Period 2: Nonviolence and Gandhi, Day 1 - Class Recap

Earth, as seen from the Apollo 17. This is probably the most famous image of Earth from space, and is sometimes referred to as the "Blue Marble" picture. Found on the consistently incredible (bookmark and come back every day) NASA.gov - Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD).
Dear class,

That certainly was an interesting class. I am not sure what it was about today, but there seemed to be an almost class-wide lack of focus. Possibly because it was a Monday after a sunny weekend. Possibly because the class just was not all that interesting (which I have a hard time believing, but could totally be true). Whatever the reason, I really had a difficult time quieting everyone down, making sure that people were paying attention to what was going on, being prepared, and other aspects of class that should really be entirely up to you guys. Take some ownership of class! It simply just will not work if I have to do it all. That, as we saw today, would take up most of the class.

Essential Questions: How does conflict arise and in what ways have various people responded? What are civil rights?

Soundtrack: "Wavin' Flag" by K'Naan. Lyrics here. Selected for today because Ricardo suggested it to me, because it was his birthday.

AGENDA 5/18/09:
News Brief
Reflections on Goals/Unit/Class
Civil Rights
Final Paper Note Taking

Homework: Bring sources (at least one more) for next class. Continue to work on research project! Read blog recap!

For next class, I want you to have a solid choice for your topic that you want to research, as well as multiple (more than one) sources to take notes on. Thanks!

News Brief: We had a few good topics to talk about this morning, but none that I actually took note of to post on the blog. However, I did have a couple of items to point out in class and on here. The first was this article: CNN.com - Woman elected in Kuwait says gender in politics is 'history'. Super interesting article, I thought! Exactly what we were talking about at the beginning of this unit with how women can have an impact in the Middle East. Yay, progress!

I also pointed out that President Obama is meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today. Here is a recap of what they talked about, supposedly: HuffingtonPost.com - Obama, Netanyahu Meeting: Obama Says Israel Must Stop Expanding Settlements. Again, EXACTLY what we were talking about in class! Cool to see how it all relates, right? :-)

Breanna chose to bring this article to talk about: CNN.com - Abuse of child 'witches' on rise, aid group says. Such a sad story! Furthermore, it is talking about Nigeria, a country that we know a lot about, right? Very interesting! Education is the name of the game!

Mary, you are up next for a news article! Anything currently going on around the world outside the United States. Thanks!

Reflections on Goals/Unit/Class: At the start of this section, I had you pull out your goal sheets from the beginning of the semester (if you still had them), or make a new sheet for goals. I asked you to write a little reflection about how things are going, what you can improve or continue to work on, etc. I read all of these, and generally, I am glad that you are participating on this! It is really important to set goals for yourself, and come back to those goals from time to time.

I then asked you to use the second half of your sheet of paper to do the activity that we had done at the end of last semester. The questions that I wanted you to respond to were: 1) What do you like about this class? (What about the structure gets you excited to come in the morning?) 2) What can the class improve on? 3) What do you like about Mr. Fritz as a teacher? 4) What can Mr. Fritz improve on?

To be honest, I have not read all of these yet, but I did glance at them, and I am really thankful for your honest feedback. It really does help me out (and in theory, you as well)!

Civil Rights: To start this section of the class, I asked you to get out another sheet of paper and I projected this quote for you to reflect on (like Mr. Hardin's class): "A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history." - Mohandas Gandhi.

After a really great period of focused work (I could tell you guys were used to doing this), I had everyone come up and write one example or thought you had that came to mind as you were thinking about the quote. I thought all of these were really interesting! The point to doing this was as a warm up to think about the fight for civil rights.

Next, I asked you to help me brainstorm about what, exactly, civil rights were. I started this by asking the class "how (have) your civil rights been violated lately?" We had some interesting stories about freedom of religion, and freedom against search and seizure, amongst others. Mary helpfully pointed out that civil rights are rights that you are born with, which I called "natural rights." Generally, I think this was a great way to begin the unit and thinking about all of this!

Final Paper Note Taking: During the final few minutes in class, I had everyone go up to the board and write down what their idea for their final research project is. I was not expecting a really concrete idea, but many of these seemed entirely too vague or not thought through enough. Again, your homework was to think of something and bring in a news article about it! That is your homework for tonight as well!

For the rest of class, I had you take notes on three separate sheets of paper in your folders. I think I probably could have done a better job at teaching this, but hopefully everyone understood the main points behind all of this. Here is exactly what I typed on my laptop, for future reference:

YELLOW SHEET:

One sentence or a short thought, directly

Quote "in quotation marks" (Author, page number) – in parenthesis

Indenting multiple sentences

Commentary on how or why the quote relates!

RED SHEET:

For paragraphs or chunks –

Paraphrase! (take the paragraph, rewrite into your own words)

PURPLE SHEET:

For the entire article –

Main points (what is the abstract?) of the article.

