Don't forget what we do in school.

We do what we have to do so we can do what we want to do.


For instance, right now, I have reading to do before the African American Slavery class I have tomorrow (It's Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 11-11:50am). I can't find it online where the teacher said it should be. So am I going back to bed? No! I need to read this article so that I can discuss it with my classmates tomorrow. I need to read the article so I know why I study the things I study. I need to read the article so that one day, I can teach it to college students in my classroom one day.

So I'm not going back to sleep. I'm calling my professor and asking her if I can borrow her copy. I'm doing what I have to do so I can do what I want to do.

Miracle Workers

By Taylor Mali
www.taylormali.com

I have loved this poem since the first time I heard it, and I wanted to share it with you. This is how I feel about teaching.

Sunday nights I lie awake—
as all teachers do—
and wait for sleep to come
like the last student in my class to arrive.
My grading is done, my lesson plans are in order,
and still sleep wanders the hallways like Lower School music.
I’m a teacher. This is what I do.

Like a builder builds, or a sculptor sculpts,
a preacher preaches, and a teacher teaches.
This is what we do.
We are experts in the art of explanation:
I know the difference between questions
to answer and questions to ask.

That's an excellent question.
What do you think?

If two boys are fighting, I break it up.
But if two girls are fighting, I wait until it’s over and then drag what’s left to the nurse’s office.
I’m not your mother, or your father,
or your jailer, or your torturer,
or your biggest fan in the whole wide world
even if sometimes I am all of these things.
I know you can do these things I make you do.
That’s why I make you do them.
I’m a teacher. This is what I do.

Once in a restaurant, when the waiter asked me
if I wanted anything else, and I said,
"No, thank you, just the check, please,"
and he said, "How about a look at the dessert menu?"
I knew I had become a teacher when I said,
"What did I just say?
Please don’t make me repeat myself!"

In the quiet hours of the dawn
I write assignment sheets and print them
without spell checking them. Because I’m a teacher,
and teachers don’t make spelling mistakes.
So yes, as a matter of fact, the new dress cod
will apply to all members of the 5th, 6th, and 78th grades;
and if you need an extension on your 55-paragraph essays
examining The Pubic Wars from an hysterical perspective
you may have only until January 331st.
I trust that won’t be a problem for anyone?

I like to lecture on love and speak on responsibility.
I hold forth on humility, compassion, eloquence, and honesty.
And when my students ask,
“Are we going to be responsible for this?”
I say, If not you, then who?
You think my generation will be responsible?
We’re the ones who got you into this mess,
now you are our only hope.
And when they say, “What we meant
was, ‘Will we be tested on this?’”
I say Every single day of your lives!

Once, I put a pencil on the desk of a student
who was digging in her backpack for a pencil.
But she didn’t see me do it, so when I walked
to the other side of the room and she raised her hand
and asked if she could borrow a pencil,
I intoned, In the name of Socrates and Jesus,
and all the gods of teaching,
I declare you already possess everything you will ever need!
Shazzam!
“You are the weirdest teacher I have ever—”
Then she saw the pencil on her desk and screamed.
“You’re a miracle worker! How did you do that?”

I just gave you what I knew you needed
before you had to ask for it.
Education is the miracle, I’m just the worker.
But I’m a teacher.
And that’s what we do.

How to Apply for College

Hello!

I hope you've all had an awesome summer, and are starting off the school year on the right foot.

A lot of you are seniors, and have called me with questions about how to get into college. I'd like to encourage you to sign up for an account with Embark.com. This Web site lets you put in your personal information, and creates a college checklist just for you. It's important that you do this now, because your applications have to be in by December, and you have only 2 more shots to take the ACT - October and January.

The site will answer a lot of your questions, but I'd like to make myself available to help you with the college applications process. I'm thinking that Fridays at 3pm at the McDonald's on Bullard might be good. I need to know, though, if any of you are actually interested. Depending on how many people are interested, I can either help you individually with whatever you need, or have a different topic to address every week.

If you're a junior, you should come, too. This whole process should actually begin at the start of your junior year.

Never hesitate to call me for help. And forward this information to any of your friends (especially Linda To!) who are interested. I love you all.

Do what you have to do so you can do what you want to do,
Ms. Jolly

P.S. Yesterday, in my slavery class, the professor had every student in the room say their name and where she was from. When a student proclaimed that he was from New Orleans, the professor asked for the name of his high school. These Tulane students from New Orleans went to De La Salle, Brother Martin, Newman, Edna Karr, and O. Perry Walker. The professor looked just as disappointed as I felt. Why? Because none of those students came from Reed, or Cohen, or Rabouin.

What does that mean? It means those students are doing something that you're not. They're applying to colleges. We have to get the ball rolling on that, because nothing in the world would make me happier than sitting next to one of you in class next year.

"Any time you see someone more successful than you, they're doing something you're not." Malcolm X

To my students

I've been pretty open with you throughout the year about my personal religious beliefs. I've also made it very clear that those are my beliefs, and have been careful to never engage in any kind of prayer or devotional, or in criticizing any religion.

Even though many of you are horrified that I am not a trinitarian Christian, I read the Bible (especially the New Testament) a lot. And as the year ends, I wanted to share one of my favorite Bible verses with you. It is a passage that has always guided the work that I do, and I hope that you will take its message with you into your future as well.

Let no one have contempt for your youth, but set an example for those who believe, in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity. ...Attend to the reading, exhortation and teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have... Be diligent in these matters, be absorbed in them, so that your progress may be evident to everyone. Attend to yourself and your teaching: persevere in both tasks, for by doing so you will save both yourself and those who listen to you. (1 Timothy 4:12-16)

I love you all, and wish you only the best. Please stay in touch.

Classwork for Tuesday 5/5/2009

Do Whatcha Know!
In Spanish, the word huelga means "strike." What is the main issue of the cartoon?
What characters are represented in the cartoon?
What symbols does the cartoonist use?
What is happening in the cartoon?
What is the perspective of the cartoonist?

Intro to New Material
Read this biography of Cesar Chavez, the famous Mexican American civil rights worker and labor leader. As notes, use the biography to create a timeline of Chavez's life. It's OK to include events in his personal life, but try to stick to the issues.

Guided Practice
You don’t have to copy the questions, but answer these questions in complete sentences.
1. What are all the ways Cesar Chavez protested the unfair treatment of the migrant farm workers?
2. Why did Chavez want to help?
3. Why did the farm workers need Cesar Chavez to help them?

Independent Practice
Read the selection “Mexican Americans Form ‘La Raza Unida,’ 1968.”
When you finish, create a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting La Raza Unida and Cesar Chavez to leaders and groups in the struggle for black civil rights.

Learning Log
What characters are represented in the cartoon?
What symbols does the cartoonist use?
What is the perspective of the cartoonist?
How does this cartoon summarize the need for a movement for civil rights?
What are your views on the issue?

Update - Senior Final

Sorry I've been out. I have a horrible sinus infection and couldn't get a doctor's appointment until today. I'll be back tomorrow.

Unfortunately, that means I have no choice but to give the senior final tomorrow. It'll be a modified (read: easier) version of the test I'd planned to give, and may be open note. Please put the word out to your friends and classmates who are seniors.

Update

I'm out sick today, ladies and germs. I've got a wicked sinus infection on the right side of my face that is making my top jaw of teeth throb in pain. Plus, I'm blowing my nose every thirty seconds (it's green), so today was a no-brainer in terms of calling out sick.

I found this online today and wanted to share it with you. It's about how to tell whether or not you have swine flu.

Classwork for Thursday 4/30/2009

Today was the day of the Junior-Senior picnic, so I decided not to teach any new material. Instead, we went to the library, and people who came to class had the opportunity to earn extra credit completing a scavenger hunt. This was a one-time offer. There is no chance to make this up.

Classwork for Wednesday 4/29/2009

Do Whatcha Know!
Yesterday, we learned about civil rights leaders like SNCC and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
What kind of tactics did they use in their struggle for basic rights?
Are there any other tactics available that they aren’t using? Can you think of groups or people who might have used them?

Intro to New Material

Read pages 240-263 of The Autobiography of Malcolm X (Chapter 14: Black Muslims).
As you read, copy any sentences that particularly stand out to you.


Guided Practice

In the late 1960s, the Black Panther party advocated "black power." Read the following excerpts from their party platform  and write a single sentence summary.

WHAT WE WANT
We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our black community.
We want full employment for our people.
We want an end to the robbery by the white man of our black community.
We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.
We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society....
We want all black men to be exempt from military service.
We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people.
We want freedom for all black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails.
We want all black people when brought to trial be tried in court by a jury of their peer group or people from their black communities, as defined by the Constitution of the United States.
We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. And as our major political objective, a United Nations-supervised [vote] to be held throughout the black colony in which only black colonial subjects will be allowed to participate, for the purpose of determining the will of black people as to their national destiny.


