Second Semester Final

Your second semester final consists of two parts.
Part I
Part 1 is a portfolio of your previous work, with an annotated table of contents.  In class today, we discussed the assignment and showed you samples as a reference.  Here are the documents you will need:

• Second Semester Final - Part 1
• Sample annotations
• Second Semester Final - Part 1 - Table of Contents

Class time today was dedicated to work on this part of the final, using the table of contents and your note cards from yesterday as a guide.
We also assigned Part 2.

Part 2
Part 2 is a personal reflective essay that we discussed today in class. There is a sample for a reference below.

• Second Semester Final-Part 2
• Sample Part 2 Essays

The Beginning of the End - Starting the Second Semester Final

Today we started work on our last unit together - the second semester final.

We started by asking you to complete this activity - the "Brain Wave" (click for a copy).  You filled this out by identifying the moments during the year when your thinking was most engaged - when you were doing some of your best thinking, when you were most curious, when you did some of your best writing - as well as moments when you were least engaged.  In a journal response you reflected on one from each of these categories.

Next we listened to "What's Goin' On" by Marvin Gaye (click for the lyrics - you can find the song on our American Studies playlist. Our discussion of the song asked you to find connections between those lyrics and other units from the year.

After that, we read a speech from Dr. King, "A Time to Break the Silence" (click for a copy). We focused on the section where he quotes Langston Hughes, and bridges from being a person who focuses on civil rights to one who is actively questioning the Vietnam war and encouraging others to do the same.

Here is a link to the homework for the weekend. You MUST come to class with these note cards for use on Monday.

• Start this process by re-reading your journals, highlighting interesting things you wrote. Then, once you've found 15 great lines from each semester, copy them down onto note cards (as in the instructions).
• After you've created the notecards of your own writing, you'll work on the notecards from other voices from the year (#2 in the instructions for the homework). All 60 notecards are due in class on Monday. These are a significant part of the final which you must have ready to go at the start of class. They will not be useful if you do not have them on time.

The Catcher in the Rye

Today in class we discussed The Catcher in the Rye by focusing on several key ideas and themes. The notes from those conversations can be found HERE.  Your assignment for Friday is to write a "personal essay" about your experience reading the book.
Personal Essay for Catcher
The essay is due to be submitted to turnitin.com by the start of class on Friday, May 29.

End of the Vietnam War

In class, Mr. Kramer presented a lecture on the end of the war and we discussed its legacy. You can see the lecture slides here
Then we heard a speaker, Jon Schaefer, share his experiences of what it was like to be in war. His presentation can be found below.
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Jon Schaefer Presentation
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Here is Mr. Schaefer's list of"Considerations Before Going to War".

Here are the pictures that Mr. Schaefer used in his presentation.

Vietnam Continued

On Friday in class, we discussed the massacre at My Lai.  We responded to clips from the documentary Remember My Lai , a 60 minutes story called Back to My Lai, and multiple perspectives from a variety of voices that you can find here.
Today in class we heard Mr. Rigler and Mr. Kramer read Chapter 7, How to Tell a True War Story aloud.  We then considered questions of truth in regard to what we've been learning and thinking about the novel. Here are some notes from that discussion. To add to our discussion, here are two articles based on interviews with Tim O'Brien where he addresses whether his novel is "true" or not.  PBS Interview, NY Times Interview.
Your homework for tonight is posted in the calendar.

Dear America

Today in class we watched the film Dear America: Letters Home From Vietnam. 
We also assigned the project that will be the final assessment for this unit.
Be sure to check the calendar for the link to the homework for Friday.
 

The Draft, Tet, and Protest

On Monday in class, we all received draft notices and reflected on what it might mean to be drafted into war. We followed that by listening to Bruce Springsteen tell the story of what happened when he received his draft induction notice. Then, after hearing Mr. Rigler read Chapter 4 of The Things They Carried (On the Rainy River) we talked about the meaning of courage and the choices and decisions that young men had to make about whether to go to war.
Today in class we got into groups and began by learning about the Tet Offensive. Then, after each member of the group read and shared an individual perspective on the war, groups made conclusions about what story a movie about Tet might tell and then created movie posters that expressed those ideas.  Here is a link to the documents we used to learn about Tet.
During the 2nd half of class, we learned more about the protest movements against the draft and the war in Vietnam by completing the Protest Webquest that you can find in your American Studies Hist/Lit folder.  (There is a copy here as well).

