Period 2: Revolution! Day 7 - Class Recap

In today's class, we talked about propaganda and did some analysis with Soviet posters. Here's a more current example of a propaganda poster here in the USA: the famous HOPE posters for Barack Obama. I took this picture in Philadelphia, in 2008.

Dear class,

My apologies for posting the recap later than usual - most of my day at school (after classes) was spent grading late work and calling parents with Mrs. Carpenter (I think we were pretty clear that we would be doing this if you were failing our classes). We had sort of a relaxed day today in class, I think. Lots of talking about the news and what is going on around the world, the quiz, and some work with Soviet propaganda. All in-person late work (for progress report grades) was due at the end of the day today, since we do not have school on Monday.

Essential Questions: What brings people together? What tears people apart?

Soundtrack: “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” by U2. Selected for today because it is (or was, growing up) one of my brother's favorite songs growing up. It was his 25th birthday yesterday! Also chosen because not all of my students are being successful, which means we still have work to do. Lyrics here.

AGENDA 3/8/13:
News Brief
Quiz Talk
Propaganda Posters
Work Time/Grade Check

Homework: Read the blog! Turn in any missing work for better progress report grades! Teresita has the next news brief.
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News Brief: Nick B. used this article about rats in Iran for the news brief today: CNN.com - Iranian sharpshooters target rats. What a crazy story! Who knew that this was such a problem?

We also talked about other happenings around the world.

Quiz Talk: I passed back your Russian Revolution vocabulary quiz and we had a somewhat spirited discussion about the results (the class average was 3.1 out of 5, which is a 62%). I was wondering what else I could be doing to help you be successful in the future with these. Obviously something went wrong, even with me giving you the vocabulary words to study for the test, the entire weekend to study, this website with the presentation and vocab to review, AND time in class right before the quiz to study. As I said in class, I take it personally when students are not successful. Let me know how I can help you do better in the future, if this was something you really struggled with.

Propaganda Posters: The next part of class was devoted to checking out some examples of Soviet Union propaganda (it is nice that you already knew what propaganda meant from studying Rwanda) and filling out a worksheet with each slide, then creating your own example on the back. If you missed class, or wanted to add to your worksheet, here is the presentation:

Google Drive: Soviet Union Propaganda PowerPoint

Here is the worksheet that goes along with the presentation:

Google Drive: Soviet Union Propaganda Worksheet

After viewing all of the slides and filling out the worksheet, I gave the class this assignment: 

On the back side of the propaganda poster worksheet, you are creating your OWN Russian poster. Please use at least two symbols. Try to connect to at least one of the vocabulary words. You do not have to use Russian. Use a English caption, please.

This is NOT homework, unless you need to get a good start on it. We will finish these in class next week.

Work Time/Grade Check: For the last section of class, I checked in with students about grades (and invited students to look at your updated grades posted on the classroom board) and gave time to work on either the propaganda poster or make up work. All late and/or missing work for progress reports was due by the end of the day today. Grades have to be posted before school on Tuesday morning. .

Please comment or email if you have any questions! Have a great long weekend!

Period 2: Revolution! Day 6 - Class Recap

We talked today about Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, who died yesterday. This is a picture of a sunset on the island of Aruba - right next to Venezuela. I remember seeing Chavez on TV there, when I visited in 2011!

Dear class,

Another good day, in my estimation! I have not looked at the majority of the quizzes yet - I hope that you did well! I should be able to get them back to you next class. Here's what we did today:

Essential Questions: What brings people together? What tears people apart?

Soundtrack: “Mother Russia” by Renaissance. Chosen for today because of the obvious connection to what we are learning about. Also, Renaissance is a really great band. Lyrics here. A little more about the composition of the song here.

AGENDA 3/6/13:
News Brief
Pop Quiz, Hotshot
OPVL
Make Up Work

Homework: Read the blog! Nick B. has the next news brief.

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News Brief: Jessica brought in the news brief for today. The one and only time I will allow a news brief to be about the United States! I noted that I hoped you were able to find the US on a world map, and that studies have found that people are really awful at geography. Here is an article about that, from 2006: CNN.com - Study: Geography Greek to young Americans.

Anyway, this is the article that Jessica chose to bring in: news.Yahoo.com - TSA to allow small knives, bats, and clubs on planes. I talked about my personal distaste for the TSA (a definite example of bias) and showed the official TSA website regulations with the update.

We also talked about Hugo Chavez dying and the story of a Portland man being arrested in connection to a 2009 suicide bomber in Pakistan: KGW.com - FBI: Portland man connected to '09 Pakistan suicide attack.

Plenty going on in the world!

Pop Quiz, Hotshot: After the news brief, I gave the class a few minutes to study up for the Russian Revolution vocab quiz, as I passed back your forced choice reflections. Your updated grades are posted by student ID number on the board. No excuses for you to not know exactly what you need to do by Friday to get your grade up for progress reports!

