Foreign Policy, Day 3 - Class Recap

The Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C.. Photo taken in 2010.

Dear class,

It was great to see everyone again today! I introduced the final major assignment of the year today (there will be other assignments in class) and we began work. Here's what happened in class today:

Learning Targets Addressed:
Knowledge LT 8: I can identify how technological knowledge and innovation shapes a society, place, or region.
Knowledge LT 22: I can describe the influences, impacts and resolutions of historical conflicts.
Critical Thinking LT 4: I can evaluate information and explanations within a given context and develop a relevant conclusion.
Critical Thinking LT 5: I can justify and support arguments or interpretation with appropriate evidence.
Communication LT 1: I can communicate effectively, both verbally and in writing.
Research LT 1: I can effectively conduct and apply research.

Soundtrack: "Edge of the Ocean" by Ivy. Selected for today because yesterday, I was in Seaside for a 9th Grade Success conference and the weather has been amazing! Lyrics here.

AGENDA 5/10/19:
News Brief - Issac
Class Elections

Conflict Presentations
Form Groups
Work Time

Homework: Read the blog! Complete and submit the United States Imperialism assignment if you did not in class. Next news brief: Everett.

News Brief: Issac had the news brief today and selected an article about this story to talk about: CNN.com - The US just raised tariffs on Chinese goods. China says it will hit back. After discussing the story, we also checked in to see if anyone was up to anything interesting or fun outside of class.

Everett was assigned to do the next news brief.

As part of the news brief, we also watched the one minute BBC World News update. Here's the link to see the latest one minute update, at any time of day (it will probably be different from what we watched in class):

BBCNews.com - One-minute World News

Class Elections: At the start of class, we voted in the class elections for Westview. Here's the video we watched :

Voting was only open today through the lunches, but if you were absent and are doing your homework in reading the blog quickly, here's the link to vote:

https://tinyurl.com/2021WVCatsClassElections

Conflict Presentations: At the end of last class class, I showed students what the United States conflict options are for the final presentation of the year, which were:

1. Spanish American War
2. World War I
3. World War II
4. Korean War
5. Bay of Pigs/Cuba
6. Vietnam War
7. Central American Conflict (Grenada, Panama, Nicaragua)
8. Persian Gulf
9. Bosnian War
10. Afghanistan
11. Iraq
12. Involvement in Syria

I posted a survey link in Google Classroom for students to tell me what their top three choices are (after doing a bit of research in class and/or at home) in terms of a conflict in United States history they are interested in learning more about for the presentation, and used this information to make groups.

Here is the assignment for the United States conflict presentations, which is the final major project of the year (hopefully not too stressful, though):

Google Drive - U.S. Conflict Presentations Assignment

Form Groups: Here is the PowerPoint that shows who is in what conflict presentation group, based on your survey input (if you did not fill out the survey by Thursday, I put you in groups that had space left):

Google Slides - U.S. Conflict Presentation Groups

If there were any groups that seemed like they would not work, I reserve the right to move students within these first few days of work time.

Work Time: The rest of class was devoted to work time on the conflict presentation - assigning roles for what to do, starting to create the presentation, etc. Here is the calendar of what I think we will be doing for the rest of the year in American Studies, to help students plan. That calendar is linked here (and may be updated, so use the link over the paper copy you were given):

Google Drive - American Studies 10 Foreign Policy Calendar 2019

See everyone next week, when we will do some review on World War I!