Into Vietnam

Last Tuesday we began our look at the Vietnam War by listening to Mr. Kramer lecture about the background to the conflict and then watching from 30:30 until the end of the video embedded below.
During the lecture we also looked at these documents (Time Magazine Article, Reader's Digest Article) to get a better sense of what Communism looked like in both North and South Vietnam.  We also looked at this correspondence between President Kennedy and a concerned citizen by doing a creative piece in our notebooks, trying to write the next letter in the correspondence.
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Today in class we continued to explore America's escalating involvement in Vietnam first by exploring the Tonkin Gulf Incident, looking at the resolution and Johnson's speeches while asking whether he made his case. We complicated our judgments by looking at what Robert McNamara later said about it in the film Fog of War.
After going over some key people and strategies found in this presentation, we watched some CBS news reports from the war, reflecting on the footage in creative ways (visual, poetry, collage). The assignment for this weekend in addition to reading the assigned chapters from The Things They Carried is to find quotes from the novel to use as captions for at least three of your responses from today.

The Things The Carried - Transformation

Today we focused on Mary Anne Bell and her transformation in chapter 9: "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong."  How does she go from this:

To accessorizing with this:

You wrote a paragraph explaining it and we had a discussion about whether her transformation was caused more by internal forces and desires or external forces.  

We also listened to two songs today: "Eve of Destruction" and "Ballad of the Green Berets."  Click on the titles for a link to the lyrics and check out the videos below:

The Things They Carried - Perspectives and Styles

Today we discussed our first set of readings from Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. We noticed the stories / chapters in the novel are told from a variety of different perspectives, including these:

• 1st person (I, we) - protagonist
• 1st person - witness
• 1st person - reflective
• 2nd person (You)
• 3rd person (he / she / they) - omniscient (knows what each character is thinking and doing)
• 3rd person - objective (describes actions, not emotions)
• 3rd person - limited - story is focused through one character's awareness (like Huck)

We also noticed the stories are told in a variety of styles, using language in different ways, including:

• Teaching a lesson
• Formal
• Informal
• Imagine if...
• Emotional
• Description
• Memoir
• Poetry / Song
• Factual
• Reflective - looking back over time
• Dialogue
• Symbolic / Figurative
• Lists
• Detailed / expert language

We read chapter 3 - "Spin" - aloud. You chose one of the sections of that chapter and re-wrote it, using a different style and perspective.

Lastly, I had you generate a list of random memories. Then, you used this chart to write about them in a variety of different ways:

• TTTC writing activity chart

We closed by writing about this question: In what ways did writing about a memory in a variety of styles and perspectives shape your understanding of it? Now that you've written about it in these different ways, what do you now know that you didn't know before?

Kennedy and the Cold War/Starting The Things They Carried

Today in class, we worked in groups to complete this CHART that helped us to analyze President Kennedy's vision of America's role in the world and to judge his responses to major events and conflicts during his administration, including The Bay of Pigs, The Berlin Wall, The Cuban Missile Crisis, and The Space Race.  You can find the description of those events HERE.

During the second part of class, we began by brainstorming a list of "things that we carry" and spent some time describing those in our notebooks and considering why we carry them.  Then, after numbering the chapters in the table of contents, we listened to the first thirteen pages of the first chapter of the novel, "The Things They Carried".  We chose a few items that the author listed as things that the characters carried to discuss. We also talked about the setting and tried to identify words to describe it. We also noted that we should try to keep track of the characters and to pay attention to a timeline-that the book doesn't move in a straight line.
We finished our initial look at the novel by making some comparisons between the list of things that we carry and the the things that the characters in the novel carried, trying to identify their similarities and differences.

