The Branches of Government explained:

http://www.usconstitution.net/constquick.html http://courts.michigan.gov/lc-gallery/class_material/3_branches/3-branches.pdf
http://courts.michigan.gov/lc-gallery/class_material/3_branches/fed_state_local_levels.pdf
http://courts.michigan.gov/lc-gallery/class_material/3_branches/Which_branch_is_it.pdf

These are good links that break things down into simple bites!

Homework for the weekend....

Read the handout on the comparison between the Constitution and the Articles of Confederation. Annotate (mark up and take notes) the copy and be ready to share on Monday.

Revise and type your Revolutionary War essay - attach all earlier drafts due Monday.

Read 20 pages in your lit. circle books and take notes in your reader's sourcebook on anything you notice with author's craft (http://wps.ablongman.com/wps/media/objects/133/136299/elements.pdf )

http://content.scholastic.com/content/collateral_resources/pdf/r/reading_bestpractices_comprehension_rulesofnoticechart.pdf

one more question

I also have one more question. How do you do the following question:Generate a list of 10 vocabulary words with full definitions and original sentences that can be associated with your person.

Blog Project

Ms.Sackstein,
What do you mean when u ask "how does this person live"??? Also, wat do you mean when you ask "If this person had opposition, who were the person’s foes?"

Literature Circles

Author's craft - what the author does to creat any of many different literary effects in their writing. It's he choices that the author makes...

For instance, what kind of narration has the author decided to use to tell the story?

Please read 20 pages from your lit. circle books over the weekend and try to notice some things that the author does in your novel.

What kinds of details does he/she use to talk about characters?
Do they show and not tell?

Constitution projects

Here is the website Ms. B was talking today:

http://constitution.teachingmatters.org/

login: humanities7
password: humanities7

Please begin to review the issues...

Which issue is most interesting to you and why?

Revolutionary War Essays

The next typed and revised draft is due on Monday, 3/3.

You should attach all prior drafts as well as notes and peer revision sheets to the new draft. Your most recent draft should appear on top, you first work should appear on the bottom.

702 - Essay drafts

Those folks in 702 who had the opportunity to write essays in class today... please don't forget to email me those drafts as stated in class earlier.



Those students in 731 who haven't yet turned in drafts that were due on Monday about causes of the revolutionary war... please get them in as soon as possible.



Thanks

2nd trimester musings

Now that we are finishing the second trimester, and are coming into the home stretch a few encouraging words and observations...

We are more than half way done with the school year and this last trimester is your opportunity to show us all what you know. Make a concerted effort to get work in on time. Be consciencious. If you don't understand something, reach out to one of us so we can help. DO NOT wait for the last minute to do things, so that difficulties arise, you have time to address them.

Each and every student has the ability to achieve success in our class... it just takes good organization and study skills and a willingness to try.

If you are receiving an N, don't forget to print out a copy of your missing work from teacherease so that you can continue to make it up.

No more excuses... take responsibility for your work and take pride in it. Come to class on time with your sourcebooks and other needed materials. Don't leave your materials in class and then use that as an excuse for not being able to do work. Visit the blog every day, so you can see if anything new has been posted.

Very importantly make sure you have pulled your 3 pieces for your portfolio from the second trimester and have written your reflections so that we can get them to your advisors by Friday. Even though parent/teacher conferences aren't until April now, you still need to have finished your pulls for your second trimester work.

Blog projects due Friday 2/29

The Blog projects are due on Friday. You will turn nothing in as far as paper is concerned. You must invite me to your blog so that I can comment on what you have done. Make sure I have access to post...

Make sure your name is somewhere on the blog... so you can get credit.

Make sure there is a bibliography (don't worry about formatting... but all the information should be there)

Make sure there is a statement of process that tells me HOW you did the project... where did you get info... what difficulties did you have...

Make sure you have a REFLECTION which talks about what you learned... how well you think you did and why.... what you would do differently if you could.... any unanswered questions you have about your person after doing the research...