Independent Practice
Create a Venn diagram comparing the tactics and beliefs of Dr. King and SNCC with the Black Panthers and Black Muslims.

Learning Log
It’s 1963 and you’ve made up your mind to work for civil rights. Which group would you join? Give three reasons for your choice.

Classwork for Tuesday 4/28/2009

Do Whatcha Know!
Yesterday, we learned about Emmett Till, whose death helped spur the modern civil rights movement.



If you were alive in 1955, what kind of actions would you take against Jim Crow laws, or to prevent other young men from being lynched? What do you think the consequences of your actions might be?

Intro to New Material
Read Dr. Martin Luther King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." (In class, we read only paragraphs 1, 3, 9, 10, 11 and 12, but feel free to read the whole letter; it's excellent).

Answer the following questions in complete sentences:
1. How did King respond to the charge that the protests in Birmingham were “unwise and untimely”? How would you respond? What rationale did King offer for his actions? Why did he think that the struggle against segregation could not be confined to courtrooms and polite negotiations?
2. King describes the challenges of explaining the brutality of segregation and violence to his six-year old daughter? How would you explain segregation and violence to a child? What would you want him or her to know?
3. Why did King think it was necessary to create “constructive nonviolent tension” in order to effect change? How can tension help to change people’s perspectives?
4. King wrote about the “degenerating sense of ‘nobodiness’” prevalent among blacks in America. What did he mean by the term ‘nobodiness’? How, according to the King’s letter, do indignities like name-calling rob blacks of their individuality and humanity? Can you think of other examples in which people are made to feel like “nobodies” because of the way they’re treated?

Guided and Independent Practice
Read any two of the sources found here, and answer the questions that follow.

Learning Log
1. Who were some of the main civil rights leaders, events and organizations that we learned about today? Describe at least three.
2. What goals did they have?
3. What tactics did they use to reach those goals?

Homework - due Monday 4/27/2009

Interview your parents, your grandparents, or other adults who remember the Vietnam War to find out what they thought about the United States’ involvement in this conflict. The people you interview should have been old enough to be aware of the situation in Vietnam and develop opinions about it. Pose the following questions and add one or more of your own. Type your questions and answers – you must submit your interview by email, blog comment or on flash drive by Monday at 1pm.

If you cut and paste your interview and leave it as a comment on this blog, please use your first name and last initial and not your whole name(you don't want perverts hunting you down via Internet). Same with your interviewee.

-What is your name, what do you do, and how old are you?
-Where were you living in 1969?
-What did you think about the Vietnam War in 1969? Why did you have this opinion?
-What did you think of President Nixon in 1969? Why did you have this opinion?
-What is your opinion of the Vietnam War today? Have you changed your opinion since 1969? Why or why not?

Classwork for Thursday, 4/23/2009

Do Whatcha Know!
Label this map of southeast Asia and complete both questions.



Intro to New Material
In class, we watched a video about the causes, U.S. involvement in, and eventual end of the Vietnam War. As we watched, we defined the following terms:
Viet Cong
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
Lyndon B. Johnson
Tet Offensive
Vietnamization

Learn more about the Vietnam War here.


Guided Practice


Independent Practice


Learning Log
1. Who fought against whom in the Vietnam War?
2. Why did the U.S. get involved?
3. Was the war popular with Americans? Why or why not?
4. How did the Vietnam War end?

Classwork for Wednesday 4/22/2009

Do Whatcha Know!

In 1959, a young communist rebel named Fidel Castro led a revolution in Cuba, overthrowing the government and the dictator who ran the country. He immediately made the country communist, taking over U.S. businesses for the Cuban government and allying the country with the Soviet Union.

1. Why would this make Americans nervous? Explain your answer.
2. If you were the President, how would you deal this new issue?

Intro to New Material
we watched two short videos about the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Learn about each event by clicking on its name.

Guided Practice
Answer the following questions in complete sentences; avoid using the words "it," "they" and "he."

1. What was the Bay of Pigs invasion? Was it successful?
2. Explain the events of the Cuban missile crisis. How did it end?
3. What do these events have to do with the Cold War, if they’re in Cuba?

Independent Practice
President Kennedy had a huge decision to make about how to approach nuclear weapons in Cuba, and he didn't make the decision alone. Choose one of Kennedy's advisers at this wonderful Web site. Read his opinion carefully, then answer these two questions in one paragraph or more.

1. What options does this adviser suggest?
2. Which option does the adviser think is the best? Why?

Learning Log
1. List 3 different options for dealing with the Cuban Missile Crisis.
2. Explain the 2 most important facts that you learned about the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban missile crisis.
3. Explain the 1 policy option that you think was the best option during the Cuban missile crisis and why.

What would you do, if you were JFK?

You decide what to do about the Cuban Missile Crisis. This is a neat interactive history game. Check it out!

Classwork for Tuesday, 4/21/2009

Do Whatcha Know!
Someone in this class stole my hard drive yesterday. Please write down any information you know about its whereabouts.
(This is a set-up for discussion. I accuse a student of taking it, and refuse to say who pointed the finger at them. I then accuse their closest classmate of being an accomplice.)
Discussion Questions: How did the accused person feel? How did the blind accusation make the rest of the class feel? Is this kind of justice OK? Why?

Review of Old Material
communism - a political/economic system in which the state controls the economy and a single party holds power, with the goal of creating a classless society
Red Scare - widespread fears of Communist influence on U.S. society and Communist infiltration of the U.S. government.
-This happens first during WWI, when communists and socialists are jailed for opposing the war

Intro to New Material
McCarthyism - a period of intense anti-Communism in the United States, primarily from 1948 to 1954
Joseph McCarthy, Senator from WI, 1947-57
-Claimed to have a list of Communist spies in federal gov’t
-"While I cannot take the time to name all the men in the State Department who have been named as members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring, I have here in my hand a list of 205.“ -Wheeling Speech, 2/9/1950

House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)
-Used to uncover communist spies in gov’t
-“Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?" Did find some real spies
-Alger Hiss, Julius Rosenberg
Most charges were bogus
-Ethel Rosenberg
-“Hollywood Ten” are blacklisted

Guided Practice
Answer the following questions about Joseph McCarthy's telegram to President Truman and Truman's response.
1. Summarize McCarthy’s telegram.
2. How does he speak to the President?
3. Summarize Truman’s reply.
4. How does he speak to McCarthy?
5. What inferences can you make about their relationship, based on this exchange?

Independent Practice
In class, we watched some of the film Good Night, and Good Luck.
As we watched, we took notes on how
A) the CBS newsroom
B) the American military
C) Senator Joe McCarthy
reacted to and were affected by fears of communism.

Learning Log: Homework
1. How were Americans’ freedoms affected by McCarthy’s charges?
2. Do you think that Senator McCarthy’s actions were justified? Explain.
3. Why do you think George Clooney would decide to make this film in 2005, at the height of the war in Iraq?

Classwork for Monday 4/20/2009

Do Whatcha Know!
Who won World War II? Who lost? How? When? What do you think happened next?

Intro to New Material
Today, you’ll watch a short video on the Cold War and define the following terms.
Cold War
Iron Curtain
containment
domino effect
Truman Doctrine
Marshall Plan
Berlin Airlift
NATO
McCarthy hearings

Guided Practice
1. Name the two superpowers during the Cold War.
2. When did the Cold War begin?
3. What was the goal of the Marshall Plan?
4. Why did the U.S., France and Britain airlift supplies into Berlin?
5. Why was NATO formed?
6. What did nuclear weapons have to do with the Cold War?

Independent Practice
Open your textbook to page 608. Look at the chart labeled “U.S. Aims Versus Soviet Aims in Europe.” Use the chart, and what you learned in the video to answer this question in a paragraph or more:
Why did the Cold War begin?

Learning Log
How do you think the Cold War affected regular Americans? How do you think it affected countries other than the Soviet Union and the United States?

Drama Club: Themes & Questions to Think About

Here's a site with lots of info about the characters in Our Town.

