weekend 9/26-9-28

7th grade- continue your Maya 4 square using info from our documentary. Based on the artifacts we have examined and the documentary answer the following: REMEMBER HISTORY NEVER HAS A SIMPLE ANSWER!! Look at all perspectives
Were the Maya civilized? Explain!
Should the priest have taken the action he did in 1852? Explain!

8th - If you have not handed in Friday's assignment you must do so on Monday!!
Please complete the 5 dates neccesary for your timeline! Use your research and textbook.

hw thursday

7th- please ad new information from class to your 4 square
8th- please complete the assignment given on tuesday!

HW

7th - Work on your 4square to organize the information we have discovered in class using SCREAMGP. You should have a thesis statement already written! proofs in bullet points only in your boxes! Decide what information you can put together in each box that makes sense. (PARENTS - look back at old post - Sept 8 - to see 4Square examples)

8th grade- what are some multiple chioce strategies/tricks we can use to help us on our tests?

Work on last nights HW!!!!! Collected Friday!

8th grade - DUE FRIDAY!

I will ask for two topics from each student for their first project.
Your first topic must have a Thesis Statement or possible statements and a list of at least 10 questions you will be working to answer in your research. List the books and websites you will start with.

Read! Read! Read! Take notes as you read! If you use a direct quote or idea write down the page and author

HW Tues in your HW notebook - we will share our answers

8th - use the information gathered from our presentations (three colomun chart)to write a short summary that explains the differences between the North and the South in the 1850's and the ways the country was spliting apart. What things were holding the country together, what did we share? Do you believe most Americans in the North wanted to end slavery? (BE PREPARED TO SHARE YOUR SUMMARY!)

7th - use the notes gathered today to write a short summary that does the following:
-explains theories on first Americans
-describes what a civilization is
-describes location, name and facts about civilizations in South, Central and North America
(BE PREPARED TO SHARE YOUR SUMMARY!)

8th Grade Parents and Students

Students will be receiving their first practice 8th grade state exam this week. Please look over the exam with your student. See what type of thinking, reading, writing activities will be required of them. Notice vocabulary words and terms that may give your student difficulty. Students, please begin to explain to your parents your test taking strategies. How will you achieve your best possible score? It is very important to understand all parts of this exam so that we can do our best in June. Thank You

Students should have picked their first research project topic by now. Topic lists have been handed out and posted on this blog (sept. 11). Students should be creating the thesis statement that they will be proving through their research. See above.

Parents/ Students 8th grade

Students/Parents 8th Grade.
Please see Calender above for HS dates.
See events for this weekend!!

PARENTS!

Is has come to my attention that some students are not completing their HW assignments.
1) without textbook HW a student will not be able to collect the definitions and factual information to for the big ideas we need to understand about our nation.
2) I also give many HWs that are directly linked to classwork participation. Some assignments are started in class and completed at home. Other assignments are started at home and completed in class. If your student is not completeing these HW assignments their classwork is suffering and they are not able to help the class move forward.

Wednesday HW

7th - Please complete the outside of your classwork foldable. List the 7 most important aspects of a civilization. What are the 7 things you believe must exist to have a civilization? Below your answer explain how it brings people together and makes them secure. Please use the internet to research youranswers and think about what civilization is.

8th - Read p.407-412
Complete Define and Identify

You should be working on your research project. What will your thesis statement be now that you have a topic? Is your topic small enough so that it will be interesting. What are people arguing about when they talk about your topic? Why is this topic grabbing your attention? Why is it important to you today? Why do you care?

Tuesday night

7th - Please be sure to complete your Venn Diagram. Legend and Science (fill in the center of your diagram with things that match both sides) Bring your legends. -

8th - Text 451-455
Read to Discover
Reading Checks

COMPLETE ALL PARTS OF FOLDABLE!!!
Quotes - Summaries
Discuss and evaluate your findings. How do you understand slavery based on the classsroom documents? Do you agree or disagree with the arguments you have read? Many of the new arguments atre true, how would you answer someone with this point of view? How are the arguments made in the documents connected to us today? Does this new perspective make you feel uncomfortable? Why? What questions would you like to ask the people in history we have just read from? What questions would you like to ask the class?

