Recitation RePost

When you are preparing - don't forget the tips that you have received from Mrs. Calder and Mrs. Newton and as a reminder HERE is a link I gave you long, long ago that has presentation tips.  If you didn't check it out then, take the time to check it out today.  Remember your recitation is more than just memorization - it is also 'presentation'.  See you tomorrow!

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:

Recitation Project

Dear students,

I was very sorry to not be with you yesterday and will try and figure out how we will review the last half of Chapter 5 together.  I wanted to speak to you now however about your recitation projects - I wanted to use yesterday to go over the requirements and see how you are doing.  Because of my abscence and because of the density of Chapter 6 and the nearness of Thanksgiving Break I have decided to push back this deadline until after Thanksgiving.  We have the time and there is no reason to rush.  I want to give you ample time not only for the memorization, but also some time to practice the presentation of your pieces.  I want this to be something that you have the time to do well and not just something to check of a list.

I will be speaking with you each privately in the next couple of weeks to see how things are going.  I would like an official record of what pieces each of you have chosen.  Could you respond to this post with a comment telling me the name and authorship of the piece you have chosen?

The assignment details for Chapter 6 are forthcoming momentarily, but you should have already looked the chapter over and at least read the summary by now!

Thanks,

Mrs. Amber

Recitation Project Requirements

You should be ready for your recitation on November 1st.  (The original due date was the 25th of October, but since we now have fewer students I can allow some extra time for this assignment.)

#1  Your piece should be pre-approved by me to make sure it fits the requirements
#2  Your must memorize your piece (no helps or notes)
#3  Your piece should be no shorter than 1 minute to recite
#4  Your piece must be related to this class in some fashion - either written by an author who lived during the time period of our book, or a speech given or a document written during this time period, or have some other connection.
#5  You must introduce your piece (tell about it and where it came from and what the connection to US History is if it has one).
#6  It is ok to recite only a portion of a long piece - just be mindful and thoughtful in your editing and make sure you inform us that it is edited.
#7  It is ok to perform a piece of music if anyone is so inclined!

For example, in your text when Bennett tells of Nathaniel Hale's execution he refers to Hale's speech and his reference to a quote from Cicero (a Roman), "Give me liberty, or give me death."  You could take this event and do a couple of things.  One, you could look up the rest of Hale's speech and recite it, or you could look up the rest of Cicero's speech fore recitation since it's obvious that Hale knew Cicero.  It is ok to memorize Cicero even though he's Roman, because of the Hale connection - you just have to tell us what that connection is.  Make sense?

Some Recitation Helps

Many of you have asked for some help in picking your recitation pieces.  I thought I would start first with some inspirational help - a scene from one of my favorite movies, The Dead Poets Society starring Robin Williams:

I know that some of you are choosing a poem for your piece, and this movie is full of wonderful recitations by Williams and his students.  It is rated PG, but I think that is a  very liberal rating not only because of some sexual references but also because of  the circumstances surrounding the death of one of the students.  Please speak with  your parents before watching this film. 

If your recitation interests tend toward more of a literary interest - poetry or fiction - I have a website that you may find very helpful.  It's a page put together by a literature professor at Washington State University.  You can find a list of American Authors and a list of American Literary movments, but most helpful to you may be the timeline.  That way you can pinpoint poets or authors within a particular time period that may be of interest to you (or check to make sure that your author/poet wrote in the timeperiod of this first section of our class).  Take a look at it HERE and you may want to bookmark it - it could be helpful in your English/Lit classes, too!  Your recitation doesn't have to be a poem - it can also be a selection from a piece of fiction!

If your interests tend more toward the political or military interests you may be most interested in reciting a speech (or portion of a speech).  I have found two helpful resources (in addition to your text):

Biblical Patriot's Important and Historical Speeches (these are only of American Interest, but be careful of the dates!)

Wikipedia's List of Speeches (this is a very comprehensive list, so not all of them are appropriate for this assignment)

Your text is actually a good resourece, too.  It is full of quotes of speeches, famous documents, and poems which are all appropriate for this assignment.  They are easy to spot because they are either indented to set them apart from the rest of the text or they are in italics.  Also check those footnotes for more ideas!

I also found a very good resource for helping your with the presentation portion of the assignment.  It's a website called Poetry Out Loud.  Look at their tip page HERE.  Take a few minutes to listen to listen to some of the student recitation videos.  Poetry Out Loud is actually a national competition that encourages youth in memorizing and reciting poetry!

Another post this afternoon will clearly and simply lay out the requirements for this assignment... 

Some Fun Constitutional Resources

You may think it's silly, but one of the best resources I have come across for the writing of the Constitution is a children's picture book by Jean Fritz called, "Shhh!  We're Writing the Constitution"

 If you have a copy of this book or can get it from the library I suggest you do so!  If you can't get a copy, you can watch this version from School Tube, but is not the book in it's entirety - it leaves out quite a bit.  This isn't bad, but I recommend the book above just the video!  

You guys may be too young to know about School House Rocks, but here is a short clip of the Preamble to the Constitution (which by the way is an option for your recitation):

If you do choose to memorize the Preamble, though --- try to do a better job than Barney!!