Themes
.
Theme 1: People should appreciate life while they are living it. Even ordinary, uneventful activities are important. Indeed, they might be the most important activities of all–whether they involve smelling flowers, eating breakfast, chatting with the milkman or the paperboy, or looking out the window at the moon.
Theme 2: Carpe diem (seize the day). This Latin phrase, which has become part of the English language, urges people to live for the moment, seizing opportunities to enjoy or enrich their lives. Life is short, after all; such opportunities may present themselves only once. This is an old literary motif, written about many times over the centuries. The Roman poet Horace (65-8 B.C.) coined the phrase carpe diem in Book 1 of his famous odes, when he advised people to “seize the day, put no trust in tomorrow!” English poet Robert Herrick (1591-1674) repeated the sentiment in a memorable poem:
.......Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
.......Old time is still a-flying,
.......And this same flower that smiles today
.......Tomorrow will be dying.
In Our Town, Wilder reminds the audience again and again that time is “a-flying” with references to passing trains–which, like life, move swiftly forward–and with references to the generations of Grover’s Corners residents who have come and gone. The flowers in the gardens of Mrs. Gibbs and Mrs. Webb are still another reminder: Smell and appreciate them now, for they will not last long. So is Professor Willard’s boring speech about the geological and anthropological developments in the vicinity of Grover's Corners thousands of years ago. The wheel of history and its life cycles spins rapidly. However, "seizing the day" does not necessarily mean that people need to pursue lofty enterprises or careers or to run off to see the world. George Gibbs seizes the day by choosing to marry Emily rather than going to agricultural school. Mrs. Gibbs seizes the day by accepting the simple life of Grover's Corners rather than insisting that her husband go on vacation with her to the city of her dreams, Paris.
Theme 3: Little things in life are really big things. This theme points out that seemingly insignificant happenings in everyday life are actually among the most important ones. However, people experiencing them usually do not comprehend this truth at the time, as Emily observes in the cemetery when she says to Mrs. Gibbs, “They don’t understand, do they?
Theme 4: No town can isolate itself from the rest of the world. Grover's Corners is a pleasant, easygoing community that seems to be a separate world unto itself. But it is not. Rather, it spins on the same axis as the rest of the world and is subject to the same influences affecting outsiders. Its residents read Shakespeare and The New York Times. Trains going to Boston pass through regularly. And there comes a time when Ford cars replace horses and people begin to lock their doors, just like their big-city counterparts. Joe Crowell Jr., dies in World War I. English poet John Donne wrote in 1624:
.......No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main
........ . . any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never
.......send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Grover's Corners is not an island. And when the bell tolls for Emily at the end of the play, it tolls for everyone.
Theme 5: No community is perfect, not even idyllic Grover's Corners. Grover's Corners has its town drunk, Simon Stimson, whom Mrs. Soames says is a "scandal." Believing life is not worth living, he commits suicide. Grover's Corners also apparently has a form of segregation, for there is a "ghetto," Polish town, where Polish-American Catholics live.

Things to Think About

1. In what ways is your hometown like Grover's Corners? In what ways is your town different?
2. If you were to make a movie based on Our Town, would you include elaborate sets or retain the spare sets, with few props? Explain your answer.
3. The stage manager speaks directly to the audience. How effective is this approach?
4. At the end of the play, Emily says, “Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?” Which are among the "wonderful" things about earth and life that you fail to notice?
5. The stage manager says young Joe Crowell graduated at the top of his class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Yet Crowell never got a chance to put his education to use, for he died in combat during World War I. In commenting on Crowell's death, the stage manager says, "All that education for nothin’." Was his education, in fact, for nothing? Is the stage manager's comment intended to be an antiwar statement? As best you can from details provided in the play, describe Joe Crowell.
6. The stage manager thinks it would be a good idea to place a time capsule in the new bank under construction. In the capsule, he would place a copy of The Sentinel, The New York Times, the U.S. Constitution, the Bible, Shakespeare’s works, and the text of the play he is participating in, Our Town. What is the significance of these items in terms of what they tell you about Grover's Corners?
7. What does Mrs. Soames mean when she says, "My, wasn’t life awful–and wonderful"?

Classwork for Thursday 3/26/2009 and Friday 3/27/2009

Second, fourth and fifth period completed this lesson plan on Thursday, March 26th; first period completed it on Friday, March 27th.

Do Whatcha Know!



Based on this video, how do you think World War II began? What do you think will happen next?
Why do you think this happened? What happened to Germany the last time we discussed them in class?

Intro to New Material



Take notes while you watch this film.

Guided Practice
Use your notes from the film to answer the following questions in complete sentences.
1. What did the Treaty of Versailles have to do with Hitler’s rise to power?
2. List two specific events that played a determining factor in the outbreak of World War II.
3. How did England and France respond to Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia?
4. Who are the Axis Powers? Who are the Allied Powers?
5. How did the United States help Great Britain before December 7,1941?

Independent Practice
Imagine you are President Roosevelt on December 8,1941. The U.S. has been in a state of isolation up until now, and now you must make a speech to the American citizens to rally support as you declare war on Japan.

Write this speech. What would you say to the American people? How would you convince them to support the war?

Learning Log
Describe the events leading up to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Do you believe that any of these events could have been avoided? Give at least two specific examples to justify your claim.

An American hero died today

John Hope Franklin was an African American pioneer in the history of the American South. As a historian, he is one of my heroes, and someone who I hoped to study with in the near future. I'll never get that chance. He died this morning in Charlotte, North Carolina. He was 94 years old.

Read about some of his accomplishments here. We will definitely be reading an excerpt from his autobiography before the year is through.

Classwork for Monday March 23, 2009

Do Whatcha Know!
Look again at the photographs on your desk.
What problems are these Americans facing?
What could realistically be done to solve these problems? Who should do it?

Intro to New Material
Skim through Chapter 15, Section 1 from page 504-508.
Use the following chart to organize your notes. Include FDR, CWA, FDIC, SEC, AAA, CCC, FERA, NIRA, NRA, TVA, HOLC, FHA

Abbreviation     Full Name                                Impact
CWA                     Civil Works Administration      Created 4 millions jobs building schools and roads


Guided Practice
Choose 5 of the “alphabet soup” New Deal programs created by FDR.
Draw an image of each in action, showing the purpose of each in your illustration.

Independent Practice
Think about our primary sources: The Autobiography of Malcolm X and the Depression era photos.
Which of these programs would have helped the Little family or your photo subjects? Be specific about their problems and how specific programs would have helped them.
Example: The homeless man looking for a job in the newspaper could have found work building dams for the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Learning Log
Do you think that FDR’s New Deal really helped Americans, did it go too far in spending government money, or did it not go far enough?
Explain your answer, taking care to mention who you think should have been responsible for solving the problems of individuals.

The White House is going to plant a garden!

Shovel-Ready Project: A White House Garden
By Jane Black
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 20, 2009; Page C01

For more than a decade, food activists have rallied, cajoled, even pleaded for a vegetable garden on the White House lawn. Now they're finally going to get it.



Today, first lady Michelle Obama will host a groundbreaking for a White House kitchen garden on the South Lawn. She will be joined by students from Bancroft Elementary in Northwest Washington, , whose participation in the project will continue past today, as they help with planting in the coming weeks and harvesting later this year.

The 1,100-square-foot garden will include 55 kinds of vegetables, including peppers, spinach and, yes, arugula. (The selection is a wish list put together by White House chefs.) There will also be berries, herbs and two hives for honey that will be tended by a White House carpenter who is also a beekeeper. The chefs will use the produce to feed the first family, as well as for state dinners and other official events.

The White House will use organic seedlings, as well as organic fertilizers and organic insect repellents. The garden will be near the tennis courts and be visible to passersby on the street. The whole Obama family will be involved in tending the garden, White House spokeswoman Katie McCormick Lelyveld said.

Proponents of the garden see the move as a victory for fresh, wholesome food. With the Obamas as role models, it could also be a turning point in their battle to overturn the perception of organic food, farmers markets and gardens as the preserves of the elite.

"Nothing could be more exciting," said Alice Waters, chef of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., who has been lobbying for a garden on the White House lawn since the first Clinton administration. "The symbolism of putting a seed in the ground is a promise of a real nourishment and education for the population who visits, the people who plant the crops and the people who pick from it."

The White House appears to be casting the garden as just another strategy to encourage healthful eating. President Obama famously learned the political perils of being too familiar with "elite" vegetables such as arugula. In several interviews, Michelle Obama has talked about the importance of healthful eating and the challenges of persuading her children to eat fruits and vegetables. But she tends to use words such as fresh and nutritious rather than organic and sustainable. "We want to use it as a point of education," the first lady said in an interview in the April issue of O magazine. "We want to talk about health and how delicious it is to eat fresh food, and how you can take that food and make it part of a healthy diet."

The Obamas' garden will not be the first at the White House. John Adams, the first tenant, planted a garden shortly after taking up residence in 1800. Woodrow Wilson brought in sheep to mow and fertilize the White House lawn in 1918, an effort to conserve resources for the war effort. In 1943, over the objection of the Agriculture Department, Eleanor Roosevelt planted a victory garden, inspiring millions of Americans to grow their own food during World War II.