HW Monday

7th - Make sure you are prepared to share your legend on Tuesday!
Read textbook p. 6-9
Reading Checks
Geography skills

8th - Textbook p451-455
Define & Identify

Weekend

7th - Complete your essay using the 5 boxes from your chart. Combine the legend promps with your own info to write a legend similar to those we have worked with.
As shown in the chart:
1) Creative force
2) Characters
3) Creation of land and humans (How did they get to America?)
4) Values the legend will pass on

8th grade- Find at least 2 topics for your first project. Yesterday's post contains a topic list and questions. Start your research. figure out what you will be trying to prove. Remember your thesis satement must be something that can be argued. It is not a fact, or question.

thursday HW

7th
Brainstorm some ideas for your final coloum
Myth/legend due Monday

8th
Complete Big Idea Question and research 2 topics for first project (Revised Topic list below)

Possible Research Topics 8th Grade
Remember every event or person on this list was very important in shaping or changing American history. Create a Thesis Statement and prove it! Your research must tell us:
·How America was changed by this person or event?
·How is the impact of the person or event still felt today?

Philosophy & Utopian Communities How did American thinkers attempt to create a perfect society on earth? Did their ideas and communities work? (Onieda, Harmony, etc.)Second Great Awakening How did this religious movement effect everyday Americans and change the country? (Finney, Burned over district, Revivals, Temperance)
Slavery Could the United States have developed into a powerful nation without slavery? How did religion, family life, and culture help slaves cope? How did some slaves attempt to defeat slavery? Was slavery the cause of the Civil War?
Civil War The Civil War divided and devastated our country between 1861-1865.
Causes of the Civil War, Fort Sumter, Battle of Antietam, Battle of Gettysburg, effect of war on American people, Emancipation Proclamation)
Native Americans
How did the Native Americans struggle to control their destiny on the American continent come to an end in the late 1800s?
(Cowboys, Little Big Horn, Fort Laramie, Reservations, Crazy Horse, Treaty of Medicine Lodge, Sitting Bull, Ghost Dance, Massacre at Wounded Knee, Geronimo, Dawes General Allotment Act)
Moving West Was the idea of Manifest Destiny positive or negative?
How and why did Americans move West after the Civil War?
(Manifest Destiny, Morrill Acts, Homestead Act, Exodusters, Transcontinental R.R., Donner Party, Mexican War, Gold Rush, Mormon Trail )
Second Industrial Revolution
How did technology, free enterprise and the factory system make America the most powerful nation in the world?
(Entrepreneurs, Corporations, Trusts, Vertical and Horizontal Integration, Andrew Carnegie, John Rockefeller, Social Darwinism, Sherman Antitrust Act, Unions, Anarchists, Homestead Strike, Pullman Strike, Hay Market Riot, Knights of Labor, Technology - Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Eugene Debs)
Immigration
What struggles and successes did immigrants face in their new country? (Know-Nothing Party, Chinese Exclusion Acts, Immigration Restriction League, Tenement Housing, Benevolent Society, Old Immigrants, New Immigrants, Hull House, Chinese, Italian, Irish, Mexican, Push/Pull factors to immigrate)
Progressive Movements
How did different Americans attempt to improve their society at the turn of the century? Did the reforms work? Prison Reform, Temperance, Education, urban renewal, labor reform(Progressives, 17th Amendment, Muckrakers- Ida Tarbell, Upton Sinclair, John Dewey, Socialism, Initiative Recall, Referendum, Hull House, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, Child Labor Laws, Temperance Movement, Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Dubois, NAACP, Teddy Roosevelt- Arbitration, Food and Drug Act, Conservation, Federal Trade Commission)

Extra Credit

Please read the following articles. Underline anything that you feel helps you answer the asignment. Connect the underlined articles to a seperate sheet of paper and answer the following in the order you choose:
Explain how the author is trying to convince you that they should be president
Explain what they want you to do
What arguments or appeals are they making?
What are they saying about our country?

