The 6 C's Method

Content: What is the main idea?
Citation: Who created this and when? What type of source is it?
Context: What is going on in the world, country, region, or locality when this was created?
Connections: How does this connect to what you already know from class?
Confusions: What parts of this do you still not understand? What other questions does this article prompt you to ask?
Conclusions: What contributions does this make to our understanding of the article's topic? How did you come to these conclusions?

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.