Recent efforts have been more modest. Jimmy Carter, a Georgia farmer who extolled the virtues of gardening during his campaign, declined calls in 1978 to plant a vegetable garden at the White House. During the Clinton years, a small garden was planted on the roof; the White House rejected the idea of a larger garden on the lawn, saying it was not in keeping with the formal nature of the White House grounds.

Campaigners for the White House garden were pleased but not surprised by the move. Daniel Bowman Simon, who last year drove a school bus with a sustainable garden on its roof across the country to raise awareness for the idea, said in December he had given a presentation to Rethinking Soup, a project that brought together farmers and activists to discuss food issues. Rethinking Soup was organized in part by Sam Kass, who had worked as a private chef for the Obamas and joined the White House kitchen in January. Chez Panisse's Waters said the first lady had been receptive to the idea when the two met last summer. "She said: 'I don't know why we couldn't have one,' " Waters reported. "It seemed like the most natural thing in the world."

Simon and his partner, Casey Gustawarow, called for schoolchildren and disabled Americans to work in the White House garden. They also requested that the gardeners plant heirloom seeds and use compost made from food waste from the kitchens that serve the White House, congressional buildings and Supreme Court.

"This garden is a tremendous idea, one that is both timely and in some ways overdue," said former White House executive chef Walter Scheib. "There has always been a small garden at the White House, but this commitment by Mrs. Obama to local and freshly grown product is a progressive move forward that will raise the profile and awareness of local and sustainable food both at the White House and nationally to an unprecedented level. Chef [Cristeta] Comerford and all of the chef's brigade must be thrilled to have this resource at their disposal. I know I would have been."

Classwork for Thursday March 19 & Friday March 20, 2009

Do Whatcha Know!
What people and objects do you see in this photo? When and where do you think it was taken? What is happening here?



Intro to New Material
Today, your table will look at photographs taken during the Great Depression to learn about how tough life could be. As you look at the images at your desk, jot down answers to these questions in complete sentences.

1. Title of Photograph
2. Name of Photographer
3. What is happening in this picture?
4A. If there are people in your photo:
     a. How are these people dressed?
     b. What can you infer from the expression on their faces and their posture?
4B. If there are no people in your photo:
     a. Describe the condition of any man-made objects in the photo.
     b. What seems to have led to these circumstances?
5. What problems or frustrations are suggested by this image?
6. What adaptations can you assume or infer people are making to these conditions?
7. What help seems to be needed here?

Independent Practice
Choose one person from the photographs your group examined. Pretend to be that person, and write a letter to you now, describing your life, and how you got to the place where you were in the photo.

Learning Log
What could be done to help the people and situations in these photographs? Who should be responsible for helping them? Why?

Classwork for Wednesday March 18, 2009

Do Whatcha Know!
Who is Malcolm X? What does he have to do with the Great Depression?

Intro to New Material
As a class, we’ll read the first 13 pages of Chapter 1 of The Autobiography of Malcolm X. As we read, jot down notes about his description of his Depression-era childhood.

Guided Practice
1. What historical ideas or figures in the reading do you recognize from previous classes?
2. How does Malcolm X talk about those ideas or figures?
3. Which of the four major causes of the Great Depression do you see present in the reading?
4. How does the Little family survive after Earl’s death?

Independent Practice
How accurate do you think Malcolm X’s depiction of his childhood is?
Do you think that the life of the Little family was a typical life during the Depression? Why?

Learning Log
What was life like during the Great Depression? What structures were in place to help people in financial trouble?

Classwork for Tuesday March 17, 2009

Causes of the Great Depression

Do Whatcha Know!
What kind of event do you think the top cartoon describes? What clues can you find to help you?
What do the two men in the bottom cartoon represent? What do you think happened to make them so different?

Intro to New Material
Read Chapter 14, Section 1: “The Nation’s Sick Economy” from page 482 to 489 to learn about how and why the nation’s economy hit rock bottom in 1929.
Use these questions to help you take notes:
•What were some economic problems that Americans faced before the stock market crash?
•Why was Herbert Hoover elected President in 1928?
•What was Black Tuesday?
•What were some causes of the Great Depression?
•How did the stock market crash affect the nation? The world?

1. Economic problems before Depression
     a. Decrease in demand, prices drop
     b. Crop surpluses
     c. Railroads go out of business
     d. CREDIT! People living beyond means
2. Hoover elected President in 1928
     a. Americans happy with Republicans, and he is one
     b. Ran against Al Smith, a Catholic
3. Black Tuesday
     a. October 29, 1929: stock market crashes
4. Causes of Great Depression
     a. Easy credit is too available
     b. Crop surplus
     c. Industries have old equipment, can’t compete
     d. Uneven distribution of wealth
5. Impact of stock market crash
     a. Banks go bankrupt
     b. People lose jobs
     c. Businesses close
     d. Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act: taxes imports from other countries
       i. The rest of the world enters a depression, too

Guided Practice
Use this graphic organizer to show the causes and effects of the stock market crash of 1929.

Independent Practice
Pretend that today is October 29, 1929. Write a journal entry for that day, pretending to be one of the following people:
-an investor who has lost his life savings in the stock market collapse
-a wealthy investor who has lost a substantial amount in the collapse
-a stock broker
-a banker
-a news reporter witnessing business at the New York Stock Exchange

Learning Log
Why did the Great Depression happen? How do you think it will effect everyday people like you and me?

Classwork for Monday 3/16/2009

Today in class, we'll finish up Thursday and Friday's lesson plan on VIPs from the 1920s, and take our second benchmark exam.

I will treat students who score "Basic" and above with free pizza the Friday after test results come back. Why? Because I know that you know the information on the test, and I have no shame: I will bribe you with pizza to make sure you carefully read the directions, questions, and answer choices (you lovable little teenaged slacker people).

Barack Obama a socialist? What's that even mean?

Once again, here's another article outlining some of the problems I have with Barack Obama. But remember the political spectrum. I'm to the left of Obama. I'll include a diagram to help explain it again, though (just in case you've forgotten your Civics).



Obama's somewhere between moderate and liberal (I'd say closer to moderate). I'm somewhere between liberal and radical. Do the short definitions beneath the drawing make sense? Let me know if I can explain it better. Here's the article below...



Obama's No Socialist. I Should Know.
By Billy Wharton
Sunday, March 15, 2009; Page B01

It took a massive global financial crisis, a failed military adventure and a popular repudiation of the Republican Party to make my national television debut possible. After 15 years of socialist political organizing -- everything from licking envelopes and handing out leaflets to the more romantic task of speaking at street demonstrations -- I found myself in the midtown Manhattan studio of the Fox Business Network on a cold February evening. Who ever thought that being the editor of the Socialist magazine, circulation 3,000, would launch me on a cable news career?

The media whirlwind began in October with a call from a New York Times writer. He wanted a tour of the Socialist Party USA's national office. Although he was more interested in how much paper we used in our "socialist cubby hole" than in our politics, our media profile exploded. Next up, a pleasant interview by Swedish National Radio. Then Brian Moore, our 2008 presidential candidate, sparred with Stephen Colbert. Even the Wall Street Journal wanted a socialist to quote after the first bailout bill failed last fall. Traffic to our Web site multiplied, e-mail inquiries increased and meetings with potential recruits to the Socialist Party yielded more new members than ever before. Socialism -- an idea with a long history -- suddenly seemed to have a bright future in 21st-century America.

Whom did we have to thank for this moment in the spotlight? Oddly enough, Republican politicians such as Mike Huckabee and John McCain had become our most effective promoters. During his campaign, the ever-desperate McCain, his hard-charging running mate Sarah Palin and even a plumber named Joe lined up to call Barack Obama a "socialist." Last month, Huckabee even exclaimed that, "The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics may be dead, but the Union of American Socialist Republics is being born."

We appreciated the newfound attention. But we also cringed as the debate took on the hysterical tone of a farcical McCarthyism. The question "Is Obama a socialist?" spread rapidly through a network of rightwing blogs, conservative television outlets and alarmist radio talk shows and quickly moved into the mainstream. "We Are All Socialists Now," declared a Newsweek cover last month. A New York Times reporter recently pinned Obama down with the question, "Are you a socialist, as some people have suggested?" The normally unflappable politician stumbled through a response so unconvincing that it required a follow-up call in which Obama claimed impeccable free market credentials.

All this speculation over whether our current president is a socialist led me into the sea of business suits, BlackBerrys and self-promoters in the studio at Fox Business News. I quickly realized that the antagonistic anchor David Asman had little interest in exploring socialist ideas on bank nationalization. For Asman, nationalization was merely a code word for socialism. Using logic borrowed from the 1964 thriller "The Manchurian Candidate," he portrayed Obama as a secret socialist, so far undercover that not even he understood that his policies were de facto socialist. I was merely a cudgel to be wielded against the president -- a physical embodiment of guilt by association.