Put this in your own words – paraphrase, summarize
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That was just about the end of the class! I hope that everyone has a wonderful rest of the day. Please come prepared to focus and learn on Wednesday! We are almost to the end of the year! Keep working hard, please. Post comments about anything you think is interesting or any questions that you have about what we are doing! See you next class! :-)

Period 2: Turmoil in the Middle East, Day 16 - Class Recap

Peter's really amazing wallpaper that was his creative product! Formatted for screen resolution 1280x800, I believe. Seriously incredible! Click to view full size, then right click on the image and select "set as desktop background" and presto! :-)
Good afternoon class,

This was another really productive day of presentations and talking a little bit about the final paper for the entire year! Thank you for the good focus and attention, for the most part. You guys are sort of a bouncy group, but all in all, really fun to work with. I hope you enjoyed class as much as I did! On to the recap:

Essential Questions: In what ways are cultures and countries interconnected? How can the Middle East be stabilized?

Soundtrack: "Let Love In" by Goo Goo Dolls. Lyrics here. Really an excellent song. It can also definitely be related to the conflicts that we are studying!

AGENDA 5/14/09:
News Brief
Student Presentations
Final Paper Folders

Homework: Decide on what topic you want to do, bring a source to take notes on next class. Read blog recap!

This will be talked about a little more in "The Final" section. Basically, I want you to decide on what you want to investigate for your final paper, and bring one source in (like a news article, book, magazine, etc) that relates to your topic and that you can take notes on. We will help you do this in class! All I need for you to do is to pick a topic, and choose something to take notes on about.

For anyone that was not in class today, or that has lost (already) the assignment sheet, here it is to download:

Historical Investigation Research Project - Overview
Again, we will be talking about this much more. In fact, for the rest of the year, this is what we will be doing. As I noted in class, I am thinking that we will have about half the time devoted to a new unit, and the other half to developing this paper.

News Brief: We have really been struggling to find things to talk about recently! The two things that I took note of were:

The recent plane crash in Buffalo, which Amy mentioned, is something to really be interested in. A lot of things had to go wrong for that to happen. Source: ABCnews.com - Buffalo Crash: 'A Recipe for an Accident'. Basically, the pilots were sleep deprived, inadequately experienced, paid very little, and the icy conditions outside made it all come to a head. Really a sad story. Pilots do not get nearly enough credit for what they do.

Also, someone mentioned this story, about a police officer kicking a suspect in the head, while they were on the ground, then high-fiving his partner: LATimes.com - Experts say El Monte police officer's kick was unjustified. Bad times.

Yesenia brought finished this section of the class up with this article: CNN.com - Former Mexican president calls for legalizing marijuana. This is a pretty interesting take on the whole "war on drugs" issue. Someone else in class noted that some people are proposing to legalize marijuana in California and tax it, in order to help with the state's finances. A really interesting report on that was recently done by TIME Magazine, here: TIME.com - Can Marijuana Help Rescue California's Economy?

Breanna, please remember to bring a current news story about anything currently happening outside the United States, for next class on Monday. Thanks!

Student Presentations: These were pretty fun, again! Thank you to those who really put a lot of time and effort into creating something. I really respect your hard work! After everyone was finished, we turned in the following items, which I need from everyone ASAP if you did not turn it in today:

- Completed Skills Packet (which contained the Blazers recap and debates).
- Presentation Notes (for other students).
- Explanation Paper for your creative product AND
- Creative product, if it is something that can be handed in (like lines for a skit, or a PowerPoint, or a poster, etc). Again, I cannot grade your creative products without the explanation paper, so please get both in to me!

I hope that everyone enjoyed these presentations, and possibly learned a thing or two about interconnectedness as well. It was fantastic for me to be able to see you demonstrate your knowledge about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict!

Final Paper Folders: As I think I said in class, this "historical investigation" project is one that every freshman at Westview is working on, as part of the common assessment for Social Studies. If you remember, the first semester version of this was the visual metaphor. Thus, this is a really big deal!

I talked about Mrs. DeFrance's really amazing folder system for helping you write papers. Seriously, if I had this in high school, I think I would have written 10 page long papers with ease. It is really a pretty incredible way to keep track of everything. Please keep everything in that folder - including all the sheets of paper tucked inside!

I linked to the final paper assignment sheet above. We read that together in class, as I tried as best as I could to introduce this as something that you do not have to stress out about. Make it interesting to you! After reading everything together, we started brainstorming ideas for "issues of global significance" on the board. Here is a picture of what we came up with, to help you out if you need it:


Pick one of these, or any other issue for your homework, and bring in something to start you off on the project on Monday! I want you to be excited at finding out information about the world, that you may not have really had the chance to learn about in class this year!

Put it this way, there are entire college courses devoted to just these topics. In fact, I was in one last year at Western Oregon University! It was called History 492: World Problems. I ended up writing a 10 page paper on the search for Osama bin Laden. It was a really interesting class!

If you are still totally unsure about what to do, try a Google search for "world problems" or "globalization" or something along those lines. If none of that sounds interesting at all, come talk to me and I am sure we can get you started. :-)
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Other news of interest: Brandon Roy was selected to the All-NBA Second Team! This is a really huge honor! The first time a Blazer has made All-NBA since Clyde Drexler in 1992. Source: BlazersEdge.com. Brandon Roy is simply incredible. What a guy.

