Thursday, May 21, 2015

Israel and Palestine, Day 2 - Class Recap


Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend, everyone! Photo is of the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival in Woodburn, Oregon. Taken in 2015.

Hi everyone,

Today was the last time for almost a week that I get to see you all! It is a very nice and long upcoming weekend. I hope that you take advantage of the last major rest period before our final push to finals and the end of the year! Here's what we did today in class:

Learning Targets: 
Communication LT 2: I can use language and style that is appropriate to the content area.
Critical Thinking LT 2: I can explain connections between events, issues, problems and concepts.
Knowledge LT 10: I can explain demographic changes in the world and their effects.
Knowledge LT 20: I can explain the impacts of nationalism and revolutionary movements. Knowledge LT 22: I can explain how religious ideas impact the shaping of societies.

Soundtrack: "Look Into My Eyes" by Outlandish. Selected for today because of the obvious connection in the lyrics of the song to the Palestinian view of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

AGENDA 5/21/15:
News Brief – Dakota
Perspectives
Final Project Options
Timeline Review

Homework: Read the blog! Know your grade (updated on StudentVUE and on by ID number on the wall) and how to improve it, if possible. Keep working on your final project for the year (overview here). Next news brief: Patrick.
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News Brief: Dakota had the news brief today and selected an article about this story to talk about: CNN.com - Resident: ISIS is 'everywhere,' in full control of ancient Syrian city of Palmyra. Syria has been a country of great importance to world news for the entire year, and it also borders Israel! Thanks, Dakota.

We also watched VICE News for the day (which had Israel and Palestine at the end!) and talked about the upcoming long weekend (I will be taking my mom to Phoenix, Arizona to see U2 in concert on Friday and Saturday).

The next news brief was assigned to Patrick.

Perspectives: After the news brief, I played this music video, which was the soundtrack for today: "Look Into My Eyes" by Outlandish.


We looked at some of the lyrics to the song, including these lines:

See I've known terror for quite some time
57 years so cruel
Terror breathes the air I breathe
It's the checkpoint on my way to school
Terror is the robbery of my land
And the torture of my mother
The imprisonment of my innocent father
The bullet in my baby brother
The bulldozers and the tanks
The gases and the guns
The bombs that fall outside my door
All due to your funds
You blame me for defending myself
Against the ways of my enemies
I'm terrorized in my own land (what)
And I'm the terrorist?

This song was obviously a Palestinian viewpoint on the war. The other perspective is that of the Israelis, which was demonstrated in this overview video that we watched in class as well:


The point here was to learn more about the perspective of each side. Our final project is a simulated peace conference, and it does no good to simply yell at the other side and demand concessions. You have to truly understand each side and what they want, in order to compromise and find a solution that might work.

Final Project Options: At this point in class, I passed out this paper, which goes over a variety of different ways to improve (or maintain) your grade on the five different proficiency learning targets that the final has as available options:


The really important part here is knowing your grade in the class, so that you know what would help improve your grade for finals, or maintain the grade that you want. Again, here is the overview of what the roles are, which I passed out last class:


Timeline Review: The rest of class was devoted to reading through an in class set of this reading, thinking about how you are going to construct your final presentation or writing:


As students were doing this independently, I talked with everyone in the class about what their current grade is, what learning targets they should focus on for the final, and how they might be able to demonstrate proficiency. I know it seems like the final is a long way away, but next week, we are watching a documentary in class, then there is 3 more days before the actual final day. There is lots of work to do during this time!

Have a great long weekend and keep working hard! We are almost done! :-)

4 comments:

  1. Do you want out final double or single spaced? Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Im confused on what to do I write a paper or what

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi,

      Did you have a conference with me about which learning targets you need to improve or maintain your scores on? If so, then I noted exactly what you need to do/focus on. Look at the sheet for possibilities. I will also give more guidelines later this week and next week.

      Delete

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