Week-Ahead Newsletter

Week of 5/20

This week, we will begin by studying / reviewing a bit for the BLM / Me Too Quiz on Tuesday. The rest of the week, we will hae a bit of time to work on our final exam presentations! (Seniors will be on 5/30, Juniors on 6/11).

Assignments:

  • Monday: Study for tomorrow's quiz
  • Tuesday through Friday: Work on your final exam presentation

Week of 5/6/19

More climate change this week! The whole week, the only outside of class work to do is to organize and start researching your final project. See google classroom if you need a copy of the final project description.

Assignments:

All week: Begin researching and organizing your final exam presentation.

Week of 4/29/19

This week, we will be starting off with a day to start making edits to the final draft of the research paper. On Tuesday, we will be looking at the Final project for both seniors and Juniors. About mid-week, we will start to investigate race relations and black lives matter.

Please take a look at the FInal Exam project guidelines posted on google classroom.

Here is the outlook for the rest of the year:

Seniors:

4/29: All week, work on Final Draft

5/6: All week Black lives matter

5/13: All week Me too Movement (Quiz at end of both units)

5/19: Class time to work on Final Project (Presentations are on 5/30 during long block)

Juniors:

4/29: All week, work on Final Draft

5/6: All week Black lives matter

5/13: All week Me too Movement (Quiz at end of both units)

5/19: Climate Change while seniors are working

5/26: Class time to work on Final Project. Presentations are 6/11.

For assignments this week:

  • Monday through Thursday: Make edits to rough draft in order to make your final draft of your digital age research paper your absolute best! Turn in through turnitin.com only. Don't be late! (10 points off / day)
  • Friday: TBD

Week of 4/22/19

I hope that you and your family had a lovely April vacation and Easter or Passover if you celebrate either. I am excited to get back to 4th quarter this Monday. This week, we will be taking a respite from research paper land and focusing on a mini unit on the 2016 POTUS election. This will be available on google slides only.

Each day, we will have a different part of the google slide deck to work on, but the whole slide deck is to be completed by Friday, 4/26

Over the vacation, I have been grading the rough drafts of your research papers. These will be back to you by Thursday. You have one week to make the edits before the final draft is due on May 3rd.

Assignments:

  • Monday: Finish the Primary Padlet from the google slide deck
  • Tuesday: TBD. The whole slide deck is due on Friday.
  • Wednesday: TBD. The whole slide deck is due on Friday.
  • Thursday: Finish anything from the 2016 Election slide deck you did not get to. Due Friday.
  • Friday: Begin making changes to your rough draft. You can view your rough draft starting on Thursday 4/25 on Turnitin.com

Week of 4/8/19

Now that the ingredients have been bought (outline), it is time to bake the cake! (write out the rough draft. This week, we will start quarter off with some new seats on Monday. I will go over a few basics of body paragraph writing on Monday. You will then get about a period and a half (Monday and Tuesday) to do a little body paragraph writing. On Wednesday, we will teach the Intro. and conclusion paragraphs. On Friday, we will peer edit our rough drafts and then hand them in IN CLASS. This way, we can assure that it is don properly.

Assignments:

  • Monday through Thursday: Finish your rough draft due Friday.
  • Friday: Have a nice vacation!

Week of 4/1/19

April is here...and so is the first big week for our Research Paper!

On Monday, we will be getting to know the outline process. Tuesday, we will be creating a turnitin.com account in class, but then we will be doing regular class on Tuesday and Wednesday. For Thursday and Friday, we will be in the library. There will be an outline check on Monday.

Assignments:

  • Monday through Friday: Work on your outline. It will be checked on Monday 4/8.

Week of 3/25/19

Sorry we missed an update last week. Great work so far in our War on Terror unit. Congrats on Ian and Lara for winning the goldfish pretzels on their flipgrid video. This week, we will have a War on Terror vocab quiz on Tuesday. Please study the quizlet set that is up on google classroom (thanks to Kaia). On Wednesday, we will be moving on to our research paper on the digital age! You will be asked to identify one breakthrough in the digital age that has most helped society and one that has most harmed society. We will run through the topics on Wednesday.

Thursday is going to be an excellent day as we venture to the WWII museum in Natick! Can't wait to spend the day on this. Reminder that we will be doing lunch at the Natick food court, so bring some $.