The funny thing is, of course, that socialists know that Barack Obama is not one of us. Not only is he not a socialist, he may in fact not even be a liberal. Socialists understand him more as a hedge-fund Democrat -- one of a generation of neoliberal politicians firmly committed to free-market policies.

The first clear indication that Obama is not, in fact, a socialist, is the way his administration is avoiding structural changes to the financial system. Nationalization is simply not in the playbook of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and his team. They favor costly, temporary measures that can easily be dismantled should the economy stabilize. Socialists support nationalization and see it as a means of creating a banking system that acts like a highly regulated public utility. The banks would then cease to be sinkholes for public funds or financial versions of casinos and would become essential to reenergizing productive sectors of the economy.

The same holds true for health care. A national health insurance system as embodied in the single-payer health plan reintroduced in legislation this year by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), makes perfect sense to us. That bill would provide comprehensive coverage, offer a full range of choice of doctors and services and eliminate the primary cause of personal bankruptcy -- health-care bills. Obama's plan would do the opposite. By mandating that every person be insured, ObamaCare would give private health insurance companies license to systematically underinsure policyholders while cashing in on the moral currency of universal coverage. If Obama is a socialist, then on health care, he's doing a fairly good job of concealing it.

Issues of war and peace further weaken the commander in chief's socialist credentials. Obama announced that all U.S. combat brigades will be removed from Iraq by August 2010, but he still intends to leave as many as 50,000 troops in Iraq and wishes to expand the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. A socialist foreign policy would call for the immediate removal of all troops. It would seek to follow the proposal made recently by an Afghan parliamentarian, which called for the United States to send 30,000 scholars or engineers instead of more fighting forces.

Yet the president remains "the world's best salesman of socialism," according to Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina. DeMint encouraged supporters "to take to the streets to stop America's slide into socialism." Despite the fact that billions of dollars of public wealth are being transferred to private corporations, Huckabee still felt confident in proposing that "Lenin and Stalin would love" Obama's bank bailout plan.

Huckabee is clearly no socialist scholar, and I doubt that any of Obama's policies will someday appear in the annals of socialist history. The president has, however, been assigned the unenviable task of salvaging a capitalist system intent on devouring itself. The question is whether he can do so without addressing the deep inequalities that have become fundamental features of American society. So, President Obama, what I want to know is this: Can you lend legitimacy to a society in which 5 percent of the population controls 85 percent of the wealth? Can you sell a health-care reform package that will only end up enriching a private health insurance industry? Will you continue to favor military spending over infrastructure development and social services?

My guess is that the president will avoid these questions, further confirming that he is not a socialist except, perhaps, in the imaginations of an odd assortment of conservatives. Yet as the unemployment lines grow longer, the food pantries emptier and health care scarcer, socialism may be poised for a comeback in America. The doors of our "socialist cubby-hole" are open to anyone, including Obama. I encourage him to stop by for one of our monthly membership meetings. Be sure to arrive early to get a seat -- we're more popular than ever lately.

Colleges for Students with LD

Although most colleges have programs to help students with learning disabilities, here are a number of colleges that go above and beyond in providing extra support for students who need it. You can find a list here.

Additionally, there are some colleges specifically for students with learning disabilities. Check out Landmark College, one of these colleges. Here, they also offer a summer program for high school students, to help build skills and teach students HOW to learn (it's $4500 for 3 weeks, but they have scholarships!).

Classwork for Thursday 3/12/2009 and Friday 3/13/2009

Do Whatcha Know!
What are the characteristics of people who make a difference? Together, let’s try to come up with one for every letter of the alphabet.

Intro to New Material
Break up into pairs who will work together to learn about two people with differing points of view on important topics of the period.
Pairs are

-Emily Post/Margaret Sanger (feminism)
-W.E.B. DuBois/Marcus Garvey (black leadership)
-T.S. Eliot/Langston Hughes (literature)
-Henry Ford/Eugene V. Debs (business)
-William Jennings Bryan/Clarence Darrow (religion and science)
-J. Edgar Hoover/Sacco and Vanzetti (politics)
-Charles Lindbergh/Al Capone (“heroes”)

Use your textbook, the Internet, and other information to research your person, making sure to investigate important issues, personal background and ideals, and point of view. You’ll complete the following graphic organizer that answers the following questions about your person:

Personal Background (give info source)
Issues/Ideas (give info source)
Point of View (give info source)
Significance
How successful was this person in getting across her/his ideas and point of view?
What characteristics of people who make a difference does this person exhibit?

Guided Practice
After completing the research, you and your partner will work together (using the information in your chart) to
1. Create a Venn diagram comparing your people
2. Write short monologues that you’ll use in our Independent Practice.

Each of you will become one of the people studied, and the monologue you write expresses the point of view of that person and shares important information about issues during the 1920s.

Independent Practice
Time for Happy Hour! But, it’s a 1920s business happy hour, so leave the ‘Tron at home.

After the research portion of the lesson is complete, you’ll participate in a “VIP room mixer” where you become the person you researched. Instead of performing for the class, you’ll mingle with classmates as if attending a party. You’ll introduce “yourselves” to others in attendance, share important information, and discuss issues of the while staying “in character.”

As you mingle, use the Notes Matrix to take notes.

Learning Log
1. Who were the two most interesting people you learned about today?
2. What kind of impact did they have?
3. What characteristics of people who make a difference did they exhibit?

Unit 5 Test on Wednesday 3/11/2009

I distributed this graphic organizer to some students as a review aid for tomorrow's WWI test. I'd filled in some causes and some effects; I'd post them here, but I left the master copy at school. Sorry.

P.S. You have a test on World War I tomorrow.The only way you don't know this is if you haven't been to school in a week or you wear earplugs to class. But consider this your disclaimer.

Classwork for Tuesday 3/10/2009

Do Whatcha Know!
In November 1918, Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire surrendered to the Allies. The Great War had lasted four years, and involved more than 30 nations. Twenty six millions people were killed; 10 million were homeless. $350 billion of damage had been done.
1. Who do you think should pay for the damage?
When Woodrow Wilson met with “the Big Four” – the leaders of France, Britain and Italy, plus Wilson – called for “a peace without victors,” that treated the losers fairly.
2. Think about why each nation got involved in the war and how it affected them. How do you think the rest of the Big Four felt about that? Why?

Intro to New Material
Students will work together and use pages 417-421 of their textbooks to complete a graphic organizer showing the following:

Wilson’s 14 Points
Provisions:
Weaknesses:
Opposition – who? why?

League of Nations
Provisions:
Weaknesses:
Opposition – who? why?

Treaty of Versailles
Provisions:
Weaknesses:
Opposition – who? why?

Guided Practice
Use the double-bubble graphic organizer to compare and contrast characteristics of the Treaty of Versailles and the Fourteen Points. Similarities go in the two boxes in the center; differences go in the three boxes on the right and left.



Independent Practice
If you were a member of Congress in 1919, which plan for peace would you most likely vote for?
A. Give two good reasons for why you’d vote for that one.
B. Give two good reasons for why you’d vote against the other.

Learning Log
What was the effect of the Treaty of Versailles’ war-guilt clause on Germany?
How do you think this will affect Germany’s future?

Classwork for Monday 3/9/2009

Do Whatcha Know!
From its start in 1914, most Americans opposed U.S. involvement in World War I; even though they thought Germany was a bully, it just wasn’t their problem. But in 1916, Germany announced that it would begin to sink any ships entering the water around Britain, its enemy. Four American ships (and others carrying Americans, like the Lusitania) were sunk. Germany also sent a telegram to Mexico, called the Zimmerman note. This note asked for a German-Mexican alliance, and promised that if the U.S. entered the war, Germany would help Mexico get back Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

1. What do you think the United States will do?
2. What do you think should happen next?

Intro to New Material
• Together, students who support the war will read the sections “American Military Mobilization” and “American Success in Combat” from page 402 to page 406. They will answer the following questions in their own words as they read:
1. How did the U.S. raise an army for WWI?
2. What four steps did the U.S. government take to quickly build a navy?
3. How did the U.S. help the Allies win?

• Together, students who oppose the war will read the sections “Selling the War” and “Attacks on Civil Liberties” from page 411 to page 414. They will answer the following questions in their own words as they read:
1. How did the U.S. government finance the war?
2. What methods did the Committee of Public Information use to make the war more popular?
3. What was the original purpose of the Espionage and Sedition Act?

Guided Practice
• Students who support the war will summarize problems Americans faced as they prepared for and participated in WWI.

• Students who oppose the war will summarize the ways the U.S. got Americans to support the war.

Independent Practice
Students will return to their assigned seats, and teach their classmates what they learned in small groups. Students will take notes on what their classmates teach them, which will serve as evidence of the exchange of ideas.

