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On the roof of the Bundestag building in Berlin, Germany. This is where the government of Germany meets. Photo taken in 2013.
Hi everyone,
Another shortened week, with Veterans Day on Friday! I really enjoyed the discussion today in class. I'm sure it was a nice change from all of the writing students have had to do in the last few days for the class! Here's what happened in class:
Learning Targets:
Knowledge LT 17: I can explain how and why world societies organize themselves and how power is established and maintained.
Communication LT 1: I can use language and style that is appropriate to the content area.
Soundtrack: "The War Was in Color" by Carbon Leaf. The reason I chose this song for today is because it is all about a veteran describing war to his grandson. We have Friday off of school because of Veteran's Day (observed - it is always November 11th, which is Saturday this year). Lyrics (which I read part of in class) here.
AGENDA 11/9/17:
News Brief – Jessica
DBQ Debrief
Group Activity
Forced Choice
Homework: Read the blog. Turn in any late/missing/incomplete culture work (especially DBQs). Next news brief: Ryan.
News Brief: Jessica had the news brief today and selected an article about this story: BBCNews.com - Colombia seizes largest stash of cocaine ever. We found the Colombia in our world maps and noted that we did a news brief on the country, before moving on.
Ryan was selected to do the next news brief.
We also watched the latest 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):
BBCNews.com - One-minute World News
DBQ Debrief: I was interested in student thoughts about how the first DBQ (Documents Based Question) went. I understand that it was a challenging assignment, and that many students were perhaps not used to having a firm time deadline for a piece of writing. The reason we are did this was to get used to this structure, as you will frequently see it the rest of high school and college with timed writing exams. It's important to continue to get better!
Group Activity: Since students had been begging to retry the Sporcle World Geography quiz, we had attempt #2 on the year, as a class, with no notes or phones or maps allowed. Your class was able to name 155 out of 197 today, which is getting better! Here is the link to be able to play again if you want:
We will come back to this later in the year! :-)
Forced Choice: This is one of my favorite activities of the year. I had the class answer the following questions and choose YES or NO to each of them. Then, we split up the class so that two sides were facing each other. With each question, students moved to the side they felt best represented their opinion on the matter. These are difficult ethical questions and I am glad that we have the type of classroom culture that students feel able to talk about them! The questions were:
I also asked about the weekend and what people were up to, before moving on.
DBQ Debrief: I was interested in student thoughts about how the first DBQ (Documents Based Question) went. I understand that it was a challenging assignment, and that many students were perhaps not used to having a firm time deadline for a piece of writing. The reason we are did this was to get used to this structure, as you will frequently see it the rest of high school and college with timed writing exams. It's important to continue to get better!
Group Activity: Since students had been begging to retry the Sporcle World Geography quiz, we had attempt #2 on the year, as a class, with no notes or phones or maps allowed. Your class was able to name 155 out of 197 today, which is getting better! Here is the link to be able to play again if you want:
We will come back to this later in the year! :-)
1. Giving up some of our rights (like our phones being listened to without a warrant) is necessary for our own protection.
2. People in the United States should be able to have firearms if they want.
3. Government officials should have to approve/sign off on marriages that they are against on religious grounds.
4. Marijuana should be legalized everywhere for recreational use.
5. Public schools should strictly enforce a standardized dress code.
6. Organized prayer in public schools should be allowed.
7. The government of a country should be able to make decisions that the majority of the people do not support.
8. Should the motto “In God We Trust” be removed from our currency?
9. I agree with the death penalty option for convicted murderers.
10. Confederate monuments should be taken down/removed from display.
We only made it to question 2 today, so I will pick and choose next class as to which questions we will discuss and debate, before writing a reflective piece about the experience. I love these discussions and I think we did a great job of following the Ground Rules that we established at the beginning of the year.
Thank you for your participation, everyone! Be ready to keep talking next time.
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