Friday, we will be going through the research paper packet and guidelines for the assignment. Here is a link to the calendar for the research paper. Please add it to your own google calendar. https://calendar.google.com/calendar?cid=cHNoYXJ2YXJkLm9yZ19hYjM0dmlyc2pzNG92Z2RvMzE1czI1NDA2Z0Bncm91cC5jYWxlbmRhci5nb29nbGUuY29t

Assignments:

Monday: Study for tomorrow's W.O.T. vocab quiz

Tuesday: No HW

Wednesday: Begin selecting your topic for the digital age research paper.

Thursday: Turn in your field trip packet before the end of the day.

Friday: Find all sources for your reserach paper by Tuesday. Log them into noodletools.

Week of 3/11/19

This week, we will begin our War on Terror unit. On Monday, we will be finishing up our essay on a comparison of Reagan and Trump in terms of conservative vision.

Assignments:

  • Monday: Finish 4 paragraph essay due Tuesday.
  • Tuesday through Friday: History of Terrorism article due Friday

Week of 3/4/19

May the Fourth be with you, young Skywalker. I am currently anticipating the start of the first Civics Cup today at 1 pm. Hope to see many of you there.

This week, we will be doing a bit more work on TUESDAY, (snow day Monday), with the emersion of the celebrity candidate under Reagan and still in effect until today. Start by reading the article on celebrity status in politics. Then include 4 updates to the article as to how politicians have used their celebrity status to affect politics in the past three or four years. That is due by class on Wed. whether we have snow or not.

For the remainder of the week, we are going to do some work both in and out of class on a writing assignment comparing the emergence of Donald Trump's conservative movement compared to the Reagan Revolution. The writing assignment is asking to compare Reagan's vision of tax cuts, spending, foreign policy, and social agenda to Donald Trump's. This should be fun. The essay is due on Monday.

ASSIGNMENTS:

  • Monday and Tuesday: Post 4 updates from the celebrity politician article to the form on google classroom by class on Wed.
  • Wednesday through Friday: Work on the essay comparing Reagan's conservative vision to Donald Trump's. Due Monday.

Week of 2/25/19

Welcome back from Vacation! I hope that you and your family had a nice and relaxing break. This week, we will be continuing with our Conservative Movement unit by moving on to the "Reagan Revolution." During class, be ready to investigate where you fall on the political spectrum. Reagan brought an element of celebrity status into the White House. Later in the week, we will be making our dream celebrity politician that represents similar priorities to our own.

Assignments:

  • Monday: Write down two successes of Nixon and two failures for a discussion tomorrow.
  • Tuesday through Thursday: Read the Reagan Years chapter handed out in class.
  • Friday: Make any finishing touches to your Celebrity Candidate by Monday.

Week of 2/11/19

Here we go beginning our Confidence Crisis / Conservative Rise Unit this week. We will first begin with studying / discussing the initial successes of Nixon. ON Wednesday through Friday, we will be studying Watergate through film. On the Monday that we get back from February vacation, we will be debating how Nixon should be remembered in history: A flawed giant or a disgraced POTUS. I hope your February Vacation is restful and fun.

Assignments:

  • Monday and Tuesday: Read Watergate section of Nixon reading (given out in class) by Wednesday:
  • Wednesday and Thursday: List out two facts on the debate notes sheet. Two facts on flawed giant and two facts on disgraced POTUS.

Week of 2/4/19

This week will be pretty busy. To start off, we will have Monday to just quickly brainstorm how we should act / behave with a guest speaker via Skype as well as the rest of the time to get some research (hopefully all research) done for the essay due Friday. On Tuesday, we will have Vietnam Veteran Mr. Walsh in via Skype to answer the questions that you guys generated via google docs at the start of the unit. On Wednesday's half day, we will start to transition out of studying Vietnam in class towards the era of domestic conservatism that dominates national politics in the 1970s and 1980s.

Assignments:

  • Monday through Friday: Finish your Vietnam Memorial Essay by Friday, 2/8/19

Week of 1/28/19

This week, we will be starting to wind down the Vietnam War. Your HW will be to study the study guide that we have created on the two facts from each Vietnam War presentation. Monday, we will do Nixon's Silent Majority speech. This may last into Tuesday a bit as well. Also on tap for Tuesday is a bit of a virtual field trip to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington D.C. We will also be viewing the final episode this week from Ken Burns Vietnam War documentary. Friday, we will have our Vietnam Quiz and then some time to get working on our essay on the Vietnam Memorial. Next week, (Tuesday, 2/5) will be our Skype session with John Walsh, a Vietnam War Veteran living in California. Thank you all for submitting great questions. He hopes to answer most of them in the session.