You will get your grade on your blog. The grade will count toward the 3rd trimester... it is your first official grade of the 3rd trimester.

more info about the n

After talking to Mrs. Poulos, I just wanted to add another important factor to the N process...
I
f you are missing a lot of work in the 2nd trimester, you are still responsible for making up the work... you are NOT exempt from it. The baggage gets carried with you.

So if you are missing a project, it will need to be made up. If you are missing homework, it will need to be made up.

Getting an "N" instead of an "F" or "D"

Call it a second chance. If you are a student who is currently scoring a D or failing grade, here is your chance to prove that you know what you need to know...



You will receive a grade of "N" or needs improvement for the 2nd trimester and then you have a clean slate for the 3rd trimester. Prove that you can meet or exceed the standards in the 3rd trimester and the grade you achieve by the end will then replace your "N".



I have complete faith that those people who either elected to take the N or have been given it out of necessity, will take this opportunity to really start doing the work that is expected of them. Remember, do the best you can do and that is all I can ask... comparing yourself to others is futile.

Good luck.

More reminders and some changes

Due to the impending need for grades to be done as the end of the trimester is Friday, the blog projects will count toward the 3rd trimester.

I will only be able to accept late work today, Tuesday, 2/26. Moving forward late work will not be accepted for grades beyond 3 days, however, you can redo assignments and/or continue to work on assignments for your portfolio.

Historical Fiction assignment

Historical Fiction Short Story – For Publication

Objective: In an effort to combine the work you are doing in your literature circles, the history we learn about in class and ELA writing standards, your next creative assignment is going to be to write a historical fiction short story.

Using the details of 18th century America, you will create an original piece of fiction of at least 3 pages typed and double-spaced and no more than 5 pages. It will contain a plot line using the plot structure discussed in class, development of at least 2 major characters (protagonist and antagonist), sensory details, historically accurate information for setting, and suspense.

Each student will tell his/her story in the third person and in the present tense. Each person will employ different literary devices. Focusing on tone and voice to engage the reader in the story, each author will develop a piece which will be published in a classroom anthology.

We will be breaking this assignment up and will be doing a lot of writing in class as well as at home.

1. Using your knowledge of this time period and the people you have researched, you will
2. First brainstorm and free write to get your creative juices flowing.
   
3. We will then draft together.
4. Once each student has a draft, we will begin the real work of revision. Breaking the writing process down into sections and development, each student will be paired with a peer partner for the revision process. You will also be conferencing with one of the teachers throughout.
5. Each student will have at least 3 drafts by the end of this process, but more likely several more than that. Each draft should be saved and changes will be clearly marked.
6. Each final draft will be turned in with all subsequent drafts and revisions including notes, brainstorms and peer revision sheets.
7. Please make sure to have this work in class every day.
   
   ****Specific due dates will be presented as we go through the process.****
   
   A rubric will be provided up front, so you know what we will be looking for.

Welcome back... Reminders

The trimester ends on Friday (2/29)

Your blog projects are due on Friday. Please send me an invitation if you haven't already.

You can send me an invitation by going into your dashboard, going to the settings tab and then clicking on permissions. Toward the middle of the page, you will see an "add author" box. Put my email - mssackstein@yahoo.com in there and invite me.

We don't have to wear Gym uniform Monday

Since it's Jeans Day Monday Mr. Maroney told me we don't have to wear our gym uniforms.

Just letting you know. =) ♥

How to read old documents.... this is a great site

http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/howto.html

about christina's website

The website: http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/articles/ushistory/revolutionarywartimeline.htm
it is a good website, but it may not have ALL of the information that you will need. I know this because I used it for the timeline.

ok, just letting you know.
Gabby

this website might help people

http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/related/nicholas.htm

This link will help you with finding one fact for the timeline of the Revolutionary War

Here's a really,really good website I used to take notes for our hw tonight. Go to: http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/articles/ushistory/revolutionarywartimeline.htm
It will help you get info faster and wayyy easier!!

