Preparing for Tomorrow and Notebook Helps

Dear Students,

I hope that you are all prepared for tomorrow's Recitation Day.  After morning prayer we will remain in the sanctuary for your recitations.  The order of your recitations will be random.  After recitations are over we will return to our room and you will write a description of one of the pieces that you heard and if there is any time left we will begin our study of Andrew Jackson.

I mentioned this before break, but make sure that you have taken the time to give your notebooks some attention.  All your papers should be correctly filed in their proper places.  I also promised some tips for the keeping of your timelines and key people in your chapters, so here goes:

#1  When doing both of these assignments put the entire chapter onto one timeline and one list.  Don't do a seperate one for each weeks readings - you want the whole period accessible at a glance.

#2 Put your timeline first and one that you created yourself will serve your SELF - EDUCATION better than one you printed out.  It's ok to check and revise your timeline by another and it's ok to include another in addition to your own, but take the time to do this work.

#3  As you may have noticed the chapters are not strictly chronological, there is a bit of shuffling because of how different topics are related.  When you make your timeline it is a good idea to leave space between dates to add more information later.  On the timelines I have made it has worked well to leave about 5 lines between each year.  So if my first date is 1806 and my next is 1808 - I have ten lines between them - but figure out what works for you!

#4  A list of people's names with absolutely no indication of who they are or why they are in this chapter is of nearly no use to you.  You should not write down someone's name without also recording relevant information about them.  Some people require more space than others.  I have found that there have been at least a couple of people in each chapter who warrant their own page.  For instance in a few chapters Thomas Jefferson has warranted his own page, likewise Burr in last chapter, and even Jackson.  It should be obvious that in this era of 'Andrew Jackson' that he will most likely warrant his own page as well.

Below I've included a couple of photographs of some of my notebook pages so you get the idea:

Assignments Over Thanksgiving Break

Remember this painting of William Penn's Treaty with the Indians by Benjamin West?

As always we move forward without neglecting to look back!  As you enjoy your holiday spend at least a moment reflecting on the Pilgrims and Puritans and their influence on the begining of our nation! 

I announced during class that I will not be assigning any opportunities this week, but that doesn't mean NO, homework.  Middleschool students who are keeping journals - you may choose to journal this week or not.  Here is a summary of what you do need to do before we meet again:

Text Book Reading:  
pp 220-247
(We begin Chapter 7 and our study of Andrew Jackson -- I'd like you to really learn as much as you can from the text becuase in the New Year we will be visiting the Andrew Jackson Museum in Waxhaw!)

Missouri Compromise Assignment:
Finish your maps and your worksheets and file them in Chapter 6 in your notebooks.  Also make sure that you have a summary of the Constitutional Slavery Compromises alongside these pages.  HERE is the link to the interactive map we used in class.  You will need both this map and the actual text of the Missouri Compromise (see previous post) to complete this assignment.  We will use this information again - we will build upon it when we look at the tarriffs during Jackson's presidency.  We will refer back to these worksheets leading up to our study of the the Civil War so make sure you have completed it!  It is not ok to 'guess' or estimate answers to these questions even if you think or know you are right.  Use the data on the map - it is information from historical documents and it's your first practice at using historical documents to answer questions.  As a note to help you answer the density question --- density compares the population per land area.  Division is used to calculate how many people there were per square mile.  This is already calculated for you and located at the bottom of each table, but I just wanted you to know what this number means and where it came from. 

Notebook Work: 
Use this time to reorganize and re-establish order in your notebooks.  File things where they go.  Some of your notebooks are becoming dangerous - spilling out their contents into the crate when I check them.  Also many of you are not completing notebook assignments... 
Chapter Timeline & List of Important People
This was designed as a tool to help you organize and think about your reading.  It was also designed to help you create a study guide for yourselves.  I will be making a post about each of these notebook assignments over the holidays to give you some tips and advice.  Do not neglect this notebook work - it is a part of your grade, but it will also help you be prepared for class!
Vocabulary
I apologize that we have not recently been able to fit this into our class time.  It is a valuable habit that I would like to help you develop and I'll try and reestablish this routine in the coming weeks.

Autobiography:
Those of you who are reading the autobiography use this time to either follow or catch up on your reading plans.  We will meet to talk about your readings, but it may not be until after the holidays, I'll keep you updated.

PSH:
pp 53-55 William Lloyd Garrison
I also encourage you to read the next piece which is a selection from Washington Irving's periodical in which he establishes the Gotham as a fictionalized NY!