The new calendar is posted in the tab above. As you read the novel, this GLOSSARY will be helpful.

Cold War Continued

Today in class we continued our look at the Cold War and American domestic and foreign issues in the 1940's and 1950's.

We began by having a brief discussion about the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan, considering the concept of containment and how the Marshall Plan helped to accomplish that.
We then turned our attention to the end of the Korean War and a continued examination of ideas of fear, conformity and rebellion. We used the next episode of The Century (Happy Days) to help inform our ideas.  The video is embedded below and the viewing guide is here.
After the break, Mr. Rigler read a poem called America by Allan Ginsberg which reflected on the era portrayed in the film. We responded to the poem in our notebooks by trying to identify what Ginsberg's point was. After a discussion of the poem, we created our own version of an America poem modeled after Ginsberg's work.

Your HOMEWORK for Friday is to first, watch 3:03-9:19 (just these 6 minutes) from Poisoned Dreams in order to introduce John F. Kennedy and then read and annotate parts of four different speeches from him.  The first speech is his Inaugural Address which you can find in the American Reader (which you will have to bring to class on Friday) and the others are in this Kennedy Speeches Packet which you will have to PRINT out. We will be using and responding to these speeches in class on Friday so there is no journal entry necessary but we will be checking in your annotations.

Baltimore

For the past two days we have been discussing the ongoing events in Baltimore related to protests and demonstrations in response to the death of Freddie Gray.

Here are links to some of what we have been showing / discussing in class:

• "The Mysterious Death of Freddie Gray" - The Atlantic magazine
• The Baltimore Sun - the main daily newspaper of Baltimore (they have made their content free)
• "29 Moments That Show Another Side of Baltimore" - Buzzfeed
• "Angry mom beats son suspected of rioting" - a link to the video of Toya Graham (there are many other sources and commentary about this)
• "Nonviolence as Compliance" - The Atlantic magazine (article by Ta-Nehisi Coates)

If there are other sources you find and want to share, please post them in the comments below.

Origins of the Cold War

We began class by reviewing and discussing the events in Baltimore over the last few days and hearkening back to Langston Hughes' Dream Deferred and Mookie's decision to Do the Right Thing. After doing some reflection on these issues in our notebooks, we moved on to begin our discussion of the post WW2 period in American History.  To do so, we looked at old issues of Look Magazine and began to make some hypotheses about American society in the late 1940's and early 1950's.
We then looked at The Century: The Best Years using this viewing guide.  The video is embedded below.
Homework for tonight is to Read and annotate this Cold War Packet-and do a Journal Response: What image of the U.S. during the 40’s and 50’s is presented here? How is the Cold War being defined? How do the domestic and foreign issues connect?

WWII - In-Class writing

Here is a link to the assignment for today.

Be sure to take the first few minutes to read through it and understand the directions.

WWII - Unit Assignment

Here is a link to the handout from today describing your weekend homework - preparation for the in-class essay on Monday.

Here is a link to the charts you will complete over the weekend.

To complete the charts, consider these topics we studied in this unit:

• Timeline - The Road to War - When to take action / When to go to war?
• All My Sons
• FDR speeches
• Pearl Harbor
• Japanese Internment
• The homefront / collective sacrifice / the “war effort” / propaganda
• The War in the Pacific
• The Bataan Death March
• Iwo Jima
• Okinawa
• The War in Europe
• D-Day
• The Battle of the Bulge
• American and the Holocaust: Deceit and Indifference - Beschloss and Schlessinger articles
• Why We Fight film and discussion
• The atomic bomb discussion

All My Sons - discussion

On Monday in class we checked in your journal entries for the play and a few others from this unit.

We distributed this handout about All My Sons and asked you to choose two of the 18 assertions to write about.

• All My Sons discussion questions

We performed Act 3 of the play - thanks to our outstanding volunteers! - followed by a discussion of the whole play based on what people wrote about in their journal responses and in class.

Questions for All My Sons

Greetings!

