Class Recap 5/13, 5/14

For the past two days in class we had the period to work on projects or history homework.

Class Recap 5/7, 5/8

On Tuesday in class, we exercised the fishbowl activity. There were four different groups in class that represented different groups regarding the Trail of Tears. The point of the fishbowl was to have a discussion about the Trail of Tears and to come up with an answer to the question of its morality. Was it right to essentially force the Amerindians out of their homes and into the foreign west? Three of the groups, the Christian missionaries, the Cherokee, and the Congress all argued against Andrew Jackson who, in actual history, disregarded everyone else and continued to push the Indians out west. Even though his acts were unconstitutional, he was never impeached. I do not think that is fair at all. The Amerindians had every right to stay on their own land, and our own classroom fishbowl showed that the majority of people in the U.S. did not care either way or believed strongly in letting them stay.
Today in class, we partnered up with someone, in my case it was my buddy Laurel, and read a primary and secondary source regarding the chief Red Cloud. He had a lot to say about what the whites are doing to the Native Americans. It was interesting to read his speech and try to understand his motives when he got up and spoke to the crowd. Laurel and I finished answering the questions with time to spare. We ended class with a discussion about Red Cloud and a prelude to the end of the Indian Wars.

Class Recap 5/2, 5/3

On Thursday in class, we read three separate but related poems. The first poem we read was also the first one written of the three. It was called "A White Man's Burden." It was talking about how it is the duty of the white man to take power and to carry out the idea of imperialism with all of their made-up justifications. It was a confusing poem and even after reading it a few times through, I could not really get a good handle of it. The same went for most of the class. The second and third poems we read were related and written as a sort of response to "A White Man's Burden." They were called "The Black Man's Burden" and "The Poor Man's Burden." They were parodies and shared many similarities with the first. Our jobs were to find the similarities and then write a found poem, which proved to be rather difficult.
On Friday we went to the computer lab and tried to make progress on our Smithsonian projects. It was a good end to the week.

Adventures on the Oregon Trail

http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/jsavagexx55/3310643

Class Recap 4/26, 4/29

On Friday in class we had pretended to do something like Shark Tank the TV show. I don't know much about it and I also was not part of any of the process so I just took notes and observed. Today we watched a movie and tried to teach each other Scratch, which is highly unsuccessful and frustrating.

Class Recap 4/23, 4/24

Yesterday in class, we spend the entire time trying to see what it would be like living in a soddie on the prairie. I was in a group made up entirely of boys, so my soddie life was rather interesting. Our first station was "stand," where we had to pretend we were living in the cramped area of a soddie. It was easy to create our floor plan because there was not much we had to fit in, and then all we had to do was sit around. It became boring very quickly. I could never imagine living in such a small sparse place with five boys. The next station was "sit," where each kid sat in a chair and was time lapse-d for a minute to stimulate the act of taking a "picture." Back when cameras were just starting to be used, the exposure time was much longer so we had to sit for quite a long time. After sitting, we had to "smell," which consisted of Caleb sticking his head into a plastic bag full of sod. I think we were supposed to take away from the experience the understanding that life was hard on the prairie and that it was terrible and smelly and boring, but to be honest I think it could be cozy and a nice place to be with people you love.
I was only in school for 10 minutes of today's class because I went on a field trip. Laurel and I just hung out until the bell.

Class Recap 4/12, 4/22

On Friday before the vacation, we had a "discussion" about the push and pull factors that affected the massive move Westward. Eventually the discussion turned into a debate. We started class by watching the Sophia that did not upload on the Thursday that it should have uploaded on. After we watched them and took down some questions that came to mind as the videos went on, we split into two groups that formed two circles, an outer one and a smaller inner circle. The inner circle had 10 minutes to discuss the push factors until they had to switch places with the outer circle. The outer circle then had 10 minutes to discuss the pull factors. The first group had a really hard time coming up with good questions and their discussion pilfered out quickly. When we switched places, Caleb got heated and he led the debate. It was a great way to end the last day of school before vacation because I love having discussions, especially with Caleb.

Today, we went to the computer lab and signed up to a website set up by the Smithsonian. The point is to basically do a project on something that interests us. I am excited for it, but I am just not sure what it has to do with history, and if we are wasting our time doing something that does not relate to what we are learning in school. Laurel had a really hard time picking a subject, but I decided to analyze portraits. I read a book called The Girl With The Pearl Earring and it gave insight on both the painter and the sitter, so I am looking forward to doing a more in depth learning curve on it. It was a relaxing way to end the day.