~christina park

question about tonights homework

Sorry to ask but for the time line to we actually have to make a time line?

Literature Circles over break

I'd like each group to read for their lit circles over break. I'd like you to read 20 pages or so (depending on where your chapter breaks are), so that when we return from break, you are ready to start discussing your book again.

You should record the pages your read and the days that your read them in your Reader's sourcebook (also in the table of contents)

• You should summarize your reading.
• You should write down any questions you have about the text.
• You should write down at least one thing that you could visualize.
• You should write down what you notice the author doing as far using history to help tell the story.

Your next major creative assignment will be to write a historical fiction short story of your own creation set during the time in history we are working on... 1700-1800. You will be using the facts that we discuss in class as well as the details you learn from your reading books to help with the details in your story.

Take good notes... words that are used... the ways characters are described. These notes will help you later.

Tonight's homework

Please make sure to complete the timeline assignment from class. To make the assignment a little less work, you can get only one fact about each event. This should take the pressure off.

The assignment is due tomorrow and it will be collected. Please make sure to bring your lit circle books 702 with your reader's sourcebook as well as writer's sourcebooks. It wouldn't be a bad idea to bring independent reading books as well.

Tomorrow in class we will be working on DBQ essays and interpreting documents. We will be concluding our discussion of the Revolutionary War.

You will also have time to complete your portfolio pulls with your reflections if you haven't already. I'd like to tie up many loose ends before we go out on break.

The first issue of the Blazer is here

What did you think of the first issue? Be specific... which articles did you like? What would you like to see in the next issue?

Tonight's homework

Write an informative summary about your American Revolution personality for use in class tomorrow.

Make sure it appears in your Writer's Sourcebook.

Who is John Adams?

There are 2 posts now that I can't give anyone credit for as they haven't been signed by a member of the class. John Adams, please identify yourself.

Thanks,
Ms. Sackstein

Help

I was absent today, can anyone tell me what we did in all the classes and the homeworks.

Tonight's homework - Declaration of Independence

How do the revisions to the Declaration of Independence affect the meaning of the original document? Be specific...

For instance, pull out one or two of the revisions and discuss how they change the meaning...

"majesty" was changed to "king of Great Britain." The word majesty implies something royal and respected. The American colonists don't believe that the king is majestic. Instead, John Adams wanted the text to read King of Great Britain which is who he is without any fanfare. They didn't want to disrespect his title, but they also didn't want him to be treated with any more respect than they felt he deserved.

Extra Credit Assignments due upon return to school

Due on Feb. 27 (Wed.) So they count toward the second trimester. This only goes for people who have cleared their ideas with me.

Vacation assignment... for those of you who won't make it the whole week or would prefer to do it early...

Written booktalk #3 -
Make sure to include all of the following:

• title
• author
• information about the author
• short summary (short - you don't need to tell me the plot line of the entire novel)
• connections (text to self, text to text, or text to world)
• recommendation (who would you recommend this book to and WHY... be specific. If you didn't like it, be specific too)

You will also type and revise your essays (started in class on Thursday and Friday)

Reminder - Blog projects are due Friday, Feb. 29th

Please make a conference with me to go over your posts, if you haven't already. I am available before school starts and sometimes during advisory if we can work something out with your advisor.

Tonight's homework - post to this post ...

How is propaganda used in today's society? Where is it used? Give an example.

*continue to bring sourcebooks to class

Tonight's homework

Read your paragraph of "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine that was assigned in class. Look up all words you don't know.

http://www.ushistory.org/paine/commonsense/

Response to posts

Good morning everyone. I think that some of you had some very interesting things to say. I appreciate your thoughts and ideas when it comes to any of these questions. What I'd like to see in your work moving forward is real thought and depth in your answers.

