Back to Work

Coming back after the Holidays is rough... other than Summer, its the longest break of the year and it always seems like the longer you are on break the harder it is to go back! Break for us was extended a bit this year. Though we had a half day of school on January 2nd, we had school cancelled due to weather on January 3rd and 6th, making Tuesday the 7th the first day back for all intents and purposes.

With only 3 weeks left in the semester, returning to school finds us preparing for semester finals. My online class through Virtual High School ended just before the break. It ends early because the class takes no breaks during the semester. The next semester starts at the end of January. For the VHS class, students did a virtual presentation on the future of US Foreign Policy. In AP U.S. History, students will be taking an Exam that is similar to the AP Exam they will take in May. Much of it is review. In Honors U.S. History, the $35 Dollar Bill Project was their Semester Final, but they will have a regular test on the last day of the semester. For the two elective semester courses, these Semester Finals serve as the class Final. For Ethics, students pick a current important Ethical issue in society and analyze it a Keynote presentation. In History v. Hollywood students are suing iMovie to create a documentary that compares and contrasts two historical films and how they portray a particular historical event or person.

This is a screenshot from a part of one student presentation in my online VHS class.

This is another screenshot from a part of one student presentation in my online VHS class.

Over the next two weeks, students will either be reviewing for a test or working on putting together a project to be presented. To start the week, students submitted posters or pamphlets promoting the famous Abolitionist they portrayed in the Simulation we did last month. Here are a few samples:

This week we spent a good deal of time in U.S. History studying the Civil War as we wrap up new content for the semester. One source for the military buff students is this website that animates Civil War Battles. The students enjoy watching how the Battlefield changes. I couple this with a History Channel video that gets into the rising death toll in the war and the connection to medicine of the era. The best Battlefield animation on the website is the one on Gettysburg. I learned a lot about the Gettysburg Address at the MCSS Conference this Fall thanks to the presentation by Jared Peatman. I used his material to create a lesson for analyzing the Gettysburg Address. This is my first Common Core aligned lesson! A related topic the students find fascinating is the differing views of the War around the country. Most find it unbelievable that Confederate veterans and heroes of the war are still honored in the southern states. Almost every year students ask, "why would they honor traitors?" This is a very difficult topic for my students to understand, but we try! We discuss what the Flag means, and we talk about why Confederate are honored. Its also a great reminder about how the "winners" write history. To help with this discussion we listen to this song "A Good Ole Rebel" and then I ask, "Is this song treasonous?"

In our Department meeting this week we met with our new Curriculum Coordinator and planned our next Department time around identifying Priority Standards for Social Studies and Common Core for History. We also plan to share literacy strategies. Next year's 9th grade students must graduate with a proficiency based diploma, so we have begun the process of modifying our curriculum to address this change.

The last full week of the semester is next week and we will be working on projects and reviewing for tests. I am excited to start the new semester the following week!