As you finish reading All My Sons over the weekend, you may find you want to re-read some of the early parts of the play to look for clues about the ending. Reading the play for a second time is a very different experience!

Also, here is a glossary of terms in the play. There are several things specific to life in the US in 1947 explained in these notes.

• Glossary

To guide your journal entry, and to prepare you to work with and discuss the play Monday, use one (or more) of these questions:

1. Consider Chris Keller’s world view versus his father’s: One is guided by a sense of responsibility to the greater community, the other by a sense of responsibility to family. Is one of these moral compasses inherently right or wrong?
2. Do you believe there is some truth to Joe Keller’s argument that certain wrongs are excusable in the name of family? 
3. Is Joe Keller basically a decent member of society? Do you accept Chris’s idea that his father is “no worse than most men”? Or is what Joe did actually evil?
4. In what ways does the experience of war impact this play? Do you think American citizens today still retain that sense of “country” that Chris refers to in the climatic scenes of the play? 

Japanese-American Internment and Early WW2

Today in class we will be doing some further work with the information you learned over the weekend from the More Perfect Union website.

Please open this Haiku Activity and follow the instructions with your group.

During the second part of class, we'll be exploring the early stages of American involvement in the war itself. First by reading The War in the Pacific and Europe (scroll down until you get to that section heading) and then by exploring a number of different sources that will help us begin to make some conclusions about American experiences in WW2.

We will be using this activity as we work during class today and tomorrow.

Finally(!) the new calendar is posted HERE and in the tab above.

Japanese Internment - weekend homework

Greetings!

Apologies we did not get to this sooner - here is a link to this weekend's homework:

• Japanese Internment Web Activity

It is working on all browsers now.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

Have a great weekend!

The Road To WW2 Contd.

Today we took a quiz on the first set of readings and then examined FDR's Speeches by answering the questions analyzing them and then creating a new "found speech" based on the perspectives of different people living at the time.
Your homework for Friday is to read and annotate (or take notes) on the first 14 pages of this reading packet (stop at The Limits of Pluralism).

The Road to World War II

Today in class we looked at events that lead to American involvement in WW2.  Students made newspaper headlines about many of the events taking place between 1931-1941 in China and Europe and then filled out this chart which we will discuss tomorrow in class.
Additionally, here is your HOMEWORK for tomorrow:
1) Either print and annotate or read and take notes from this PACKET.
2) Read and answer the questions for the first THREE excerpts from this packet of FDR Speeches (1st Inaugural, Greater Freedom and Greater Security,Quarantine). You should write the answers to the questions in your notebooks.
3) Bring your American Reader to class tomorrow.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Today we finished watching "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" - we hope you enjoyed it! Here is a clip of the final speeches from the film. Have a wonderful spring break!


 

Stormy Weather Homework

Your homework for Wednesday, 3/25 is to finish The Century: Stormy Weather.  You should watch from 28:50-through the end of the film (about 15 minutes). Finish taking notes on the study guide and answer the questions at the bottom when you are finished.

The Depression Contd.

Today we are going to begin by analyzing FDR's First Inaugural Address. With a partner, students will answer the questions on this WORKSHEET and submit their responses.
Here are your partners for this assignment:

Joely/George;  Danielle B./Lucy;  Justin/Ian;  Tommy/Britney W.;  Mary Catherine/Oriana;  Ryan/Leah;  Claude/Danielle S.;  Carin/Ben;  Brittany D./Jayden;  Ethan/Jamie;  Jeremy/Alex; Andrew/Elizabeth;  Jacob/Miles;  Phoebe/Laura/Callie;  Lizzie/Kevin;  Jesse/Deena;  Enya/Charlie; Amanda/Marlee;  Jason/Gabbi;  Isaac/Lauren;  Rachel/Marnie;  Will/Lily;

During the 2nd part of class, we will look at clips from the film The Grapes of Wrath in order to further understand the hardships and issues faced by Americans in the Dust Bowl during the 1930's.