I think that the American Revolution parallels wars of today becuase it seems like a lot of countries just want the opportunity to rule themselves. Currently we occupy Iraq and we are trying "help" them build a democracy. We went to war with them because we believed they could hurt us with weapons and now we are still there and the reasons seem less clear. With the American Revolution, from beginning to the end the colonists knew why they were fighting and they knew the consequences of what would happen if they lost and were committed of treason. They had only their lives and their want for freedom to help them win.

Also, I agreed with what Jonathan said about the Revolution, it wasn't about fear, but about a purpose or cause. You can't fear when you go to war, you have to believe deeply in the cause that is worth fighting for. Remember when we talked about sacrefices?

Anyway, I hope this shows you guys how you could be blogging... reference each other... not just by name, but also by what you say... elaborate on the things each of you are saying... use this as a place for discussion.

What is the Same with Todays war and the Revolutionary War

The one thing that these wars got in common is what they want to do with their countries. Before there is any world war , the Americans stop paying their taxes for the goods that they produce during the American Revolution and the people who were fighting are fighting for their own cause. Many people fought in both wars but in different time to protect their country and to keep freedom.




From ,
Anthony Drew

war is justified when the is a rock solid piece of evidence that says y\they are bad

Portfolio pulling and reflections

We will be working on portfolio pulling over the next week and a half...

You will have to select 3 pieces:

• 1 for improvement
• 1 for exemplary work
• 1 lower stakes, informal piece

You will have to reflect on each selection.... why did you choose the piece? What standards are being addressed? How does this piece reflect your understanding of those standards?

Sourcebook checks -

Please bring both sourcebooks (readers and writers) to class on Wed., Thurs. and Fri. or checks...

I will be checking just from this trimester which started the first week in December. It starts with colonization.

Go through your notebooks tonight and mark where this trimester started... draw a line in your table of contents and paper clip first trimester work.

If you started a new notebook, please make sure it is in class on the above days.

Errors

I think the easiest errors to realize are capitals and mispelling in a paragraph. I think the hardest to recongnize are the ones where a part of the paragraph have an improper use of grammar.

Short Notice and Test Concerns

I'm really sorry that this came late.


I honestly have no test concerns because, everyone that has been going to public school for the
past three years has taken th test three times already.

Homework for tonight

How does our own fight for freedom parallel events happening in today’s society? - Post your answers to this post.

Sample reflection - analysis... what do you notice about the assertions made?

Grammar B: Un-grammar breaking all the rules

Grammar. Ugh. I myself have never been a fan of teaching or learning grammar and while I was in high school I never learned grammar in my English classes. I learned it in French class and later had my comma use ripped to shreds in freshmen comp class at the University of Arizona. While reading Romano’s Writing with Passion: Life stories, multiple genres, I found myself intrigued by Romano’s discussion of “Grammar B.” Seeing as I have always been puzzled by grammar and I find it extremely difficult to teach grammar, “Grammar B” sounded like a fascinating solution. “Grammar B breaks the rules of standard written English as a means of communicating powerfully. And it does this breaking, altering, and smashing with panache”(Romano 75).

I really enjoyed that Grammar B gave the students so much freedom to express themselves outside of what can be a very stifling convention. I think that it would give students the ability to find their voice and meaningfully break the rules. I always try to teach my students to use repetition to prove their points and “in Grammar B, repetition takes on even more importance. Grammar B, Weathers tells us, uses repetition ‘to achieve a kind of momentum in composition’ (1980, 28)” (Romano 79). I think this is true; repetition builds power and easy structure for students to follow.

Sentence fragments and labyrinthine sentences I believe to be troublesome for low functioning students like the ones I teach. As discussed earlier, knowing convention first is paramount to being able to manipulate these alternative methods. I think that sentence fragments are useful for creating or breaking rhythm in a piece of writing when a student is conscious that he/she is doing it. However, when a student writes using sentence fragments naturally and doesn’t understand why it isn’t a complete sentence, then encouraging the use of fragments is not going to help them grow as writers at this point in their careers. Although on the opposite end of the spectrum as Romano states, “At the opposite end of the sentence-length continuum from the fragment is the labyrinthine sentence-not the lawless, poorly punctuated run-on sentence, but a finely crafted aggregation of words that weaves in and out, accruing information, riding rhythms of parallel sentence structure, tacking on phrases, clauses, and grammatical absolutes to form a sinuous sentence perfectly suited for some things we might describe or discuss”(Romano 81). I agree again, but my students more often then not write those loose run-on sentences that he discusses above. I feel that teaching lower functioning students these skills is extremely optimistic and difficult.

