explain it please.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi there,

      Great! Origin is explaining where the source is from (like, who wrote it, where it was published, when it was written, etc). It also could mention whether the source is a primary source (written at the time of the revolution by a participant) or a secondary source (analyzing later on about past events).

      Delete

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