Period 2: World War I, Day 2 - Class Recap

The current background on my phone (it has been for a while). Dreaming of warm and sunny days! Picture taken on Waikiki Beach in Hawaii, September 21, 2011.

Hello everyone,

Thanks for another great class! I really enjoy days like today. Some great learning going on, I think! I appreciate your willingness to listen and follow your own ground rules. On to the recap!

Essential Question: Why do wars happen?

Soundtrack: “Eleanor Put Your Boots On” by Franz Ferdinand. Chosen because of the band name - after the Archduke of Austria-Hungary who we talked about being assassinated to start World War I. This is definitely my favorite song of theirs - they are a band from Scotland that is sort of indie rock. Lyrics here.

AGENDA 1/24/13:
News Brief
Blog Recap
Ominous Beginnings PowerPoint
Murder of the Archduke
Grades/Make Up Work

Homework: Check the blog and post a comment if you have not done so! Have a great weekend!
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News Brief: Kevan led off the first ever student news brief for the class by presenting and talking about this article: GlobalPost.com - Latin America takes action to decriminalize abortion. As I said in class, there was no way we were going to have an open debate or discussion about abortion at this time, for many different reasons. It is interesting to hear about other countries struggling with the issue as well. Earlier this week marked 40 years since the US Supreme Court decided in Roe v. Wade that abortion was legal in all states. Polling on the issue typically finds that Americans are highly divided on the question. In any case, thank you for leading us off with the news brief, Kevan!

Ana, you are up for next class on Monday. Please remember to bring a news article about an event outside the United States. Thanks!

I also talked about the United States military saying that women can now be on the "front lines" of combat. Here's an article about that: LATimes.com - Military to lift ban on women in combat. Finally, I mentioned North Korea threatening the United States, especially in regards to their nuclear weapons program (which is somewhat frightening, living here on the West Coast): NYTimes.com - North Korea Issues Blunt New Threat to United States. You can always count on having at least some discussion on what is currently going on around the world in this class!

Blog Recap: I wanted to make sure that everyone saw again how much effort I put into the class recaps, and why it is so important to check in here! Thank you to everyone that has commented already. Easy points!

Ominous Beginnings PowerPoint: I went over the definition of "ominous" and used the example of music in a scary movie: you know something bad is about to happen. The rest of the PowerPoint was about the M.A.I.N. causes of World War I, which you learned about last class. The class took notes on each slide - which will come in handy at the end of this unit. Please review the presentation if you missed class, or did not have enough time to finish up your notes:

Google Docs - World War I: Ominous Beginnings PowerPoint

Thank you so much for your focus during this part of class! You all seemed to really be getting what I was talking about, which is great to see. If you were at all interested in what I was saying about the genocide in the Belgian Congo that nobody ever talks about, check out: Yale.edu - Genocide Studies Program: Belgian Congo. A quote: "From 1885 to 1908, it is estimated that the Congolese native population decreased by about ten million people."

Murder of the Archduke: I passed this document around, and read it aloud to the class - Borijove Jevtic: The Murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo, 28 June 1914. This is the story of how World War I started. I had the class answer some questions about the document in writing. It is such an important event in history - all set up by the MAIN causes of World War I. Here are the questions to answer, if you missed the class or need to finish up:

1. Describe the plans to kill Franz Ferdinand.
2. Describe the scene at the time of the murder.
3. How does the author justify the events?
4. Who is the "oppressor" that Franz Ferdinand represents? Why is Franz Ferdinand called the "new oppressor"?
5. Why is the date, 28 June, an unfortunate date for Franz Ferdinand to visit Sarajevo?

Thank you for your work on this. It should be fairly easy points for me to give you.

Grades/Make Up Work: Speaking of points, I posted your current grades in the classroom (except if you did a blog comment after 4:00 yesterday) and gave back your Rwanda speeches that Mrs. DeFrance Gilman graded before having her baby. If you want to turn in any late work or revise your Rwanda speech, you need to have it into me as soon as possible. Definitely by Monday at the absolute latest. You also need to include the original graded copy of the speech, so I can see the changes you made. Sound good?

Have a great weekend!