1920's - 1930's - The Great Depression

Today we started by sharing the letters you wrote to President Obama. We asked each of you to name your view of America's role in the world, the specific "ask" you had for the president, and the historical / literary reasoning that lead you to this conclusion.

Then we returned to the 1920's by watching parts of this section of The Century:



For homework tonight, you are reading FDR's 1st inaugural address and writing a journal response. You'll find it in your American Reader, which you need to bring to class tomorrow.

Rebooting the 1920's

Today in class we returned to the 1920's.  We started by reviewing what we knew about the era from our work with the Great Gatsby.  We brainstormed what we remembered about the time, setting, and overall context of the novel. We then took a look at the list of events at the start of the article, 1927. As we read the events, we tried to determine which symbolized the "glory" of America and which symbolized its "warts". We then tried to categorize and make some generalizations about the types of events that went into each category. In order to review additional information about the 1920's, we rewatched scenes from The Century: Boom to Bust.
Following the break, we returned to the 1927 article where each student was assigned one of the sections of the article. After reading and annotating our assigned sections, students chose groups made up of people who read the different sections and created posters depicting their version of the 1920's American.
Homework for the week is to continue to work on the Foreign Policy Letter.

Working Through America's Foreign Policy

The primary focus of your work today should be to formulate the overall foreign policy for the United States' role in the world that you will advocate for in your letter to President Obama. You should work with the materials from class over the last two weeks to help you establish your argument.  Remember however that the final component to your letter is to ask the President to use that policy in addressing specific actions in regard to one specific current foreign policy concern. In order to help you to identify what current U.S. policy choices are in regard to a few of those issues, we've given you some helpful links below:

Fact Sheet: First Step Understandings Regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Nuclear Program (A detailed description of the current status of negotiations with Iran)

President Obama: “We Will Degrade and Ultimately Destroy ISIL” (A step by step listing of the President's proposed policies towards ISIS).

New York Times - Times Topics - ISIL overview

New York Times - "Obama Seeks Extensive War Authorization..." editorial

New York Times - "Retroactively Authorizing War" editorial

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Ukraine: Current Issues (Just read the one page summary at the beginning of the document).

End of the war; Your voice

Today we finished our brief look at World War I with several video segments.  Following that, we read Mark Twain's "The War Prayer."  He raises several questions in this powerful piece, representing yet another perspective on questions we've asked about war and the role of the US in the world.

We then transitioned to our assignment for this unit: a letter you will be writing to President Obama about a current event and the ways in which the US should / shouldn't play a role, and why.

We will have a work day in the computer lab on Tuesday.

Here is the specific format for the letter.

Jus Post Bellum - The end of WWI and the aftermath

During the first part of class today we discussed Hemingway's short story, "Soldier's Home."  We used "Rules of Notice" to guide our initial observations, and these questions in our conversation:

1. What does the story tell us about how Krebs’s return home after the war was different from what other soldiers experienced?
2. What are some of the ways Krebs spends his time?  What symbolic meanings might these activities have?
3. What are Krebs’s attitudes towards his different family members?  Why?
4. What does Krebs feel about religion?  Why?
5. Describe Krebs’s experiences in war.  What do we hear about them?  What do his experiences mean to him?
6. Discuss the potential meanings of this passage:
1. He did not want any consequences. He did not want any consequences ever again. He wanted to live along without consequences.
7. Discuss the role of Krebs’s mother – what does she want of him?  Why?
8. What does the end of the story suggest about Krebs?

For the second part of class we watched a video about the end of the war. Following that we worked in groups to explore Wilson's "14 Points" speech, and make links back to the "jus post bellum" section of the "Just War Theory" we've been reading. We used THIS PACKET for our analysis. It is due in class on Monday.

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In addition, for homework this weekend you will also begin to think about how these questions apply to the role of the U.S. in the world today. You'll look through newspapers and websites to identify a specific issue of focus. Find two articles about your selected event.

Here are some websites you might find helpful:

• http://www.nytimes.com/
• http://www.cnn.com/
• http://abcnews.go.com/
• http://www.msnbc.com/

Also, you need to finish the End of War Analysis packet.

