Learning target: We can justify our decisions about the worth of voting
Based on yesterday’s class, I’ve decided to change our schedule by pushing the start your term paper off a few more days. This will give us time to get group project assignments solid before we start writing next week. It will also give time for some focused writing instruction and a mid-semester check on our essential question.
Here is the draft calendar of our time before Thanksgiving Break.
We’ll start today with a wrap-up of our discussion about voting. The question we started with was whether voting means being complicit with a corrupt system. Russell Brand makes a compelling argument, which many of you agreed with. At the same time, we’ve now seen how people have fought and died for the right to vote and how it has shaped the political dynamics of our country for the last hundred years. On the one hand, laws do get passed, Supreme Court justices do get chosen and confirmed by the Senate, and issues such as reform of the 1872 Mining Law (and voting laws themselves) depend on who controls Congress. On the other hand, both parties are awash in money and many of our most critical problems go unaddressed. I’ll ask you to take a position and express an opinion on this after the past three days.
After this I’ll give some news about the river and our event. I’ll share this Excel workbook with the jobs and assignments that you all chose yesterday. You’ll get into your groups and solidify who will do what. Then you’ll email me what beautiful work looks like for your assignments. I’ll use this create a rubric for evaluating your work. Some of these assignments related to publicity need to be completed next week. We’ll talk about this. Some of you might be drafted by the other groups to complete certain tasks. Each group has to make some specific decisions in the next couple of days to flush out what we’re doing. Hopefully everyone will find a home within this event and related activities.
After break, we’ll do a little bit of housekeeping before you keep working in your groups.
Tomorrow, you will be doing an in-class one-page essay on the essential question of the project. To help you answer the question and allow me to engage in dialogue with you about this topic, I want you to cut and paste and type the following into your DS Journal.
The essay tomorrow will require you to write a solid thesis and forecasting statement with two or three explanatory paragraphs. There is no wrong answer. But this will serve as a way to gear up for the term paper. This will provide a springboard for your digital story which we will start once we finish the group project.
I also want your Term Paper Planning sheet so I can put together rubrics for your term paper.
With these things out of the way, you will get back into groups and keep working and planning.
Homework due Thursday, October 22nd
Project assignments and term paper prep
Based on yesterday’s class, I’ve decided to change our schedule by pushing the start your term paper off a few more days. This will give us time to get group project assignments solid before we start writing next week. It will also give time for some focused writing instruction and a mid-semester check on our essential question.
Here is the draft calendar of our time before Thanksgiving Break.
We’ll start today with a wrap-up of our discussion about voting. The question we started with was whether voting means being complicit with a corrupt system. Russell Brand makes a compelling argument, which many of you agreed with. At the same time, we’ve now seen how people have fought and died for the right to vote and how it has shaped the political dynamics of our country for the last hundred years. On the one hand, laws do get passed, Supreme Court justices do get chosen and confirmed by the Senate, and issues such as reform of the 1872 Mining Law (and voting laws themselves) depend on who controls Congress. On the other hand, both parties are awash in money and many of our most critical problems go unaddressed. I’ll ask you to take a position and express an opinion on this after the past three days.
After this I’ll give some news about the river and our event. I’ll share this Excel workbook with the jobs and assignments that you all chose yesterday. You’ll get into your groups and solidify who will do what. Then you’ll email me what beautiful work looks like for your assignments. I’ll use this create a rubric for evaluating your work. Some of these assignments related to publicity need to be completed next week. We’ll talk about this. Some of you might be drafted by the other groups to complete certain tasks. Each group has to make some specific decisions in the next couple of days to flush out what we’re doing. Hopefully everyone will find a home within this event and related activities.
After break, we’ll do a little bit of housekeeping before you keep working in your groups.
Tomorrow, you will be doing an in-class one-page essay on the essential question of the project. To help you answer the question and allow me to engage in dialogue with you about this topic, I want you to cut and paste and type the following into your DS Journal.
- Homework questions from the last week on the Abolitionists video
- Answer from the sheet “What kind of change maker are you?”
- The last question in the Constitutional Values Writing Packet (I will pass this back to you)
- Your reflection on your position on the political value graph/map having to do with Federalism and States Rights
- Initial reflection on the essential question (the first post in the DS Journal)
- Initial DP post on your political philosophy and role model
The essay tomorrow will require you to write a solid thesis and forecasting statement with two or three explanatory paragraphs. There is no wrong answer. But this will serve as a way to gear up for the term paper. This will provide a springboard for your digital story which we will start once we finish the group project.
I also want your Term Paper Planning sheet so I can put together rubrics for your term paper.
With these things out of the way, you will get back into groups and keep working and planning.
Homework due Thursday, October 22nd
Project assignments and term paper prep