Learning Log
Draw a cartoon showing
1. Why the U.S. got involved in World War I
2. How the U.S. fared in World War I
3. How the U.S. dealt with anti-war protesters

My favorite poem

The last article that I published made me wonder, "Have they even heard of Allen Ginsberg?"

I know that the answer is probably "no." I had never heard of Allen Ginsberg either, until the day he died. I was a freshman in high school, and all over the news, commentators were talking about the effects of a man I'd never heard of on American life. He must not have been that important. I mean, I've never heard of him, I thought (This is a phrase that continues to cause me regret - and make me look stupid - even today). Then, one radio station played a recording of him reading his most famous poem, something called Howl.

It hit me in the gut. The first line - "I saw the greatest minds of my generation destroyed by madness" - struck a chord deep down inside of me, in a place that I hadn't yet known existed. I went home to our brand new computer (this was in 1996, you know? we didn't even have Google) to look him up. All of a sudden, this brand new world was opened up to me. Ginsberg came from a time and place that I understood, where people cared about the world around them, and they wrote about it. All of sudden, the alienation - the different-ness - I'd felt for my young life had a voice.

Here's the poem that did that for me.

Where did all the readers go?

On Campus, Vampires Are Besting the Beats
By Ron Charles
Sunday, March 8, 2009; Page B01

In 1969, when Alice Echols went to college, everybody she knew was reading "Soul on Ice," Eldridge Cleaver's new collection of essays. For Echols, who now teaches a course on the '60s at the University of Southern California, that psychedelic time was filled with "The Autobiography of Malcolm X," "The Golden Notebook," the poetry of Sylvia Plath and the erotic diaries of Anaïs Nin.

Forty years later, on today's college campuses, you're more likely to hear a werewolf howl than Allen Ginsberg, and Nin's transgressive sexuality has been replaced by the fervent chastity of Bella Swan, the teenage heroine of Stephenie Meyer's modern gothic "Twilight" series. It's as though somebody stole Abbie Hoffman's book -- and a whole generation of radical lit along with it.

Last year Meyer sold more books than any other author -- 22 million -- and those copies weren't all bought by middle-schoolers. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the best-selling titles on college campuses are mostly about hunky vampires or Barack Obama. Recently, Meyer and the president held six of the 10 top spots. In January, the most subversive book on the college bestseller list was "Our Dumb World," a collection of gags from the Onion. The top title that month was "The Tales of Beedle the Bard" by J.K. Rowling. College kids' favorite nonfiction book was Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers," about what makes successful individuals. And the only title that stakes a claim as a real novel for adults was Khaled Hosseini's "A Thousand Splendid Suns," the choice of a million splendid book clubs.

Here we have a generation of young adults away from home for the first time, free to enjoy the most experimental period of their lives, yet they're choosing books like 13-year-old girls -- or their parents. The only specter haunting the groves of American academe seems to be suburban contentment.

Where are the Germaine Greers, the Jerry Rubins, the Hunter Thompsons, the Richard Brautigans -- those challenging, annoying, offensive, sometimes silly, always polemic authors whom young people used to adore to their parents' dismay? Hoffman's manual of disruption and discontent -- "Steal This Book" -- sold more than a quarter of a million copies when it appeared in 1971 and then jumped onto the paperback bestseller list. Even in the conservative 1950s, when Hemingway's plane went down in Uganda, students wore black armbands till news came that the bad-boy novelist had survived. Could any author of fiction that has not inspired a set of Happy Meal toys elicit such collegiate mourning today? Could a radical book that speaks to young people ever rise up again if -- to rip-off LSD aficionado Timothy Leary -- they've turned on the computer, tuned in the iPod and dropped out of serious literature?

Nicholas DiSabatino, a senior English major at Kent State, is co-editor of the university's literary magazine, Luna Negra. As a campus tour guide, he used to point out where the National Guard shot students during the May 1970 riot. But the only activism he can recall lately involved anti-abortion protesters and some old men passing out Gideon Bibles. "People think we're really liberal," he says, "but we're really very moderate." Submissions to the lit mag so far this year are mostly poetry and some memoirs about parents. "The one book that I know everyone has read," he says, "is 'I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell.' " So, no uprising unless the bars close early.

Perhaps this shouldn't surprise us. A new survey of the attitudes of American college students published by the University of California at Los Angeles found that two-thirds of freshmen identify themselves as "middle of the road" or "conservative." Such people aren't likely to stay up late at night arguing about Mary Daly's "Gyn/Ecology" or even Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."

Professor Eric Williamson -- a card-carrying liberal in full tweed glory -- argues that "the entire culture has become narcotized." An English teacher at the University of Texas-Pan American, he places the blame for students' dim reading squarely on the unfettered expansion of capitalism. "I have stood before classes," he tells me, "and seen the students snicker when I said that Melville died poor because he couldn't sell books. 'Then why are we reading him if he wasn't popular?' " Today's graduate students were born when Ronald Reagan was elected, and their literary values, he claims, reflect our market economy. "There is nary a student in the classroom -- and this goes for English majors, too -- who wouldn't pronounce Stephen King a better author than Donald Barthelme or William Vollmann. The students do not have any shame about reading inferior texts."

Roger Kimball, editor and publisher of the New Criterion, marches in the other direction -- he has no complaints about the market economy -- but he arrives at the same dismal appraisal of the academic culture. Universities and colleges "enforce an intellectually stultifying, politically correct atmosphere that pretends to diversity," he complains. "One of the results of this is a notable uptick in superficiality and a notable uptick in the anesthetizing of that native curiosity that was once a prominent feature of the adolescent mind."

I want to start humming that classic middle-age rant from "Bye Bye Birdie": "Why can't they be like we were,/Perfect in every way?/What's the matter with kids today?"

But maybe young people's reading choices reflect our desire to keep them young. David Farber, editor of "The Sixties: From Memory to History," says that the way Americans think about the age of maturity has shifted considerably. "There's much more an emphasis now on kids thinking of themselves as kids, even into their early to mid-20s," he says. "But in the '60s, they thought of themselves as agents of historical change. The sit-ins, the civil rights movement, the possibility of being drafted focused the mind. The contagion of protest made everyone think of themselves as possible demonstrators."

That spirit is still alive and well, even if it's not reflected in kids' favorite book titles, according to Mike Connery, who writes about progressive youth politics for the Web site Future Majority. He doesn't see a generation of vampire-loving boneheads. "Young people today express their politics in very different ways than they did in the '60s, '70s and '80s," he says. Yes, they love Meyer's "Twilight" series -- even his fiancee is "obsessed" with it -- but that's just for escape. "People don't necessarily read their politics nowadays. They get it through YouTube and blogs and social networks. I don't know that there is a fiction writer out there right now who speaks to this generation's political ambitions. We're still waiting for our Kerouac."

But is anyone really waiting? As young people shift toward the Internet and away from exploring their political activism in books, the blood drains from their shelves. For the Twitter generation, the new slogan seems to be "Don't trust anyone over 140 characters." What you see at the next revolution is far more likely to be a well-designed Web site than a radical novel or a poem. Not to be a drag, but that's so uncool. For those of us who care about literature and think it still has a lot to offer, it's time to start chanting, "Hell, no! We won't go!"

Classwork for Friday 3/6/2009

Battles of World War I

Do Whatcha Know!


What do you think caused devastation like this? What kind of impact do you think it had on the people walking in the photo?

Intro to New Material
By 1916, the war is deadlocked
-Fighting takes place along borders of Germany
--Eastern Front: German-Russian border
--Western Front: German-Belgian and German-French borders
Three of the bloodiest battles in history are on Western Front
-Battle of Verdun (France)
--Germany vs. France, Feb-Dec 1916
-Battle of the Somme (France)
--England & France vs. Germany, July-Nov 1916
-3rd Battle of Ypres (Belgium)
--England & France & colonies vs. Germany, June-Sep 1917

Create a chart with 4 columns and 9 rows. In the first column will go prompts for details about each battle:
* where the battle occurred,
* who was involved,
* when it occurred,
* what led to its occurrence,
* battle conditions, such as the weather.
* how many casualties,
* types of weapons used,
* the end result of the war (who "won" the battle and its effect on everything around it, including civilians).

In the second, third, and fourth columns, you will fill in this information about the Battle of Verdun, the Battle of the Somme, and the Third Battle of Ypres.

Guided Practice
Use your notes to fill in the first three rows of your chart: where the battle occurred, who was involved, and when it occurred.

Independent Practice
Conduct Internet research to complete the rest of the chart. Use the PBS Great War site to help you begin.

Learning Log
By 1917, who was winning the Great War? What was the cost of this victory? What do you think will happen next?

