One of the biographies that was an option to read today in class was about Charles Lindburgh, who flew this plane (now on display at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC) from New York to Paris in 1927.
Hello everyone,
Today, we continued our work with assessing how history is told, by investigating bias and what makes someone a "great" American. Here's what we did today in class:
Learning Targets Addressed:
Behavior LT 1: I can self direct my learning.
Communication LT 1: I can communicate effectively, both verbally and in writing.
Critical Thinking LT 4: I can evaluate information and explanations within a given context and develop a relevant conclusion.
Soundtrack: "Otherside" by Red Hot Chili Peppers. Selected for today because of our discussion about bias and being "one sided" in interpretations of history. Lyrics here.Communication LT 1: I can communicate effectively, both verbally and in writing.
Critical Thinking LT 4: I can evaluate information and explanations within a given context and develop a relevant conclusion.
AGENDA 9/27/19:
News Brief - Meghana
Finish Textbook Examination
Bias and Biographies
Great Americans
We also checked in about the weekend to see if anyone was up to anything interesting or fun outside of class.
Chloe was selected 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):
Finish Textbook Examination: This was an activity that we mostly finished last class, and the main goal of today was to analyze how the textbooks have looked at singular events in history, and how that might have changed over time. Here is the assignment that was due today in class (it is graded):
Hopefully this was an interesting activity for you to see! We debriefed this activity in class today and discussed what we saw in terms of how the events were described over the course of time.
If you are at home and wanting to look at the class textbook online, it is available on this website in chapters. If you did not finish this assignment and need to see the old textbooks on the cart, they will be in Ms. Ferris's room, N229, during Period 7 and 8 to access.
Bias and Biographies: Next, we continued to discuss historical perspective, as we defined the term bias. Here's the short PowerPoint that we went through:
Bias is unfairly preferring one person or group over another. This often takes the shape in history of people and events being portrayed in very positive or very negative ways, using language that does not present a "balanced" account of who the person was or what actually happened in the event.
Great Americans: The assignment for today (this is also posted in Google Classroom) was to look at a few short biographies of notable Americans through history and to try and assess any biased words in them, whether or not they achieved the "American Dream," and whether or not this person is a "Great American" - students were able to define this however they wanted. Here are the biographies (try to select a range, not just the first three) and the assignment:
Hopefully this was an interesting activity for you to see! We debriefed this activity in class today and discussed what we saw in terms of how the events were described over the course of time.
If you are at home and wanting to look at the class textbook online, it is available on this website in chapters. If you did not finish this assignment and need to see the old textbooks on the cart, they will be in Ms. Ferris's room, N229, during Period 7 and 8 to access.
Bias and Biographies: Next, we continued to discuss historical perspective, as we defined the term bias. Here's the short PowerPoint that we went through:
Bias is unfairly preferring one person or group over another. This often takes the shape in history of people and events being portrayed in very positive or very negative ways, using language that does not present a "balanced" account of who the person was or what actually happened in the event.
Great Americans: The assignment for today (this is also posted in Google Classroom) was to look at a few short biographies of notable Americans through history and to try and assess any biased words in them, whether or not they achieved the "American Dream," and whether or not this person is a "Great American" - students were able to define this however they wanted. Here are the biographies (try to select a range, not just the first three) and the assignment:
The last part of the assignment asks students to write down someone they consider to be a "Great American" - we will be working with this selection next class, so please make sure it is someone that multiple biographies exist for.
If students finished this in class, I encouraged them to start getting familiar with all of the states in our country, which there will be a test on (probably in a few classes). To help, here's a Sporcle quiz.
If students finished this in class, I encouraged them to start getting familiar with all of the states in our country, which there will be a test on (probably in a few classes). To help, here's a Sporcle quiz.
Thanks, everyone! See you next week!
