Meet the Candidates: January 27th/28th, 2016; Presidential Report Information HERE!!!

Hi everyone,

Do not forget - CONSTITUTION SCAVENGER HUNT DUE TOMORROW!

In class today, we started talking about the upcoming Presidential election, and how the Constitution defines the duties and powers of the Presidency.  We will be using our understanding of the Constitution to see how well-qualified the current crop of Presidential hopefuls is!

Ad Campaign Commercials:
The Living Room Candidate - Ads from every campaign going back to 1952!  We will be using these in class.

FOR YOUR PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE REPORT - introduced in class on 1/27:
2016 Election Resources:
Short Summary of the Candidates

What the Candidates Believe

2016 "Cheat Sheet" - skip down past the article to the short blurbs about each candidate!

On The Issues - where does your candidate stand on certain issues?

How is your candidate doing in the polls??

You also may use your candidate's official website. If you google their last name + "official website", it should pop right up.

Suggested breakdown for project:

• Complete the ad analysis for Monday, Feb. 1
• Complete your fact sheet for your assigned candidate for class on Wednesday, Feb 3. 
• You should plan to work on this over TWO nights if you can!
• You may use your personal devices in Team Time with teacher permission to complete this assignment. USE YOUR TIME WELL!
• You may not get all of the information from one place - plan to visit more than one website.
• Keep track of the websites you use for your Works Cited - best idea, keep one up to date as you go.  

Suggested timeline/to-do list for report:

• Wednesday night, 2/3:  Write a draft of the "background" paragraph.  Use the resources above for any additional information or details you need to make the paragraph complete.  
• Thursday night, 2/4: Write a draft of the "Positions" paragraph.  Use the resources above again.
• Weekend (Fri/Sat/Sun):  Nothing.  Take a break!  If you want to work ahead, see the suggestions below.
• Monday night, 2/8: Write a draft of the "Qualifications" paragraph.  Use the candidates' web pages and other resources above to help you identify their qualifications.
• Tuesday night, 2/9:  Skim read your report.  Have someone else look at it.  Fill in any information you may have missed.  Print off your nice, neat final copy, or share it with me on Google Drive.  Download and send the Works Cited to me, or print it to share.
• Wednesday night, 2/10: This is your "wiggle room" for the project.  Make sure everything is just the way you want it!  

Here are the project handouts for you if you lost them.

The Constitution: January 26, 2016

Online Constitution with explanations!!!

If you did not finish your Constitution Scavenger Hunt, here is a resource to help you do that.  This resource will show you the original language of the Constitution, and then a version rewritten in more modern terms.

Please pay attention to which ARTICLE you are examining on your worksheet, because this site divides up the Constitution by articles.

If there's something you wrote down that you didn't understand from the book, you might want to double-check it here.

Your completed Constitution Scavenger Hunt is due FRIDAY.  You WILL be getting more to do tomorrow, so I'd get this done tonight ... just a tip!

Quarter Three Begins! January 25, 2015

Hi everyone!

We began our day with a visit from EHS to talk about signing up for next year's courses. There's a lot to absorb, so ask questions, go to meetings, and read the materials we give you.  Don't be afraid to ask your questions more than once if you don't understand something.

We are moving forward with our Constitution unit.  We've talked about the issue of compromise, both  between the more populated states and less populated states, and between slave states and non-slave states.  Now we are looking in detail at the resulting government that we did set up under the Constitution.  You're working on a Constitution Scavenger Hunt in class in order to do that.

NICHOLAS GILMAN LETTER:

A number of you are still a little confused about the Nicholas Gilman letter assignment. The point of this letter is for you to show me that you understand the impact of compromise on the formation of our government.  So here are some things to think about:

• What does our government say we (as a nation) stand for?  Think about the Declaration of Independence.
• Think about what Martin Luther King, Jr., said about how African-Americans had been treated by their government.  
• How did our nation function (or not function) under our first form of government, the Articles of Confederation?  What were the possible dangers if we didn't get a functional government?
• Is it better to compromise your principles and have a functioning society, or was slavery so evil that no compromises should have been made?

If you still don't understand the Three-Fifths Compromise, read this site - skip down to the bottom where it discusses the impact of the Compromise.

Here's another, simpler explanation on a different link.

Here is the handout describing the assignment.  There is an organizer at the end of the handout, by the way, in case you need it.

As always, email me if you have any questions!

Almost Halfway! January 20, 21, and 22, 2016

Believe it or not, we are almost HALFWAY through your 8th grade year ... I don't know about you, but I find that hard to believe!!  I am going to bundle together all our work for the end of the week and the quarter here in one blog post, so check back here over the next few days if you have any questions.

To skip ahead a moment, on FRIDAY, we are having a somewhat different kind of day because of the Algebra midterm.  (Say it with me: THANKS, MATH.)  You will be attending a midterm or going to other programming for per 5, 6, and 7.  So what are we going to do for per 1 and 2?  You have some makeup/retake/review time for that time block.  If you need to retake your Revolutionary War quiz, or want to work on rewriting your essay (especially if you need help finishing a Works Cited or other formatting issues), I will have both opportunities available.  If you having NOTHING else to do, you can work on your THREE-FIFTHS COMPROMISE LETTER (see below), or complete other assignments as needed.