Choices for a Rising Generation
Essay by the 2008 Democratic Party Presidential Nominee
by Senator Barack Obama
We are in a defining moment in our history. We're fighting two wars. Our planet is in peril. Our economy is in turmoil. And the dream that so many generations fought for feels as if it's slowly slipping away.
Now, I know that the easiest thing in the world for young people to do is nothing at all. To turn off the TV, put down the newspaper, and walk away from the stories about Iraq or Darfur or the rising levels of joblessness and hopelessness in our own communities. To go about their busy lives, wishing these problems away, expecting someone else to solve them. To remain detached and indifferent.
But I hope they don't do what is easy — because sometimes, there are moments when what's truly risky is not to act. What's truly risky is to accept things as they are instead of working for what could be.
Taking action can mean getting involved politically. We've seen huge numbers of young people taking part in our campaign. They're knocking on doors and making phone calls and helping fight to bring about real change in this country.
But action can also happen outside the political arena. I was born the year that John F. Kennedy called a generation of Americans to ask their country what they could do. And I came of age at a time when they did it. They were the Peace Corps volunteers who won a generation of goodwill toward America. They were the teenagers and college students who knew it was probably safer to stay at home, but still decided to take the Freedom Rides down South. And because they did, they changed the world. And they inspired me, just out of college, to move to Chicago to help lift up neighborhoods that were devastated when the local steel plants closed.
So at this historic moment, we must ask our rising generation to serve their country as Americans always have — by working on a political campaign or joining the military, by doing community service or relief work abroad. Because that's how real change has always come — from ordinary people coming together to do extraordinary things; from all those, young and old, black, white, and brown, who were willing to do what was risky and what was hard and put their shoulders to the wheel of history, and turn it towards opportunity and equality and justice for all.


A More Peaceful and Prosperous World
Essay by the 2008 Republican Party Presidential Nominee
by Senator John McCain
Throughout this election we've been fortunate to witness the inspiring involvement of so many young Americans, many of whom are not even old enough to vote. Families are bringing their children to campaign events; teenagers are canvassing neighborhoods; and college students are organizing student groups. With so much at stake in this election, I am proud to witness the involvement of this new generation of Americans. They understand their participation is not limited to the ballot box: they are volunteering their time and effort to improve the well-being of our country.
Blogs, MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube have changed the way young people participate in the political process. I have made it a priority to reach young people by participating in such venues as the MTV/MySpace Presidential Dialogue, hosting a blog on my website, and reaching out through social networking sites.
Reaching young people isn't simply about the logistics of how you communicate; it is about what you communicate. Young people are not fixated on a single issue. They want leaders who will address the many critical issues directly affecting their lives, the lives of their families, and the people in their communities.
At town hall meetings across the country, I am repeatedly inspired by the commitment of the young women and men who crowd in to have their voices heard — veterans home from Iraq, relating what they saw, telling us to let them win; volunteers with the ONE Campaign talking about their efforts to alleviate global poverty; recent college graduates wondering what I will do to make health care affordable; and the countless young people who ask how I plan to combat the problem of climate change.
After 9/11, leaders in Washington missed an opportunity to call young people to service. Young men and women, who are willing to give of themselves and sacrifice, want a leader who will ask something of them. Young people want — and deserve — to have their opinions respected and their concerns taken seriously. I know this and will continue to call on young people to serve causes greater than their own self-interest.
Young people understand the power that the political process wields as a force for change, and they are actively engaged in harnessing that power to bring about change for their families, their communities and their world. I see, in the efforts and enthusiasm of America's youth, that our nation's best days are ahead of us. I hear the message of young people loud and clear, and as President, I will honor the obligation of today's leaders to leave the next generation a more peaceful and prosperous world than the one we have today.

HW DUE THURSDAY! PLEASE READ

Parents and students,
I will be collecting all of the acronym/acrostic posters as well as 4 square and essay assignments on Tursday. I am giving an extra day to complete your work. Below I have posted my essay as an example. Please turn in the following;
---HISTORY acrostic poster with clear explanations of why we study history and (Quote)
---SCREAMGP acronym with 3 examples of each category and pictures/symbols
---4 Square complete (see sample)
---Essay using 4 Square

I will not except incorrect or incomplete HW. Please follow my directions as posted. You may have to look back at previous posts!

ESSAY

(paragraph indent shown as---) You will notice that i cut some of my 4 square info to shorten my essay.