I'm not going to recap the quiz itself, other than to say that I hope everyone did well. If you were following along during the presentation and did your homework to review, I'm sure you were fine.

OPVL: After the quiz, I introduced a new way to think about various different documents in history. I used the textbook as an example, along with three articles that I read about Hugo Chavez last night. OPVL stands for Origin, Purpose, Value, and Limitation. Your assignment was to take the paper I handed out in class and go through the four documents on each side of the room to assess them. If you missed class, or needed to complete this outside of class, here are the links to both the OPVL sheet and the documents I posted:

Google Drive: OPVL Worksheet

Google Drive: Russian Revolution Primary Documents for Analysis

Let me know if this assignment is at all unclear. You will be turning this in as part of the Russian Revolution packet later, so please keep it with you or in your folder in class!

Make Up Work: We did not really have time to get to this. I was able to check in with most students that I am really worried about for progress reports. Please know what you need to turn in! I would be happy to help. Post a comment here or email me!

See you on Friday!

Period 2: Revolution! Day 5 - Class Recap

This is a picture I took of Maria Sharapova carrying the flag of the Russian Federation at the Opening Ceremony of the London Olympics. The flag is different from the one the USSR had after the revolution!

Hi everyone,

I had a fun time last night making all of the content to go over today, and I think it went very well! Thank you for working with me on the "newsflash" pre-assessment and during the Russian Revolution presentation. Please see below if you missed out on anything!

Essential Questions: What brings people together? What tears people apart?

Soundtrack: “Sunday Bloody Sunday” by U2. Chosen for today because 1) this song came up last night when I was listening to my iTunes library on shuffle, and 2) because "Bloody Sunday" (not the same one as the song, but still) is a really important event in Russian history. Lyrics here.

AGENDA 3/4/13:

News Brief

Debrief Forced Choice

Newsflash

Peace, Land, and Bread

Homework: Study for quiz on Russian Revolution next class. Read the blog. Jessica, you have the next news brief.

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News Brief: Cassey selected this article for today's news brief: CNN.com - Blast kills 42, wounds dozens in Pakistani seaport city of Karachi. We talked about the possible reasons for this, with the different sects of Islam (like Protestant and Catholic for Christianity). We also talked about our weekends for a bit, including my story about talking to a tech support guy in the Philippines. Connected through technology, even when it doesn't work!

Debrief Forced Choice: We devoted a few minutes after the news brief to talk about our reactions to the "forced choice" exercise, that we spent most of two days doing. I really enjoyed all of your responses. I appreciated Daisy saying that she liked the activity, even though the questions were personal because it made her think of answers to questions she had never really had to consider before. That was definitely a main reason I do the activity. I also answered some of the questions myself, because I believe in being honest about my own perspective on the world. After this, I had everyone turn in the reflections on the activity, which were due as homework if you had not completed them last class.

Newsflash: This is absolutely my favorite way to start a new unit. Good teachers always try and assess where students are at before they teach any specific content (otherwise, we would have no idea if you had actually learned anything or not). If you wanted to see the hilarious "Whose Line is it Anyway?" clip again, here it is:

So awesome. Next, I passed out the "pre-assessment" paper that was geared around going back in time to Russia in 1917. If you did not complete this in class, you absolutely need to do this BEFORE going on to reviewing the presentation. If you missed class, or lost your copy (I will have you turn this in later), here it is to download and print:

Google Drive: "Newsflash" Russian Revolution Pre-Assessment

Again, it does not matter if you do not know very much: make an educated guess!

Peace, Land, and Bread: After the newsflash activity, I started up the Russian Revolution content. Here is the vocabulary list that students were filling out during the presentation (the quiz will be on these terms, next class):

Google Drive: Russian Revolution Vocabulary Terms

I helpfully three hole punched these, as well. See? I listened to your feedback about making notes easier!

Here is the main event - the PowerPoint of the basics of what happened during the Russian Revolution:

Google Drive: "Peace, Land, and Bread: The Russian Revolution" PowerPoint

On slide 6 of the PowerPoint, I (would have, if we had enough time - I played a bit at the end of class) stopped and played this video from YouTube (it should start at 41:11 in, and we watched almost to the end) about the process of how Lenin was able to come back to Russia from his exile, with the help of Germany during World War I.

I finished the presentation with about two minutes left in class, so I hope that I gave enough time for everyone to finish writing the notes, balanced with my need to make sure I was able to get through the entire presentation, so you had all the terms for the quiz next class.

We definitely packed quite a lot into class today. I hope it was all clear! Absolutely ask me questions if you are at all confused or need clarification. I really appreciated your focus and attention today. See you on Wednesday!