Economics:
Make sure that you are caught up in your Penny Candy readings.  If all works out we will have a guest speaker on Economics in a few weeks.  Look over and review the handouts you've been given, and if you can, I encourage you to read the essay posted a couple of weeks ago 'I, Pencil'.

Projects:
Recitation
Use this time wisely to work on your recitations.  Finish memorizing and work on your presentation using the tips that Mrs. Calder shared with us last week.  Please refer to the recommendations and encouragements that Mrs. Newton shared with you in class today.  I had a chance to review them and they are very helpful -- Nick your's fell out of your notebook, I'll try and email you a summary soon!
Oral Family History
I'll be making a separate post detailing this project - it's due much later, but use this time of families getting together to ask for stories.  Basically, your project is just to present to the class (various formats are acceptable) something regarding your family history from the time period of this class (1400s - 1920).

Week 3 Homework Guide

I'm pleading patience with the details of the syllabus!  I'm trying to adjust topic discussions to the actual amount of class time we have (it's never enough) and adjust pacing of things so as not to overwhelm.  Please use this as your homework guide for this week and put a copy in the front of your notebook to check off as you go.

On that note please note that we will begin cartoon projects in two weeks.  Next week we are practicing in groups.

It looks like the link for the Noel Piper mp3 file is a bit wonky in the document.  You can find that file HERE.  It is not required, but I love it. 

Week 3

Week 2 Handouts

Sorry for the tardiness of these - my three year old decided to flush and apple down the toilet when we got home.  (Ok, maybe somethings are better not to know, but suffice to say my hands are just now dry enough to touch a keyboard!)

Just in case you don't know how to use Scribd, click the button on the menu bar at the bottom of the document that looks like a cloud with an arrow pointing down.  This will allow you to open the document on your computer.  You can then save it electronically or print it out!  Pretty cool, huh?

Please print this page out and place it in your Chapter 2 Tab.  Also remember to read over these questions BEFORE you do your reading!  Read it carefully it has important information about next weeks opportunity.
Chapter 2 a City Upon a Hil - 2


This is the Economics handout I showed you in class.  Please print it out and put it in your Economics tab.  Look it over, but we will discuss it in class next week.


Economics Why Bother

A Suggested Schedule to Guide You

I thought that some of you might benefit from a suggested schedule to guide your weekly work and study:

(Begin each reading session by looking over the list of questions given for your reading before you begin.) 
Tuesday after co-op: 
 Spend at least 30 min. reading the assigned text reading (you may want to listen or look at the summary of the chapter from the Roadmap first)

Wednesday: 
Spend about 1.5 hours of text reading on Wednesday
Remember to break your reading into 25 min. chunks and to break those chunks into bites/bytes and to read for understanding checking your own understanding before moving on.  This is especially important for those of you who are using the audio version - don't go through 25 minutes of text non-stop without narrating/telling back to yourself what you have read.  If it's helpful spend 2-3 minutes looking over How To Read Your Text until you get the habit!

Thursday: 
Finish any remaining text reading (most of you will be through or nearly through)
Read your PSH assignment (there are not normally two in one week!)
Read Penny Candy
Think about upcoming Projects and work on any other assignments

Friday:
Set aside about 1-1.5 hours to compile your timeline, list of important people, record your vocabulary in your notebook and record any Current Events.
(You were remembering your index card while you read this week weren't you?)  This will be much easier if you have put a box/circle around dates and underlined names of new/important people as you read.

Monday: 
Spend about one hour to make sure that you can answer the questions from your handout (these are possible opportunity questions).  Try actually writing out an answer for one or two of them (don't pick the easy ones).  Call someone if you aren't sure how to answer on or to check your answer against someone elses.

A Note About Timelines and List of Important People

While you can find this information through your Roadmap Account, you are best served to build these pages for your notebook on your own.  A good goal is to have your text reading finished by Thursday and on Friday to build your timeline and important people lists.  You may then choose to check your work against the information on the roadmap or another student.  I just want you to be wary about not doing the work on your own - a butterfly who is freed from it's cocoon without having to wiggle and force its way out is too weak to fly!  At the end of each week I will post on the blog my own versions of my timelines and important people for you to compare your list against.  (Note this will be after I have checked your notebooks.)

Notebook Checklist

We went over our notebooks rather quickly yesterday, but I thought you all did an amazing job keeping up and following instructions.  You will get more familiar with how to use your notebooks as class goes on.  I've posted a checklist of your handouts just in case there was a mixup.  If you find yourself missing a handout let me know and I will email you a copy!

History Notebook Handouts


Here is a copy of the most current syllabus (see explanation in the above document):

Honors US History Syllabus