Assignments:

  • Monday through Thursday: Study for the Vietnam War quiz on Friday.
  • Friday: Start writing out your Vietnam Memorial Essay.

Week of 1/22/19

I hope that you had a nice Martin Luther King Jr. Day! This week we will only meet Wednesday through Friday. On Wednesday, we will share our MLK Service idea. We will have the remaining Vietnam Project shared out on Wednesday and Thursday. By Friday, you want to edit the class Vietnam Unit study guide up on Google Classroom. At that point, you want to study that study guide and your notes that you took in class for a unit quiz on Friday 2/1.

Assignments:

  • Wednesday through Thursday: Add your facts to the Study Guide.
  • Friday: Begin studying for the Vietnam Quiz on Friday 2/1.

Week of 1/14/19

This week, we will be doing some music of the Vietnam War on Monday, one last class to work on the projects on Tuesday and then going right into presentations starting on Wednesday. The projects go in order, so please anticipate when you might be going. I would assume we will do about 6 presentations per day. Notice the HW for Friday is to do some act of service for MLK day. This can be as small as donating a canned good or as big as volunteering to help some where. HW due Wednesday 1/23/19

Assignments:

  • Monday through Thursday: Be ready to present your Vietnam Presentation starting on Wednesday of this week.
  • Friday: Do an act of service for MLK Day. Have your parents write a note explaining what you did.


Week of 1/7/19

Vietnam is here! We are going to start off on Monday and Tuesday by picking your presentation topic. You should also try to find a couple of sources that you may want to use. On Wednesday and Thursday, you should read the Vietnam text reading. You will have the period to read this on Wednesday during class. The date of the presentations will begin on Wednesday 1/16 through Friday 1/18.

Assignments:

  • Monday: Pick your Vietnam Topic by Wednesday.
  • Tuesday: Same
  • Wednesday: Vietnam textbook reading due Friday.
  • Thursday: Same
  • Friday: Continue researching and creating your Vietnam Oral Presentation

Week of 1/3/19

Welcome back! We are now on to the mysterious LBJ! We will have an LBJ reading due on Friday. We are basically looking at how Johnson should be remembered.

Assignments:

  • Wednesday and Thursday: LBJ Great Society reading due on Friday.

Week of 12/10/18

A fun week ahead. We will be mainly focusing on the Cuban Missile Crisis. Skits will be performed on Friday in class.

Assignments:

  • Monday: Use google advanced search to find, and then read, a decent ".edu" article on the Cuban Missile Crisis. Due Tuesday.
  • Tuesday through Thursday: Write a Cuban Missile Crisis skit in a group of 3-5 people. This will be performed on Friday in class.
  • Friday: Watch a video on the New Frontier that will be up on Google Classroom. This will be due Monday.

Week of 11/26/18

This week in Modern American History, we will be creating a project via Hyperdoc that captures the essence of the Feminist Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The details of the assignment are up on this website as well as on google classroom. We will have roughly three days this week for working on the project.

Assignments:

  • Monday-Friday: Complete your Hyperdoc assignment by Monday 12/3. Turn it in via google classroom.

Week of 11/13/18

This week we will be moving from Part 1 of our Civil Rights Unit on race towards Part 2 of our Civil Rights Unit on gender and Native American rights. We have a pretty large reading that is due on Friday and then we have to study for a Test that will be the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. A study guide for that test will be out on Friday. I hope you have a great week!

Assignments:

  • Monday: Veterans Day
  • Tuesday through Thursday: Read the Civil Rights reading part 2 due Friday
  • Friday: Start studying for the Civil Rights Test

Week of 11/5/18

Welcome back to week 2 of the Civil Rights Unit! We are going to be focusing in on vocabulary this week. We should get our projects back on Monday. For the rest of the week, we will be moving on to the early events that led to desegregation in the south. We will have short follow up assignments throughout the week. Please make sure that you are ready to put in about 15 minutes per night to reflect on the day's lessons .

Assignments:

Monday: List 2-3 ways that you could boycott something specific for a good cause. DO NOT GENERALIZE, PLEASE! Due Wed.

Week of 10/29/18

This week is a transitional week. We will be wrapping up our unit of 1950's-era Post-WWII Culture by sharing our Utopia projects on Tuesday. On Wednesday, we will pick up on our next MEGA unit on the Civil Rights Era. We will start off with racial Civil Rights, then move in to the Feminist Movement and many of the smaller groups that demanded Civil Rights in this time period. Make sure to read the introduction reading by Friday, 11/2.