Jus in Bello - Justice during wartime

Today in class we considered notions of jus in bello-justice during wartime.  We began by reviewing this idea in the Just War Theory packet. We then did some work in our notebooks, reflecting on how the stories we saw yesterday about Sgt. York, African-Americans in WWI, and Harry Truman, impact our thinking about WWI as a "just war".  For each story we looked at different perspectives that each brought up and wrote responses that asked us to choose which one we were left with.
For Sgt. York: Was it the perspective of receiving medals OR loss of life OR his having to revisit his personal values.
For African American Soldiers: Was it W.E.B. Dubois' perspective of fighting for democracy abroad would lead to democracy at home OR the largest murder trial in history as a result of the Houston race riots.
For Harry Truman: Was it a "Great Adventure" or something other than that?
In each of the responses, it was important to consider what evidence led to your conclusion.
We then listened to a dramatic reading of Chapter 10 from the novel Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. We responded to the reading in our notebooks, considering our reactions to the excerpt, places that we agreed or disagreed with what Trumbo wrote as well as how it may have changed our opinion about when to go to war.
During the 2nd half of class, we completed this web activity.  We turned it in at the end of class.

Here is the Metallica video for their song One that includes clips from Johnny Got His Gun.

University of Oklahoma - Fraternity Racist Chant - Update

Here is a link to the latest from CNN. If you click around you can see the original video, as well as footage of protests and marches in response.

Origins of American Involvement in WWI

Today we explored the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine and analyzed the shifts that took place in American Foreign Policy as a result. We selected the five key quotes from the document that exhibited those shifts.  We then began to study the origins of World War One as well as America's road to engaging in that conflict by watching the first 25 minutes of the video below.
We finished by beginning a discussion about when (or if) the United States' should have engaged militarily in the conflict.

Friday - March 6th

Today our focus was on Just War Theory.  We watched this video:

Following that, we worked in small groups to discuss the ways in which the events of the Spanish-American War and the War in the Philippines fit into the "jus ad bellum" sections of Just War Theory. We finished the period by discussing the handout, "Lessons from the Age of Imperialism." We moved around the room to physically take a stand agreeing or disagreeing with some of the statements we read, as we continued to raise and answer questions about the role of the U.S. in world affairs.  Each of those activities can be found in this DOCUMENT

Imperialism?

On Monday you sat in groups to read through the newspaper articles you created in class last week. We asked you to come up with titles for the different collections of articles, and to explore the ways in which those articles addressed the "promises" or "problems" in the USA at the time.  We then turned our attention to four documents you read over the weekend:

• The Monroe Doctrine
• Social Darwinism
• Manifest Destiny
• The Open Door Policy

We finished class by asking you to work with your groups to identify on of the events / people from the newspaper articles back to one of these four documents.

For today you read a packet: "The Question of Annexation." In class today you were each assigned a position in regards to potential courses of action to be taken by the US in the Philippines in 1898. You finished class by writing a paragraph linking your assigned position to one of the four documents above (see a pattern?).

For Friday you are reading and annotating the "Epilogue" in the packet you've been working with and "Just War Theory"  in the packet we gave out at the end of class today: - see the calendar for the focus of your journal response.

Bridge Day Assignment

As explained in class, today you will be completing an assignment that will allow us to take a short look at a number of issues facing the United States at the end of the 19th and start of the 20th centuries as it was also beginning to play a role in world affairs.
Here is a link to the bridge day assignment.
Here is the link to your assigned terms and documents.
Also, here is the assignment sheet for this unit which is also in the tab above.

Research Paper-Turning it in!

After finishing the final draft of your paper, making sure that it's proofread carefully, ensuring that all requirements have been met, please submit the following to turnitin.com.
1) All charts from the articles.
2) All charts from the historical references.
3) Your outline.
4) The final version of your paper.

Looking forward to reading them.  Congratulations on finishing this project!