Barack Obama and Israel

If you're my student, you probably already know that I didn't vote for Barack Obama, and you probably have some idea of why (half-hearted support of No Child Left Behind and marriage equality, voted to renew the Patriot Act, etc.).

In case you didn't, here's an article all about his unconditional (and I would say shameful) support of Israel.

The Ultimate Extra Credit Project

If you can...

A. learn all 44 presidents in order
B. learn at least one thing each of them did as president
C. stand up and perform in each of my classes

...I will give you a hard-earned A in U.S. History.

You have until the last day of the semester to show your knowledge.

Classwork for Wednesday 2/18/2009

African-Americans and Progressivism

Do Whatcha Know!
You are an African American born into slavery in 1845. When you are in your twenties, the U.S. Congress ratifies the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. Still, you know that even though the laws have changed, the hearts and minds of certain European Americans in your community have not changed.

During your monthly visit to the nearest town, you pick up two pamphlets. You have difficulty reading them because you were not allowed to learn to read before the Thirteenth Amendment.
So, you visit the minister of your community’s church and he reads the pamphlets to you. The minister asks for your views on the information in the pamphlets. What do you tell him?

Intro to New Material
You’ll read the pamphlets by DuBois and Washington to find out their opinions.

Guided Practice
In pairs, one of you will adopt the persona of Booker T. Washington and the other will adopt the persona of W.E.B DuBois, both responding to the phrase, “We, the people”. Together, we’ll go through the Talking Heads Activity Sheet.

Independent Practice
Based on your completed Talking Heads Activity Sheet, you will role-play Booker T. Washington and W.E.B DuBois and interview each other.
Next, we’ll discuss pro and con views of each man’s position as a class.

Learning Log
Re-think the dilemma posed earlier and write your response to the “minister.” Your response must:
• Summarize each man’s position.
• Defend one of the positions with supporting examples from the pamphlets.

Countdown to the Last Day of School

Alice Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt's oldest daughter was a trip.

What do you think?

Do you think that these suggestions would actually help make schools better?

Leave your thoughts and opinions as a comment below.

Boosting Schools' Value Without Spending a Dime
By Jay Mathews
Monday, February 16, 2009; Page B02

As happens in every recession, Washington area school systems are cutting back. It's depressing. Here's an antidote: Harness the creativity of educators, parents and students to improve our schools without more spending. Some teachers I trust helped me come up with these seven ideas.

1. Replace elementary school homework with free reading. Throw away the expensive take-home textbooks, the boring worksheets and the fiendish make-a-log-cabin-out-of-Tootsie-Rolls projects. One of the clearest (and most ignored) findings of educational research is that elementary students who do lots of homework don't learn more than students who do none. Eliminating traditional homework for this age group will save paper, reduce textbook losses and sweeten home life. Students should be asked instead to read something, maybe with their parents -- at least 10 minutes a night for first-graders, 20 minutes for second-graders and so on. Teachers can ask a few kids each day what they learned from their reading to discourage shirkers.

2. Unleash charter schools. I know, I know. Many good people find this suggestion as welcome as a call from a collection agency. They think charter schools, public schools that make their own rules, are draining money from school systems, but the opposite seems to be true. In most states, charters receive fewer tax dollars per child than regular public schools. Yet they often attract creative principals and teachers who do more with less. School finance experts don't all agree, but I am convinced that charters are a bargain. So let's have more. That won't save money in the District, one of the few places that pay as much for charters as regular schools, but Maryland and Virginia would find more charters a boon if they dropped their suburban, aren't-we-great notions and listened to what imaginative educators in a few little charter schools could teach them.

3. Have teachers call or e-mail parents -- once a day would be fine -- with praise for their children. Some great classroom teachers make a habit of contacting parents when kids do something well. Jason Kamras, 2005 national teacher of the year and now a leading D.C. schools executive, used to punch up the parent's number on his cellphone while standing next to a student's desk. It doesn't take long. It doesn't cost much. But it nurtures bonds among teachers, students and parents that can lead to wonderful things.

4. Have parents call or e-mail teachers with praise. Successful teachers are often taken for granted. Struggling teachers need moral support. Both kinds would be fortified by a friendly message. They would also learn something from what parents say is working for their children.

5. Have every high school student read at least one nonfiction book before graduation. I am not talking about textbooks. Will Fitzhugh, publisher of the Concord Review, a journal of high school research papers, has been campaigning for nonfiction school reading. I was surprised, when I looked into it, how overloaded high school reading lists are with fiction. Nonfiction, with all those facts, is often more challenging for this age group. Good. If every English teacher substituted one nonfiction book for one novel on the required list, schools would improve without any extra expense.

6. Encourage teachers to call on every student in every class. Teachers who have exceptional results talk to me a lot about this. A lesson has to be a conversation, they say. Every student has to be involved. I have been in many classrooms where the teacher does most, sometimes all, of the talking. I imagine many teachers follow this rule, but it seems to me worth urging all of them to try it. It is, again, a change of attitude and method that costs nothing.

7. Furlough everybody -- including teachers, students and parents -- for an unpaid national reading holiday. This will never happen. But small experiments might work for some schools or communities. My wife will be taking an unpaid week's furlough soon with all the other employees of her company to cut costs. She will likely spend some of that time reading to our 2-month-old grandson, hoping the words soak in. If everyone set aside a day for books (or maybe, dare I hope, newspapers), we might regain a sense of what a quiet day of reading can do for the soul. Forgoing one day's pay would unite the country in something we haven't seen in some time: mutual sacrifice. (Those in thriving industries could donate the money to a good cause.) We could hold the national reading day in April, school test prep season, so kids wouldn't miss much. Free reading has always been my favorite frugal school fix. Even a few more minutes a day can't hurt.

Classwork for Tuesday 2/17/2009

Do Whatcha Know!
What do you know about Theodore Roosevelt? Do you think he's a progressive? Why or why not?

We spent the rest of the class watching the film, "The Indomitable Teddy Roosevelt," answering these questions during viewing.

1. Describe TR’s childhood.
2. How does Roosevelt get involved in politics?
3. How did his first wife Alice die? How does TR respond?
4. Who is Edith?
5. Why does TR quit as Assistant Secretary of the Navy?
6. Who are the Rough Riders? What is the name of their famous battle?
7. Why does Thomas Platt pressure Roosevelt into running for Vice President?
8. How does TR initially feel about being Vice President?
9. How did Roosevelt become President?
10. How does TR feel about:
a. Racial discrimination?
b. Child labor?
c. Trusts?
d. Environmental conservation?
11. Why did a reporter say, “A nervous person has no business being around the White House these days?”
12. Why was the teddy bear named after Theodore Roosevelt?
13. Why does Roosevelt win the Nobel Peace Prize?
14. Why does Roosevelt send the U.S. Navy on a worldwide training mission?
15. Who does TR choose to follow him as President? Why?

Classwork for Monday 2/16/2009

Do Whatcha Know!
Read “One American’s Story” at the top of page 330. Pretend you live in 1912. What’s your reaction to Camella Teoli’s story? What do you think should be done to improve working conditions?

Intro to New Material
Progressive movement - an early 20th century reform movement seeking to return control of the government to the people, restore economic opportunities,and correct injustices in America life
Four goals of progressives
1. Protect social welfare
2. Promote moral reform
-Prohibition - the banning on the manufacture, sale and possession of alcohol
3. Creating economic reform
4. Fostering efficiency

muckrakers - magazine journalists who exposed the corrupt side of business and politics in the early 1900s

Progressive victories
16th Amendment - allows national income tax
17th Amendment - lets people directly elect their U.S. senators, instead of representatives doing it
18th Amendment - bans the sale and use of alcoholic beverages

Guided Practice
Fill in the two graphic organizers with the correct answers.

Amendment           Purpose
16th
17th
18th

Goal                      Example
social welfare
Moral reform
Economic reform
Efficiency

Independent Practice
Read “The Muckrakers” on pages 348-9. Complete SOAPS on two of the primary sources.

Learning Log
What were the goals of the progressives? How did they achieve some of their goals?

Whatever happened to Hotel Rwanda?

Rwanda's Move Into Congo Fuels Suspicion:
Some in Mineral-Rich Region See Broader Motives Than Disarming Hutu Militiamen

Classwork for Friday 2/13/2009

Periods 1, 4 and 5 completed this classwork; period 2 took the benchmark exam.


DO WHATCHA KNOW!
What American presidents have we discussed so far? Describe them. Can you guess which president will come next? Do you think he’ll support American imperialism?