One type of writing that Romano mentions however, that I think could be of use to my students is the list writing. I find that my students can articulate their thoughts well in lists, even meaningful lists. “A list allows a writer quickly to confront readers with abundant detail, enabling them to see an untainted, holistic picture. In list making, syntax and logical connections of language are not important. Simple, unexplained, occasionally poetic, the list usually appears in a column, one item per line, much like a grocery list” (Romano 87). This is within my students’ attention span. I think that I can teach my students to make meaningful lists that can later lead to meaningful prose. We were working on a picture book in my freshmen class for last marking period and part of that assignment was to create lists that help them explain their high school experience. It was a success. The students created lists about: their schedules, their preparation and their understanding of new subject matter. It is amazing to see the power of such short work that they were able to grasp immediately.

I like the ideas about double voice and the multi-genre research, but I’m unsure of how practical this would be in my school. I think that I could teach a simplified version of both using some real world models of movies and other authors much like Romano did with Billy the Kid. My students do like using mentor pieces, so if I had a strong model to show them and I broke down the project into an entire term, I do believe that my students could create a less complicated version of what his seniors came up with. I was extremely impressed with the John Lennon project and found myself thinking that it would be amazing to read a class full of different interpretations of research as opposed to laboring over boring conventional research papers that are predominantly plagiarized. All things considered, I found Romano’s text to be somewhat liberated and hopeful for the future. I would be eager to try some of his techniques with more advanced writers and even more interested to see what kinds of questions and writings my students would grapple with.

Work Cited
Romano, Tom. Writing with Passion: Life stories, multiple genres. Portsmith, New Hampshire: Boynton/Cook Heinemann, 1995.

Thoughts about war...

We had a heated discussion in both classes today over the "winners" and "losers" of war. Many of you took the philosophical view that in war there can be no winners. We also talked about that the winner often is decided by the reason the war was fought....

The American Revolution was fought for independence and clearly by the time it ended, America, our country was "free" from the English rule.

Many of you had some really good points today about this topic and I'd like to really congratulate each of you for participating in an excellent discussion. You listened to each other and responded to each other with thoughtful and intelligent ideas.

I hope we can have some more of this in the classes to come.

Tonight's homework

Please answer the following question in your writer's sourcebook -

What map skills do you still feel you need to work on?

We started thinking about how far certain battles were from each other...

New York to Boston was about 200 miles as per the scale on the map. Many of the battles took place in our area, but as far North as Quebec and as far south as North Carolina.

You were able to look at the legend and scale and figure out directions today. I challenge you all to start looking at atlases and practice reading the maps.

I was absent

Can you guys tell me what we did today? Did we have homework?

The First Continental Congress and the beginning of the war

Read more about the First Continental Congress and the beginning of the Revolutionary War:
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h650.html
http://www.kidport.com/RefLib/UsaHistory/AmericanRevolution/FirstCongress.htm
http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/related/congress.htm

The shot heard around the world...
http://www.earlyamerica.com/shot_heard.htm

http://www.kidport.com/RefLib/UsaHistory/AmericanRevolution/LexingtonBattle.htm - Lexington and Concord

http://library.thinkquest.org/TQ0312848/boflandc.htm Lexington and Concord

http://poetry.eserver.org/paul-revere.html - Paul Revere's Ride by Longfellow

http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1261.html

Weekend work

Make sure you continue work on your blog assignments for the revolutionary war people this weekend. Please bring in a few of your blog post and/or research on Monday. We are going to start doing peer revision and conferencing on your work. You can just print your posts.