The Office Season Five finale is tonight (Thursday)! It is totally worth checking out, even if you have never seen it. The fun starts at 9:00 PM, on NBC (Channel 8 for most of you). The Office is my favorite television show of all time. I am really quite sad that the season will be over and we will have to wait until the fall for a new episode! Every year this happens, and there is a huge cliffhanger, and it just kills me.

There is a TON of sporting action going on. I am sure that Westview's spring sports are all worth checking out. Add to that two Game Sevens in the NHL, the Lakers-Rockets and Celtics-Magic series in the NBA (both Game Sixes), and Major League Baseball, all tonight. Wow. It is a great time to be a sports fan!

Tomorrow, I will be playing hoops during second lunch in the gym. Come sign up on the sheet in N116 if you want to play! I am excited about it!

With that, I think I will sign off! I hope everyone is doing well! Have a wonderful weekend! Keep in touch and keep working hard on everything we are doing!

Period 2: Turmoil in the Middle East, Day 15 - Class Recap

Faraj Adnan, one of the people in the movie Promises that we finished today. The picture can be found here. Also, here is a site that tells you a little bit about what happened right after the movie. Faraj is now 24. Should you feel so inclined, here is Faraj's MySpace, and here is his FaceBook. Also, while you are at it, here is Yarko Solan's FaceBook. I wonder if they are friends? Certainly something that connects cultures and countries - social networking sites! :-)
Good afternoon students,

I must say, I REALLY liked your presentations and creative products today. I now know that I made the right decision in putting them off until today. That extra time, as well as making it really explicit how I wanted you to relate your product to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, paid great dividends. Thank you for your hard work, those of you that went today! We will finish these up next class and then move on to the next unit.

Essential Questions: In what ways are cultures and countries interconnected? How can the Middle East be stabilized?

Soundtrack: "Sweet Emotion" by Aerosmith. Chosen because today had a lot to do with the emotional pull on people, and because it is a great rock song.

AGENDA 5/12/09:
News Brief
Finish Promises
Student Presentations

Homework: Finish any late work – be prepared for next class! Read blog recap!

Also, because I understand that the internet was down at school this morning and nobody that wanted to print out their explanation papers before class, please either e-mail me it or bring in a hard copy for me on Thursday - regardless of whether or not you presented today. I was going to make everyone turn in the paper today (thank you to those who did after their presentations), but I think this way makes more sense now.

News Brief: After going over the essential questions (and pointing out Allie's excellent find that relates in the comments on the last blog post), soundtrack, agenda, and homework, I asked a little bit about what everyone did for the weekend. I hope you were good to your mom's!

Mary started out the news from around the world section with the really interesting topic of the search for Earth-like planets in the universe. Here is an awesome article detailing the current quest: WashingtonPost.com - Science Digest, April 27, 2009. As I pointed out in class, there are so many stars and galaxies in the universe that it is probable that there are other places out there that are capable of having the right conditions for life.

For the news brief today, Luke talked about the recent diversion of a plane because of swine flu fears. Here is an article about this: Boston.com - Flight diverted to Boston after passenger complains of flu-like symptoms. Really, people get spooked by this sort of stuff. A great article recapping why the idea that airplanes just recirculate air and infects everyone on the plane is completely untrue can be found here: Salon.com - Ask the Pilot, May 8, 2009.

Furthermore, as I was trying to point out using the map, and subsequently made it crash and fall to the ground, the shortest distance between two points on the globe is very rarely a straight line because of the curve of the globe. The website Great Circle Mapper is an excellent representation of this. Check out what the flight path between Portland and Beijing, China if such a flight actually existed (it does not, currently): Great Circle Mapper, PDX-PEK.

Interesting stuff, right? Thanks Luke! Yesenia, you are up for next class please! One news article about anything currently going on outside the United States!

Finish Promises: I'm glad everyone participated in this! Even more so, I was really excited to hear your thoughts about all of it, especially about the innocence of children and the circumstances that they were born into. This was so related to the rest of the movie and the overall point!

By the way, now that the film is done, here is the trailer for the movie, and you can also watch the entire film on YouTube in 10 parts. That playlist can be found here.

I am very interested to see what you did with these conversations! I think it was a good way to approach watching the film. It is possible that we will do something next class with these as well. Again, thank you for your participation!

Student Presentations: After wrapping the movie went, we went on to your presentations! I asked the class about elements to a good presentation, which I wrote on the board. I also wanted everyone in the audience to write about what was interesting/good about each presentation, as well as how it made you feel. With that, I turned it over to you guys! We had Amy, Corri and Brian, Aaron and Dylan and Logan, Nasser and Jaye, Suzie and Ariel, Diana and Breanna, Sante and Haze, Iris, Sam and Stephen, Sarah, and Juliet go today. Thank you! To everyone not on that list, please be ready to go tomorrow!

I am attempting to upload Dylan, Logan, and Aaron's video creation on YouTube - I will post if it is successful.

Overall, as I said above, I think that these were fantastic. A lot of thought and effort went in to most of your presentations! Thank you! We will continue with the presentations next class, then move on to the next unit.
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Have a fantastic afternoon! Thanks for being such great students! See you on Thursday! :-)