Historical Investigation and Forecasting, Day 5 - Class Recap

Independence Hall, in Philadelphia. This is where the US Constitution was debated and signed! Photo taken in 2011.

Hi everyone,

Thanks for another day of hard work! Hopefully, you are feeling confident at having a product to bring next class for some peer review. This means you should really try to have a rough draft of everything, ready to go! Here's what happened in class today:

Learning Targets Addressed:

SS.HS.RE.ALT.04: I can use evidence from my research to effectively address the research topic.

SS.HS.CO.ALT.01: I can organize ideas in a logically sequenced manner and in a way that is appropriate to the content area.

SS.HS.CR.ALT.04: I can evaluate information and explanations within a given context and develop a relevant conclusion.

SS.HS.RE.ALT.02: I can access relevant information from multiple and varied sources.

SS.HS.CR.ALT.05: I can justify and support arguments or interpretation with appropriate evidence.

Soundtrack: “Two Days in February” by Goo Goo Dolls. Selected because there are now two days (in February) left of class before your historical investigation is due! Lyrics here.

AGENDA 2/25/14:

News Brief

Parts D and E

Computer Lab S210
Forecasting (S210)

Homework: Historical Investigation due next Monday! Bring everything, printed, for peer review next class. Read the blog! Next news brief: Ifrah. 

News Brief: Chloe selected this story to talk about: NYTimes.com - Governor of Arizona Is Pressed to Veto Bill. This is a really interesting current event! I talked about the specifics of the legislation, which would give business owners with sincerely held religious beliefs the right to not serve those they disagree with (in essence). The legislature in Arizona already passed the bill, and now it will go to Governor Jan Brewer, who is being asked to veto it because it could be used to discriminate against gay people. We will probably start the next unit by looking at civil rights, so this was especially good to start thinking about. Thanks, Chloe!

Parts D and E: The last two sections to go over for the historical investigation! Here are two documents that might help with explaining how to do this:

Google Drive: Historical Investigation Parts D and E, Explained

Google Drive: Ms. DeFrance-Gilman's Part D Analysis Example

Basically, Part D is your own thoughts about how the evidence you summarized and presented in Part B helps answer your research question. This should be one page or more. Part E is the conclusion to the paper, which should be a paragraph, including a thesis statement.

Computer Lab: For the rest of class, we went to the computer lab again and worked (we also completed forecasting for next year there, as well). This is the last time we will do this as a class for this project. I was more than happy to write passes to the library or computer lab for your study hall. I also would love to provide assistance or support through comments on the blog, emails, or before or after school! Please let me know how I can help you be successful on this!

Come next class with everything you have, printed and ready to be looked at for a peer review, please. This is an important step in the process. Thanks! See you next class!

Historical Investigation, Day 1 - Class Recap (With Forecasting)

The White House in Washington, D.C., 2011.

Hello everyone,

Thank you for doing your homework and visiting the blog! As I said in class, I think this is a really helpful resource for students, staff, and parents to be able to follow along with what is happening. After every class, I will write up a recap and post it. Most of the time, your only homework will be to read over the blog and be prepared for what is coming next in class. With that, let's get started!

Soundtrack: "Changes" by 2Pac. I always choose this song to start off a new class with, because I like the idea of our room being somewhat different from your other experiences in high school. This song also has all sorts of lyrics that relate to American Studies, like the line "instead of a War on Poverty, they got a War on Drugs, so the police can bother me." Check out the full lyrics here.

AGENDA 2/11/14:
Introductions/Attendance
Letter to Class/Mr. Fritz
The Blog
Create Ground Rules
News Briefs/Historical Investigation Work

Homework: Check the blog and post a comment! Keep working on your historical investigation! The first news brief is assigned to Ben.

Introductions/Attendance: At the start of class, I introduced myself and apologized for being two weeks late in arriving to start the semester. Had I known that I would have had a class, I certainly never would have booked the vacation I was on! With all of that said and done, I am absolutely delighted to be at Westview for the rest of this school year.

I took attendance and tried to ask everyone how they wanted me to address them. It will take me some time, but eventually, I will know everyone's names, I promise!

Letter to Class/Mr. Fritz: After attendance was done, I passed out a letter that I wrote to the class, explaining all about who I am and what sort of expectations I have. Hopefully, most of it was interesting information! I like passing these out and signing them all individually. To me, it represents that I really am interested in everyone in my class.

After reading the letter aloud, I asked everyone to write back to me in a similar sort of fashion. I gave a bunch of possible questions to answer as prompts and about 30 minutes or so to complete the assignment. I LOVE reading these and writing back to everyone! Thank you for your effort - I can't wait to learn a little bit more about who you are!

The Blog: Next, I introduced this website. If you are here, you have the web address down correctly! I also demonstrated how to post a comment, which is homework. This should take about one minute. Quite possibly the easiest homework assignment of all time. Please remember to keep checking back, especially if you were confused about something in class, or missed a day!

Create Ground Rules: Ahh, yes. The awkward process. You did not do too badly with this! The rules that you came up with and agreed to as an entire class are:

1. Try Your Best
2. Respect
3. Embrace Community
4. Be Prepared
5. Stay Engaged

I will be working to make sure everyone, including myself, is following the ground rules! Thank you for participating in this exercise.

News Briefs/Historical Investigation Work: To end class, I talked about the "news brief" concept, with is basically a current event that will start each class. If you are assigned to do the news brief, all you have to do is find a story that has recently (say, within the last week) happened in the United States. A good resource for this could be CNN.com. After you have found the article, either print it or comment/email me the link, then be ready to just talk about what is in the story in class. No writing, no presenting, no standing (unless you want) - just know what the article is about, because I will ask you questions. Hopefully, this will be a good way to look at what is currently happening in the US and relate it to what has happened in the past.

Finally, I came around and chatted with a few students about where they are in regards to the historical investigation project. Much more to come on that in the coming days, but I did want to just get a general sense of where you were. Next class, we will get back to working on it!

Forecasting: After the class section, we went through the forecasting guidelines for next year. I know this was a LOT to take in at once, and we have plenty of time to keep investigating and looking it all over before the forms are due in class on February 25th. Let me know if I can help! Here is the website that will help:

Beaverton School District - Westview High School

Go to the "Academics" section to start looking at your options.

Thank you for reading! See you next class!