Mr. Waldvogel Class:
U.S. History

---It has been said that, “We cannot escape history”. Yet, studies have shown that many middle school students seem to want to do just that. Some students can think of nothing worse than being stuck in another class about dead people. If kids can be shown that history is connected to their lives they just might change their opinion on the subject. When we investigate history we learn how incredibly meaningful and complex our world is. In fact, it is clear the study of history is one of the most important subjects in school and everyone should study it.
---One reason we study the past is because history explores so many topics. It is a great way to learn about our world and how to live in it. For example, in class we used an acronym, SCREAMGP. It stands for the many areas of the past that historians investigate. These areas are Science, Culture, Religion, Art, Military, Geography, and Politics. Our acronym makes it possible for us to remember just how complicated and interconnected history is. We can see that history involves all parts of the human experience. Even this simple memory trick shows us that in order to know ourselves and our world we must get involved with the past.
---Another reason we should study history is it allows us to walk in other peoples shoes. Our world is filled with fighting and problems because there are so many different cultures, religions and governments. If we learn about each others history we can start to understand why people and nations act the way they do. When we understand we can empathize and maybe even talk. The differences that have separated us do not have to lead to conflict.
---Yet, there are some very educated people who don’t agree with these proofs of the importance of remembering and studying history. Leo Tolstoy even remarked that “happy people have no history.” This statement seems to say that ignoring the past with its problems and pains is the best way to live life. Thankfully there are educated and intelligent people who have shown us that history is not best when it is forgotten. Maya Angelou put it this way. “History despite is wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, however, if faced with courage, need not be lived again.” This shows us that knowledge, while often uncomfortable, can be our hope for the future. Others have said that history retold by historians is not true and is therefore a waste of time. Santayana responds to the argument that history is incorrectly remembered with an appeal to all thinking, honest people. “History is always written wrong and so always needs to be rewritten.” Yes, our written history is imperfect, he seems to say. But he doesn’t stop there. He encourages us to rewrite it, to do something! We can get involved instead of ignoring our past or complaining how it is written.
---As you can see, contrary to what many middle school kids think, history is an important and life changing subject. Studying it expands our knowledge of all parts of our world. It helps us fit together with and appreciate many different people and cultures. When we dig into the past we discover so many new possibilities and choices that can be applied to our own lives. And finally, the study of history makes us aware of the incredible impact of people who can remember, think and act. Any middle school student who puts in the effort to untie the complex knot of history becomes someone powerful. When we remember, when we think, we will act and the world will never be the same. When the author William Faulkner said, “The past is never dead; it is not even past” he was absolutely correct. When we learn history we see how much we are still connected to it. We cannot escape history, and we will not want to, because history will open the world to us like no other subject.

Essay on why we study history --- Due wednesday 9/10

7th and 8th ------ All posters and essays due Wednesday. Please include a copy of your 4 square. A reminder. Incomplete work will not be accepted. These are the first set of assignment and will be added to this years portfolio. Look at my samples to give you a feel for the essay I want.

Above are

a sample 4 square
my 4 square

things to finish this weekend

Students,
please complete your poster work! I will be collecting everything on Monday. See last posts for help and instructions. To recieve a 3 or 4 you must complete your assignments and use changes/suggestions we talked about on Friday. Have you answered your assignment questions?

8th grade - Please bring a rough draft of a four square outline on Monday. We will put together a short essay that argues that history is important to know and study. Use the ideas you have already come up with to put as reasons in your four square.

Thurday/Friday classwork and homework

Some Famous Quotes about History

Students,
Over the last 3 days we have been trying to untie a complicated knot of questions! Why do we study history? What are the many parts of history we should include when we think about the past?
Above are the activities we have started in class and completed at home. Please be sure that you complete both activities and turn them in. A rough draft of both activities should appear in your classwork/homework notebooks.

Please include one quote about history that you feel has helped you think about history in a new way. Some quotes are included above. You may find your own. You may include more then one. If you run out of space you may use the back of your paper to explain your quote. Please include the author of the quote.

Nice to see everyone today! 9/2/08

Please make sure you read and answer all the questions from my first post! Please ask your parents to read the post and help you.
Answer questions 1 & 2 using the information I have posted.
BE PREPARED TO USE WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED!