Fireworks to start the 2011 US Open, held in New York City, which is where the United Nations meets.
Dear class,
I hope that today was productive for you and your group! I certainly enjoyed reading over your speeches and trying to help everyone revise them. Here's what happened in class today:
Learning Targets:
Knowledge LT 20: I can identify the critical components of imperialism.
Communication LT 1: I can communicate effectively, both verbally and in writing.
Soundtrack: "Somali Udiida Ceb (Somalia, Don't Shame Yourself)" by Maryam Mursal. Selected because Somalia has a direct impact on why the United States was reluctant to do anything to stop the genocide in Rwanda. Listen to the song
here.
AGENDA 12/11/15:
News Brief - Samantha
Hutu Ten Commandments
Peer Review
Group Speech Work
Homework: Read the blog. Revised/edited Rwanda speech due. Bring one copy for me to grade, and your paragraph that your group decided to use for the speech, to work on. The
Rwanda resources will help. Next news brief: Hanoi.
News Brief: Samantha had the news brief today and selected an article about this story:
BBC.com - China pollution: First ever red alert in effect in Beijing. I showed a few pictures from Beijing and talked about how this is happening at the same time as a global conference on climate change in Paris. The level of pollutants in the air in Beijing is something like 11 times higher than healthy limits. We found the China on the world map packet and noted we did a news brief there.
Hanoi 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):
Finally, we checked in about the weekend and what everyone is up to.
Hutu Ten Commandments: I talked about this right after the news, as yet another aspect in the lead up to the Rwandan genocide that students could write about for the speech:
Again, it was not a surprise at all that a genocide occurred, with words like that being used, years in advance. This would count as part of the Polarization stage of genocide.
Peer Review: I passed out a review sheet and went over exactly what everyone should be looking at, as far as their papers being revised. Here it is - if you missed class, please complete it!
Basically, you need to be sure to talk about the United Nations definition of genocide and the role that imperialism (especially Belgium's classification of Hutus and Tutsis) had in starting the ongoing genocide. Here's the Imperialism PowerPoint again, if you wanted to look in more depth. Hint: you cannot say that Hutus are promoting imperialism against the Tutsis. That's not imperialism at all.
I tried to give feedback on as many papers during class as I possibly could - I apologize for not being able to get through everyone! Fortunately, the groups should have helped a lot in revisions, too.
Group Speech Work Time: The rest of the class was devoted to working on the speech in groups. Next class, you will be refining and practicing your speeches. The groups are (some may have six, which means that the group will have four middle speakers on speech day):
Group 1: Grace S, Zack P, Matthew S, Samantha N, Jonathan B
Group 2: Lisa B, David C, Isaac S, Madeline L, Hanoi, Nic A,
Group 3: Srey R, Daisy C, Lauren P, Madi A, Jessica A, Sergio V,
Group 4: Kaleb L, Koby H, Gabe M, Matthew M, Christian H
Group 5: Abby P, Christian L, Annie M, Caden P, Eric B,
Group 6: Selene M, Jonathan F, Andrew G, Rachele M, Yanuel S
I used the
Random.org List Generator to make the groups. :-)
While everyone worked in groups, I tried as hard as I could to look at the papers that were turned in and immediately get them back with feedback. Here were the elements I most commonly saw as being needed for addition in the speeches:
1)
Need to mention United Nations definition of genocide, made in 1948, after the Holocaust.
2)
Need to connect classification of the Hutus and Tutsis to the legacy of Belgium’s imperialism.
3)
Asking the United Nations for something SPECIFIC. Not just “do something.” Say “more troops” “more funding” “more awareness – declare this as what it is: genocide.”
Here are the directions, from earlier in the unit:
The final assignment for the unit and before break is a speech before a mock United Nations, in class. You will be pretending that it is April 24, 1994 - the actual date that arguments were ongoing at the United Nations Security Council about how to respond to the conflict in Rwanda.
There are a few steps in the process to prepare for the speech, which will be given on Thursday, December 17th. The first is to write a persuasive essay (in the form of a speech you could give).. Here's the assignment:
As a reminder, this will eventually be a formal speech before break that you give as a part of a group, in front of the class, with myself and another teacher and/or administrator (like Dr. Franco) listening. You are going to need to persuade us to act and do something!
To prepare for this, I passed out a class set of copies of three things:
1) The
United Nations definition of genocide, as agreed to by the world in 1949. This is helpful, because if you can persuade the United Nations that genocide is occurring in Rwanda, they HAVE to act (because that's what they agreed to).
2) The
Eight Stages of Genocide. I read over the stages, but not all of the content describing them. There is a lot of information that might help you craft your speech! You can certainly talk about every stage of genocide, occurring in Rwanda, up to April 24, 1994.
Here are some hints on how to do this.
3) A reading that goes over more of the history in Rwanda, what happened during the genocide, and the end. Remember, you can't talk about anything after April 24, 1994, but you can make predictions as to what will happen if the United Nations refuses to act! The reading is pages 5-10 here:
Another resource that might help could be your Cornell Notes from last class, which was on this presentation:
Please be sure to ask me if you have any questions or need help in any way! I'm really excited to see what you can come up with! :-)
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