Tuesday, March 25th 2013

1) Look at your grades -- weekly essays have been entered for 1/17 - 2/21
2) Make sure you have submitted your Capitalism Essay revision (lastname firstname capitalismEssayRevised bbxx)
3) Take the poll.

Circle Question:
What are you looking forward to this summer (other than is not being school and sleeping).

Overall Goal:
Students can engage in research/inquiry to investigate topics, and to analyze, integrate, and present information.

Connections
We want to make sure you understand how everything is connected this year.
Topics this Year: Merchants of Cool, The Rivals, Mock Economy, Beans of Egypt, Maine; Roger and Me; Ernie's Ark; The Things They Carried; fall of the Roman Empire; Sophomore Careers Project; Syria (what should we do); Sir Maps-alot; business advertisements in the old yearbooks; philosophies; Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
Challenge: pick 5 from this list, and design a presentation that explains what insights these give into economy.  Next class, you'll be writing a timed essay in which you explain how these topics help to explain economy.
[Analyze texts to determine how connections are made in development of complex ideas or events or in development of topics, themes, or rhetorical features.]

Explanation: To understand any  world event you must understand the history behind it and its connections to the greater world.   We do not exist in a vacuum.  Why should we care about the events in Crimea?  On the surface it would seem to be a insignificant piece of geography in a remote part of the world yet world leaders are up in arms and it is a serious topic of conversation throughout the world.  We want to figure out why nations and governments(including the USA) are so upset and talking about imposing severe financial sanctions as well as mobilizing armed forces in the region in response to Russia's annexation of Crimea.
Overall Goal: Students can engage in research/inquiry to investigate topics, and to analyze, integrate, and present information.
How we'll get there: We are going to look at both video and written reports on what's happening in Crimea and learn how to extract the most important information by teaching you both how these things are structured and how to read "between the lines."
What we need from you: Be attentive when we are speaking; help those around you focus on the work, seat yourself in the best place possible in the room to get work done.

To understand the situation, what do we need to know?
Colbert Report: Better know a geopolitical hotpoint.
The Daily Show: Crimea, I hardly knew ya.

Current History: Crimea
We'll be spending a portion of class for the next month looking at the issue of Russia's annexation of Crimea.  We will be looking at news stories, videos, blogs, textbook -- anything we can to understand the issue.  When we are done, you will be writing a white paper. (A recommendation about what the USA should do)
Step One: Create an organizational system for all the work you'll be doing so you can easily access it.
Step Two: Background
Vocabulary:
annexation
communism
imperialism
gloabalization
nationalism
domino effect
Video:
Crash Course on Cold War
[Analyze texts to determine how connections are made in development of complex ideas or events or in development of topics, themes, or rhetorical features.]