Today we spent some time in the West as we interrogated a set of historical sources in an effort to develop a hypothesis about a murder in Montana. The process also helped us gain a more complete understanding of what life in the West was like for diverse groups of people. We ended the day with some discussion over the problems faced by farmers in the West and the resulting successes of the Populist Party.
Tomorrow Chapter 19 is due and we will shift our focus eastward to the growing industries and urban areas. H Scored Discussion #2 was today as we discussed the historical controversy regarding whether westward expansion should be considered genocide. There was some good analysis and evidence based conversation going on today! Just like the last discussion, you need to continue your conversation in the online forum. The directions for commenting are on the discussion board which can be accessed from the "Discussion Boards" tile on the main page of this site. All comments are due by 11:59 pm next Tuesday, March 20th.
Make sure you have your Chapter 18 and 20.3 notes ready tomorrow and Chapter 19 on Friday! H After the weather yesterday, today was a three hour delay and only 3rd and 4th periods met. Those classes being the ones cut yesterday meant that we used today to take exam 2 like 1st and 2nd had on Monday.
Tomorrow is still the scored discussion, so make sure you have your pre-write with discussion questions ready to go! Also, make sure you have finished up your Chapter 17 notes which were originally due today. Check the class calendar for upcoming chapter due dates as a few have shifted slightly! If you need to make up the exam, you will need to plan on TWO entire lunch periods to complete the exam. I will be available to give the test every lunch period the rest of this week and during lunch next Monday. Don't put off coming to make it up any later than that please! H With a three hour delay tomorrow, that means only 3rd and 4th periods will meet. Be prepared to take your exam! :)
Be sure to see the post below! Richardson's students: Please follow the link below, complete the quiz, and fill out the reflection component by Thursday. https://t.co/UH1vv2SkZ9 Well this was an interesting day! As I write this, I am watching the road in front of my house becoming more and more deeply buried under snow. That means you should stay closely glued to the blog, twitter, snapchat, etc. in case we need to make further modification to our plans!
Today 1st and 2nd periods got the exam completed, but we were released from school before we got the third and fourth. Third and fourth periods should be planning to take the exam TOMORROW, unless we have to make adjustments due to a cancellation , etc. EVERYONE should be prepared to go with the Scored Discussion on Wednesday. Don't forget, the readings are posted under Period 6 and you are doing the same format of pre-writing activity as last time. It looks like people are working on it now, but if you haven't, please be certain that you post your online comments for Scored Discussion #1 BEFORE midnight TONIGHT! Also, be keeping up with the textbook notes, Chapters 17, 18 & 20.3, and 19 are due this week! All that being said... please also enjoy the time with your family and the snow! H Our final in-class LEQ was today! We also finished up our examination of Reconstruction with a LitCircle of documents from the period. If you were out today for DECA or other reasons, you will need to make up the LEQ during tutorials next week OR take it Monday in class and make up Monday's Exam. All of the materials from the last two days are in a special section under Period 5 materials!
Monday is our second exam. It will cover the last bit of Chapter 8 (election of 1800 onward) through Chapter 16, Periods 4 and 5. The materials for your binder are posted in yesterday's blog. Also, don't forget that the online portion of the first Scored Discussion is due before midnight on Monday! Our second Scored Discussion will be next Wednesday and the materials are posted under Period 6. Have a great weekend! H Today was a very packed day as we tied together the strings of disunion through first an examination of Lincoln's private and public communications on slavery then by analyzing excerpts from ordinances of secession from four different Southern states. We then explored the historiography of the Reconstruction period, focusing on four major schools of thought, then by conducting some of our own historical argumentation with a set of documents illuminating the question of freedom for African Americans during Reconstruction. I also gave students the hand out linked below explaining Historical Contextualization as it is scored on the LEQ essays. Tomorrow will be LEQ2 in class. Focus on material from this past week, including outcomes of Manifest Destiny , the rise of disunion, the factors contributing to the Civil War, and on Reconstruction. Also, I will update this blog this evening with the list of binder items for Monday's check. ---UPDATED, 5:31pm--- H
We started pulling some of the threads of the last two weeks of conversations together today by examining the compromises over slavery, the goals of Southern political forces, and the clash with the Republican Party platform in 1860. We also completed a DocBlock lit circle over a set of documents which each served to illustrate concepts and historical developments we have introduced in the past few days, including the nuanced beliefs of abolitionists and the variety of their reasons for opposing slavery as well as the reasoning used by pro-slavery forces and their links to the historical data on slavery and industrial labor. We finished up the day by examining the development and eventual rejection of the historical assertion that John Brown was insane as the motivating factor for his violent abolitionism.
Chapter 16 is due tomorrow! We will also tie up all those threads we started pulling together today with an examination of the justifications for secession, followed by an analysis of Abraham Lincoln's private and public communication, then a discussion over the successes and failures of Reconstruction. We will finish Reconstruction after the LEQ on Friday. I will post on the Period 5 page all of the work from Thursday and Friday so that those out for DECA and other school activities will have that information Lastly, your next scored discussion will take place next Wednesday. The reading selections for this discussion are posted under Period 6. You will need to do the same pre-write activity as with the last discussion. also, the online submissions for the last discussion are due my 11:59pm this coming Monday! H Slavery was the topic of the day as we sought to gain a more nuanced and detailed understanding of its nature and its effects on those that were enslaved, the societies and economies of the slave states, and the people who fought for abolition. Hopefully your investigation of the data and documents today, along with our analysis and debriefing conversations, helped skewer any misconceptions you may have had about slave culture prior to the civil War and has armed you with the information and evidence to fight the unfortunately ever-present, racially tinged mythology that circulates the media online and casual conversation.
Tomorrow, among other things, we will take on the other related causes of the Civil War by looking closely at the text of secession documents. Also, don't forget that Chapter 15 is due tomorrow. For those of you that will be out later this week for the DECA events, we have decided that it would be much easier for you to make up an LEQ essay than trying to recover information we did in class. By now, you should be familiar enough with the way things are approached in class to know that, though you can make up DocBlock's on your own and look over the notes your table teams made during class activities and discussions, it is actually incredibly hard to encapsulate the conversations and experiences of our in-class activities in a meaningful way when you return to class. We hope keeping the LEQ on Friday will help minimize this drawback to being out. For those that want to work ahead or over the weekend, I will post the Thursday and Friday activities and documents in tomorrow's blog. One final note: We will have some visitors on campus tomorrow condicting classroom observations. They may drop into our classroom for a while and may talk to some of you about what we are doing in class. They may even pull a few out you into the hall for a few minutes to talk about our class and the way we do things. We will just keep working, doing our thing if they come by our class. I just wanted you to be aware so you weren't distracted by some unfamiliar faces. H |
Daily BlogOn this blog we will share each day's activities and post reminders about assignments and upcoming assessments. Archives
May 2018
Categories |