Today (Wednesday), we began to examine how the issue of slavery affected how our government was formed.  We took some notes from the board (see the picture below) about the setup of Congress, and then we zoomed in on the House of Representatives.  Why the House specifically?  Because of the proportional representation issue and SLAVERY. Part of Wednesday and Thursday will be spent calculating how much difference slavery made in our government.  Then you'll look at some historical arguments for and against making slavery legal.

Notes from class:

HOMEWORK - DUE MONDAY!!!  You are writing a letter to the NH delegation to the Constitutional Convention, arguing for or against adopting the 3/5ths Compromise.  There is a handout to come...

What Is YOUR Dream? January 19, 2016

Today in class, we watched the famous "I Have a Dream" speech given by Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1963.  If you didn't get shivers at the end, well, go back and watch it again!  You had some time to reflect upon what your dreams are, and whether or not you face obstacles to achieving your dreams.

As I mentioned in class, slavery was part of our country's history from the very earliest colonies.  It was an inescapable part of the discussion around the formation of our government.  We will be looking at this over the next few days as we close out the quarter.

HOMEWORK:  If you need to revise your essay or retake your Rev War assessment, please do so THIS WEEK.  Finish your Critical Period assessment during team time if it's not done!

Ready for Assessment? January 12, 2016

In the interest of saving paper, I'm going to post information about our assessment here:

The assessment is OPEN NOTE.  You can bring whatever you have made for your mini-assessments to class, and you can bring any notes you may have taken along the way. You may NOT bring the Northwest Territory handout or any other handouts or readings, however, so it may be worth taking some notes if you're unsure of yourself.

WHAT STANDARD ARE WE ASSESSING?

I can explain why our first form of national government was not effective.

WHAT DO I NEED TO KNOW/BE ABLE TO EXPLAIN?

• Articles of Confederation  - how did it set up our government?  What did it accomplish?  Why didn't it work very well?
• Shays' Rebellion - why were Shays and his followers upset?  How were the causes of Shays' Rebellion linked to the Articles of Confederation?  How did the rebellion turn out?
• Northwest Territories - what were the unique rights given to the settlers of the Northwest Territory? Why was the fact that they had those rights important?

WHAT AM I GOING TO BE ASKED TO DO?

You will get three questions to answer in class.  Each question can be answered in about a paragraph. Each question has an extension option that you can choose to answer or not.

RESOURCES
Books:
Creating America - pp 222-227
We The People - 93-100
We the People Reading
Creating America Reading

Videos:
History.com - Shays' Rebellion
Part of the video we watched last week.

Articles of Confederation - longer/higher level

The Northwest Territories - you're better off reviewing the reading, honestly.

Articles on the Interwebs:
Daniel Shays
Articles of Confederation

January 7, 2015 and January 8, 2015

Hi everyone,
Sorry, no snappy title today - nothing came to mind!

We have continued working on the Critical Period assignments I gave out on MONDAY throughout the week.  Today, you had a learning check over the homework you had this week.  This counts as a formative assessment.  If you did not score well and/or did not do the homework, you CAN retake this.  However, you must do the homework first and show it to me!!!

Tomorrow, you get the excitement of learning via video for the day.  Enjoy it.  Next week is going to be a BUSY week, so keep track of what is coming up!!!

HOMEWORK 1/7:  Do you have a retake, essay, or missing assignment to make up?  If so, get that done!

HOMEWORK 1/8: Nothing new.  If you do not have AT LEAST one of your Critical Period assignments done and one well under way, you should do something over the weekend!!!!

Resolute: January 4, 2016

Welcome back, everybody!!!  I'm sure you all were looking forward to getting up in the dark and cold to come back to school for the start of a new calendar year ... I'd be lying if I said I was thrilled about getting up early again, but there we have it.  We're back and we may as well make the most of it by getting down to business. Here's a recap of what we talked about in class today.

1) ESSAYS ARE DUE FRIDAY, PLEASE AND THANK YOU.  If you have questions or are not sure what to do, I will be after school on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday of this week until 3:15 at least.  I will grade your essay after Friday whether it is finished or not!

2) We will take some time in class today to go through notebooks and make sure you have everything you are supposed to have.

3) TEST RETAKES - if you need to retake your Rev. War content knowledge test, make sure you get a relearn/retake contract and a content analysis handout.  Use your test to complete the content analysis handout and then return the test. Retake dates are on the content analysis handout.

If you did NOT watch the assigned videos on EdPuzzle, you CANNOT retake the test until you complete those assignments. Those videos are linked under December 14th. The Quizlets created to help you study are linked under December 15th.

If you have not taken the test yet, you MUST TAKE IT ASAP.  Make a date with me NOW to get that done!

4) Government vocabulary - we are going to be talking about different ways the US government has functioned and how it functions now.  In order to understand that, you need to know some common vocabulary.  The vocab lesson is online, and you need to complete the handout that goes with it for Thursday.  See me if you need a pass to the library.

Here is the link to the online vocab lesson.

Here is the link to the vocab handout if you need it.

HOMEWORK:  Finish your essay. Submit your Works Cited.  You can start the Government Vocab