Thursday, September 19, 2019

Historiography, Day 1 - Class Recap


Today in class, we discussed how important perspective is to understanding history. This is a photo taken at the "Four Corners" intersection between Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. Photo taken in 2007.

Dear class,

We began a new mini unit on historiography (the study of history) through the lens of American Studies. Here's what we did today in class:

Learning Targets Addressed: 
Behavior LT 3: I can communicate and work effectively within a team or group.
Communication LT 1: I can communicate effectively, both verbally and in writing.

Soundtrack: "History" by One Direction. Selected because of our look at what history is today in class. Lyrics here.

AGENDA 9/19/19:
News Brief - Amin
Gallery Walk
What is History?
Five Events

Homework: Read the blog. The next news brief is assigned to: Lucy.

News Brief: Today's news brief was brought in by Amin, who selected an article about this story: BBC.com - American Airlines sabotage mechanic 'has possible IS links'. We talked about this story for a bit in class, before moving on.

We also checked in to see if anyone was up to anything interesting or fun outside of class.

Amin was selected to do the next news brief.

As part of the news brief, we usually watch 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):

Gallery Walk: The American Dream poster assignment that we started last class was due today in class for students. As such, I wanted everyone to see what the rest of the class did, so we placed the posters on desks and walked around to see them. I also wanted students to notice if there were any common themes on the posters. I will take these and put them up around the room! If you did not complete the poster, please get it in to me as soon as possible, as it is a graded assignment.

What is History?: Next, we started our new unit on understanding history a bit more. To begin, this is the presentation that we began in class:


Basically, I want students to see that what we think are facts can actually change over time - we will be investigating this more over the coming classes.

Five Events: To start thinking like historians, I asked the class to consider what they thought the five most important events in American history are and why. This is what class ended with today, as students used the textbook or Chromebooks to write what they thought. Here's the list the class came up with as The Five Most Important Events in United States history:

September 11th, 2001. (21)
Civil War. (16)
World War II. (14)
Civil Rights Movement/MLK Speech. (11)
Revolutionary War (when the US became a country). (11)
Moon landing (Apollo 11). (7)
13th Amendment to the Constitution, legally ending slavery (6)
President Obama. (6)
Great Depression (5)
Women’s suffrage (right to vote) (3).
Industrial Revolution (3).
JFK assassination. (2)
Lewis and Clark Expedition (2).
Google’s release date
The Internet being created.
Same sex marriage equity.
Louisiana Purchase/Manifest Destiny.
California Gold Rush.
Dust Bowl 

We will continue with this work next class! See you then!

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