Research Project - Peer Feedback and Revision

For today you completed a rough draft of your essay - congratulations!

During our time together today you will read and respond to two different essays. This will happen anonymously.
Here's what you will do:

1. When you receive an essay, take the time to read it thoroughly before you do anything else.
2. Open this peer feedback form and make a copy of it to use.
3. Be sure to give it a name - use the 4 digits of the ID of the writer.
4. Take your time to give thoughtful and thorough feedback.  Note that for some questions you just need to give a rating, but for others you need to type out your response.
5. When you are finished, print out your feedback.
6. Keep in mind you are reading another student's work for the purpose of giving them constructive criticism about how to improve it. Don't just praise it to make the person feel better! At the same time, be respectful in your comments.
7. You will repeat this process a second time.
8. Both of these readings will happen during 3rd period.  For 4th period, you will receive your essay and both sets of feedback. You will then have the rest of the time to work independently.

Research Paper - The Essay

Yesterday (Wednesday) we provided this handout - an overview of the assignment.  Make sure you refer to it as you move from your outline to your essay.

We also taught the use of footnotes - refer to this handout and the library website for details.

• Here is a link to the Chicago Manual of Style

Lastly, to clarify, here is the schedule for the next three days:

• Thursday 2/19 - Computer lab - writing day
• Friday 2/20 - Computer lab - writing day
• Monday 2/23 - Complete draft due / peer editing / revising
• Tuesday 2/24 - Final version of research essay due
• This includes all charts, the outline, and the rough draft

For convenience, here are some key points to keep in mind as you write:

Requirements:

• Your essay will have 1 inch margins and use Times New Roman 12 point font.
• Instead of a page count (since footnotes can alter the amount of writing on a page) your essay needs to be between 1250-1750 words.  This is the equivalent of a 5-7 page essay.
• You will cite all sources with footnotes.
• Your essay will include a Bibliography, including the historical sources you researched, articles you read, and the sources we provided to you.
• Your essay will be thoroughly proofread, with special attention paid to the “inexcusables.”
• **On Monday, February 23rd, you will have a complete rough draft. You need to bring in a printed copy of your essay.  Please do not have your name on it - you will be anonymously reading on commenting on each other’s work.

Structure:

1. Introductory Paragraph
1. Name your topic and specific question
2. Provide a “road map” to your paper - preview your argument
1. What are the different points you’ll make
2. How do they fit into your argument
3. State your thesis - the answer to your question
2. Body paragraphs
1. Each body paragraph focuses on a topic - a component of your argument
2. Begin with a clear topic sentence, asserting a component of your thesis
3. Include evidence from whatever combination of historical details and points from your articles necessary to make your point
4. Be sure all quotations are properly introduced, cited, and analyzed in terms of how they support the point of the paragraph
5. Organize the sequence of your paragraphs in a way that best supports and illustrates your point.  You will be organizing the body of your essay around a series of assertions or points, not people or examples.  
3. Conclusion
1. Recaps argument, suggests broader implications

Research project - thesis and outline

Here is a link to the handout we'll use in class today.

Here is a look at how Coates presents his "thesis":

Perhaps no number can fully capture the multi-century plunder of black people in America. Perhaps the number is so large that it can’t be imagined, let alone calculated and dispensed. But I believe that wrestling publicly with these questions matters as much as—if not more than—the specific answers that might be produced. An America that asks what it owes its most vulnerable citizens is improved and humane. An America that looks away is ignoring not just the sins of the past but the sins of the present and the certain sins of the future. More important than any single check cut to any African American, the payment of reparations would represent America’s maturation out of the childhood myth of its innocence into a wisdom worthy of its founders.

Research Project - Homework for Friday

This has been a busy week of research, reading, and writing.  On Friday we will start to bring it all together as we move towards the essay.

In preparation for that, here is your homework for Friday:

• Complete your research
• Two (or more) articles
• Historical / background information
• Complete the charts
• Articles
• Historical information
• Print out and bring in copies of the charts for Friday

You will not have time to go print them out once class starts on Friday.  Please be prepared!

