Declaring Yourself: October 21, 2014

Today, we started looking at the Declaration of Independence.  We've been talking about the actions that the colonists took to show their displeasure with England.  We call those colonists Patriots, as opposed to the Loyalists who did not want to split from England, or the neutral colonists who had no preference.

We began by discussing the differences between freedom fighters and domestic terrorists.  We had a very insightful discussion of how violence and intent can make the difference between someone fighting for a cause, versus someone inflicting pain on others for negative ends.  Here are some pictures of period 2's discussion:

We followed this by listening to the Declaration read out loud.  It is worth listening to the Declaration once through before we start breaking it down, as it was meant to be heard in one sitting.  Here is a copy of the video.  It stars Morgan Freeman, and who doesn't love Morgan Freeman?

All the classes completed viewing the video, and most classes began identifying the four major categories of the Declaration and matching ideas to the categories.  Here is a picture of Brett, showing us his masterful work:

HOMEWORK:  You do not have new work assigned today.  However, you DO have an essay in English, and we are rapidly coming up to an essay in Social Studies as well.  You need to know what happened before the Revolution occurred, so if your outline is not finished, you should finish it.  See you tomorrow!