INTRO TO NEW MATERIAL
Together, we will read two sections of text – “China and the Open Door Policy” on pages 378-380 and “Teddy Roosevelt and the World” on pages 382-385.
Define and illustrate the following words: sphere of influence, Open Door policy, Boxer Rebellion, Roosevelt Corollary, dollar diplomacy

GUIDED PRACTICE
1. What sparked the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, and how was it crushed?
2. What three key beliefs about America’s industrialist capitalist economy were reflected in the Open Door Policy?
3. What conflict triggered the war between Russia and Japan?
4. Explain how President Theodore Roosevelt intervened in the Russo-Japanese War, Panama and Nicaragua.

INDEPENDENT PRACTICE
Look at the Geography Spotlight on pages 388-389. Use the map to answer the “Interact with History” questions at the bottom of page 389.

LEARNING LOG
How did the U.S. get involved in Asia and Latin America? Why?

Benchmark Exams

Periods 1, 4 and 5 took the U.S. History benchmark exam in class on Thursday.
Period 2 took the U.S. History benchmark exam on Friday.

Benchmark exams are a way for the school district to make sure that I'm teaching you what you're supposed to know - and that you're getting it. I'm going to use the results to change the way I teach, and re-teach information you didn't get the first time.

Hooray benchmarks!

Classwork for Wednesday 2/11/2009

DO WHATCHA KNOW!
In 1898, President William McKinley finally succeeded in annexing Hawaii, even though native Hawaiians protested. Do you think that McKinley was content with just Hawaii, or did the government set out to take over more lands? If you were McKinley, what nations would you take over, and why?

INTRO TO NEW MATERIAL
Students will read an excerpt about the Spanish-American War from Howard Zinn’s A Young People’s History.

GUIDED PRACTICE
1. Locate the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico and Cuba on a world map (the maps on textbook pages 372 and 373 can help).
2. In your own words, define yellow journalism, U.S.S. Maine, Foraker Act, and Platt Amendment.
3. Write newspaper headlines explaining the significance of each of the following dates related to the Spanish-American War.

February 15, 1898
April 20, 1898
August 12, 1898
December 10, 1898
February 4, 1899

3. Why did many Americans oppose the Spanish-American War?

INDEPENDENT PRACTICE
Look at the political cartoons on page 371 and 377 of your workbook.
1. What symbols do you see representing the U.S.?
2. What symbols represent Spanish colonies?
3. How do the cartoonists feel about the United States’ decision to annex former Spanish colonies?
4. Do you agree or disagree?

LEARNING LOG
Why did the U.S. go to war with Spain? At the end of the Spanish-American War, what nations did the U.S. take over? Why?

“The American Empire,” from Howard Zinn’s A Young People’s History of the United States

The Spanish-American War

The American people might be more willing to enter into an overseas conflict if it looked like a good deed, such as helping a nation’s people overthrown foreign rule. Cuba, an island close to Florida, was in that situation. For centuries, Spain had held Cuba as a colony. Then, in 1895, the Cubans rebelled against Spanish rule.

Some Americans thought that the United States should help the Cubans because they were fighting for freedom, like to colonists in the Revolutionary War. The U.S. government was more interested in who would control Cuba if the Spanish were thrown out.
Race was part of the picture, because Cuba had both black and white people. The administration of President Grover Cleveland feared that a victory by the Cuban rebels might lead to “a white and a black republic.” A young British empire builder named Winston Churchill had the same thought. In 1896 he wrote a magazine article saying the even though Spanish rule in Cuba was bad, and the rebels had the support of the Cuban people, it would be better if Spain stayed in control. If the rebels won, Cuba might become “another black republic.” Churchill was warning that Cuba might be like Haiti, the first country in the Americas to be run by black people.

As Americans debated about whether to join the war in Cuba, an explosion in the harbor of Havana, Cuba’s capital, destroyed the U.S. battleship Maine on February 15, 1898. The ship had been sent to Cuba as a symbol of American interest in the region. No evidence was ever produced to show what caused the explosion, but American newspapers used yellow journalism – reporting that exaggerates the news to lure new readers – to blame Spain for the explosion. The loss of the Maine moved President McKinley and the country in the direction of war. It was clear that the United States couldn’t carve out American military and economic interests in Cuba without sending troops to the island.
In April 1898 McKinley asked Congress to declare war. Soon American forces moved into Cuba. The Spanish-American War had begun.

John Hay, the U.S. secretary of state, later called it a “splendid little war.” Fighting stopped on August 12; the Spanish forces were defeated in three months. Nearly 5,500 American soldiers died. Only 379 died in battle. The rest were killed by disease and other causes. One cause was certainly the tainted, rotten meat sold to the army by American meatpackers.

What about the Cuban rebels who had started the fight with Spain? The American military pretended they did not exist. When the Spanish surrendered, no Cuban was allowed to discuss the surrender, or sign the treaty. The United States was in control. U.S. troops remained in Cuba after the surrender. Soon, U.S. money entered the island, as Americans started taking over railroads, mines and sugar plantations.

The United States told the Cuban people that they could write their own constitution and form their own government. It also told them that the U.S. Army would not leave the island until Cuba’s new constitution included a new American law called the Platt Amendment. This law gave the United States the right to involve itself in Cuba’s affairs pretty much whenever it wanted. General Leonard Wood explained to Theodore Roosevelt in 1901, “There is, of course, little or no independence left Cuba under the Platt Amendment.”

Many Americans felt that the Platt Amendment betrayed the idea of Cuban independence. Criticism went beyond the radicals (socialists and others with extreme or revolutionary views) to mainstream newspapers and civic groups. One group critical of the Platt Amendment was the Anti-Imperialism League. One of the League’s founders was William James, a philosopher at Harvard University, who opposed the United States’ trend toward empire building and meddling in other countries’ affairs. In the end, though, the Cubans had no choice but to agree to the Platt Amendment if they wanted to set up their own government.

Revolt and Racism in the Philippines

The United States did not annex Cuba, or make it part of U.S. territory. But the Spanish-American War did lead to annexation of some other territories that Spain had controlled. One was Puerto Rico, an island neighbor of Cuba. The Foraker Act of 1900 denied U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans, and allowed the U.S. president to choose PR’s governor. On December 10, 1898 Spain and the U.S. signed the Treaty of Paris, which gave the U.S. control of some other Pacific islands, too: Wake Island, Guam, and the large island cluster called the Philippines.

Americans hotly debated whether or not they should take over the Philippines. One story says that President McKinley told a visiting group of ministers how he had come to the decision to annex the Philippines. As he prayed for guidance, he became convinced that “there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them…. And then I went to be and went to sleep and slept soundly.”

The Filipinos, however, did not get a message from God telling them to accept American rule. Instead, on February 4, 1899 they rose up revolt against the United States, just as they had revolted several times against Spain [in 1896 and with the Philippine Declaration of Independence in June 1898].

The taste of empire was on the lips of politicians and businessmen throughout the United States, and they agreed that the United States must keep control of its new territory. Talk of money mingled with talk of destiny and civilization. “The Philippines are ours forever,” Senator [Alfred] Beveridge told the U.S. Senate. “And just beyond the Philippines are China’s illimitable markets [markets with no limits or boundaries]. We will not retreat from either.”

It took the United States three years to crush the Filipino rebellion. It was a harsh war. Americans lost many more troops than in Cuba. For the Filipinos, the death rate was enormous, from battle and from disease.

McKinley said that the fighting with the rebels started when the rebels attacked American forces. Later, American soldiers testified that the United States had fired the first shot.
The famous American author Mark Twain summed up the Philippine-American war with disgust, saying:

We have pacified some thousands of the islanders and buried them; destroyed their fields; burned their villages, and turned their widows and orphans out of doors…. And so, by these Providences of God – the phrase is the government’s, not mine – we are a World Power.

The Anti-Imperialist League worked to educate the American public about the horrors of the Philippine war and the evils of imperialism, or empire buildings. It published letters from soldiers on duty in the Philippines. There were reports of soldiers killing women, children, and prisoners of war. A black soldier named William Fulbright wrote from Manila, the capital of the Philippines, “This struggle on the islands has been naught but a gigantic scheme of robbery and oppression.”

Race was an issue in the Philippines, as it had been in Cuba. Some white American soldiers were racists who considered the Filipinos inferior. Black American soldiers in the Philippines had mixed feelings. Some felt pride, the desire to show that blacks were as courageous and patriotic as whites. Some wanted the chance to get ahead in life through the military. But others felt that they were fighting a brutal war against people of color - not too different from the violence against black people in the United States, where drunken white soldiers in Tampa, Florida, started a race riot by using a black child for target practice.

Back in the United States, many African Americans turned against the Philippine war because they saw it as a racial conflict, the white race fighting to conquer the brown. They were fighting injustice at home, too. A group of African Americans in Massachusetts sent a message to President McKinley, criticizing him for doing nothing to promote racial equality.