See you then!

Tuesday, Feb. 10 - Registration

Greetings!

During 3rd period today, please go to these locations to register for next year's classes, and then return to the G102/G104 computer lab:

Beaumont- CCRC

Doktor- CCRC

Hirsch- Counseling Center

Kellogg- CCRC

Lee- Counseling Center

Moore- E116

Romero Williams- E116

Research project - start of week 2

Last week you started your look into your research topic by reading one of the "base articles" we selected. On Friday and then over the weekend, you not only read the other base article, but also the "base historical articles" we provided.  At this point you should have a good working knowledge of the different issues, the assertions made by the different authors, and some of the ways in which knowing the background information enhances your understanding.

Over the next several days (Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday) you will complete the following tasks.  Here is a link to the library website with shortcuts to the databases you'll use.

• Establish a research question. 
• Some of your articles name these explicitly, others include a variety of perspectives, and others provide a depth of information.  Your task is to sort through these and determine what question you want to explore.
• For example, for the Coates article we considered the question "Should the United States government pay reparations for slavery?"
• Research and read two additional articles.
• This will involve using the different databases, like we did with the Coates article, to find other articles exploring and taking a position on your question. 
• Your articles need to be substantive - a brief editorial or letter will not suffice. It needs to also make an assertion and build a case through analysis of evidence and different factors. The length should be similar to the other articles you read.
• Complete a chart for each of these articles.
• This goes in the same Google Document as your other chart.  Be sure to make a separate chart for each article.
• You will be submitting these articles with your completed project, and received credit for them.
• Here is a link to the blank version of that chart.
• Determine what other historical / background information you need to look up.
• These terms / people / historical events / etc. will help you to better understand the arguments being made.  
• Add these terms to the historical events / details chart. 
• Here is a link to the blank version of that chart.
• Keep track of the information about your sources.  
• You will include a bibliography with your final project.
• Here is a link to the library's web site with detailed information about citing sources.

Getting into your topic and question

For today you read the base article for your research project.  Today you will take a second look at as you start to pull apart and understand the points it makes.

1. Complete this chart for your base article

Then you will start the historical research, discovering and reading the background information to help give you a fuller understanding of the issues.

1. Read the base historical article(s) for your topic

• Women:
• Article 1
• Article 2
• Article 3
• Gay Rights:
• Article 1
• Native Americans (start in the section on the 1800’s)
• Article 1
• Immigrants/Latino Rights
• Article 1
• Article 2

      2.  Identify which sections of this article are relevant to your understanding of your topic.
           Add that information to this chart of your historical research

** By the start of class Monday, you need to have completed these tasks:

• Read the "base articles" for your topic
• Complete a chart for each of the "base articles"
• Read the "historical base article" for your topic
• Complete the historical research chart for your article, adding relevant information

Starting your research

In class today you selected a topic you'll follow in our brief research unit.

This handout has the directions and the links to the "base articles."

Introduction to Research

Today we will start in the classroom with an introduction to research databases.

Once we get to the computer lab we will follow these directions.

A Case for Reparations

Today in class we began with a quiz about Coates' article.
We then had a discussion about the our conclusions surrounding Do the Right Thing.
Then, the rest of the class was spent pulling apart Coates' article by using this WORKSHEET.
Here is a link to the electronic version of the Coates article and here is a printable version.

Do the Right Thing

Yesterday in class we began the film Do the Right Thing. We'll be finishing it today.  Homework due today was to read, annotate and respond to sections V-VII of The Case for Reparations.  For Friday you have two tasks:
1) Finish reading and annotating the rest of The Case for Reparations. You do not need to do a final journal response. We'll develop those in class.
2) Complete a typed journal entry in response to these Do the Right Thing PROMPTS.
Here are the lyrics to Public Enemy's Fight the Power
If you're interested in some of the people who Spike Lee dedicated his film to, here are some links:
Eleanor Bumpurs 
Michael Griffith 
Yvonne Smallwood 
Edmund Perry
Amadou Diallo