Assignments:

  • Monday: Finish your Utopia project by Tuesday.
  • Tuesday through Thursday: Civil Rights intro. Reading due Friday
  • Friday:


Week of 10/22/18

Great job last week with the Levittown Writing on Friday. Several people did not take it and need to meet with me to write it after school or perhaps during one of your study periods. This week, we will explain the Utopia project a bit more on Monday, then we will be moving on down the road (pun intended) to the Interstate Act of 1956. On Tuesday, we will be looking at how Britain tried to reward itself with the NHS. All week, we will continue learning about post-war culture during class time.

Assignments:

Throughout the week, your homework every night will be to work on the Utopia Project. That will be due on Monday 10/29.

Week of 10/15/18

On Monday of this week, we will be having a "Date with Your Family." This is a lesson you will be doing on your own through google classroom. As always, you especially need earbuds and a charged macbook in class. The rest of the week will be lessons on the fly, so you have to stay tuned for HW assignments that may shift. Starting Friday, we will be on to our Utopia 70 years later project. Basically we will be contrasting the ideals of 1950s ideal society after the war compared to what you want to creat for yourselves in the 2020s.

Assignments:

  • Monday: Study postwar vocabulary by tomorrow
  • Tuesday: TBD
  • Wednesday: TBD
  • Thursday: TBD
  • Friday: Begin working on your Utopia project.

Week of 10/9/18

This week will start with a little review session on Tuesday. On Wednesday, we will have a test on The Origins of the Cold War unit. For the remainder of the week, you want to read up on the Post-War Confidence and Anxiety Readings that will be available for you as soon as you finish the Test. Basically, we are moving on to the era in which Americans made it out of WWII and seemed to want to create a sort of Utopia in celebration of making it out of the apocalypse. We will examine who was included, excluded, and how pop culture emerged. Soon, we will be asking ourselves what our own utopia looks like.

Assignments:

  • Monday: No School
  • Tuesday: Study for the test tomorrow
  • Wednesday: Read the Post-War reading handed out in class. Reading is due on Friday.
  • Thursday: Same
  • Friday: Have unit vocabulary done by Tuesday.

Week of 10/1

Believe it or not, this week we will be finishing up the Cold War unit. On Monday, we will be discussing "Monsters are Due on Maple Street" a bit more and then getting back into McCarthyism / the Red Scare. We will be creating a mini-project (HW grade only) on McCarthyism as a group of 3-4. Then on Wednesday, we are transitioning into review mode. The test on the Cold War will be on Wednesday 10/10. The difference from honors and CP on the test is that CP students may select the open response question of their choice on the day of the test. Honors students will have one of the questions randomly chosen.

Assignments:

  • Monday through Tuesday: Work on your group's McCarthyism ad
  • Wednesday through Thursday: Study for the Cold War test on 10/10.
  • Friday: Have a great long weekend!

Week of 9/24/18

Excellent start to the Cold War last week. Can you believe we already have a quizlet vocabulary list up and ready to go? That link is available on the google classroom stream if you want to use it to practice your vocabulary for the unit. Monday, we will be working on the Iron Curtain. On Tuesday, we will be moving towards the Marshall plan and reactions around the world. More on the Berlin airlift towards the end of the week. Honors students will need to create a slide in which they find their own early cold war political cartoon online. On your slide, please pick apart the Bias, message of the artist, and any exaggerations or inaccuracies in the cartoon. Edit this slideshow (shared on classroom) by Friday of this week.

Assignments:

  • Monday: Review Origins of Cold War vocab due. Have a decent understanding by Tuesday.
  • Tuesday: Read Manchester reading by Thursday.
  • Wednesday: Same.
  • Thursday-Friday: Zinn Cold War reading due Monday.

Week of 9/17/18

The videos you all posted on the Flipgrid and Google Classroom stream are outstanding. This gave me a chance to really hear out everone's opinion on the important question of how necessary the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were. Remember that the comments on all other videos are due on Wednesday.

In class, we are on to our origins of the Cold War unit. We will be doing some work on Propaganda, the Long Telegram, and concluding the week with some emphasis on vocabulary that you will need to begin studying for our eventual test on this unit.

Assignments:

  • Monday: Make comments on all other flipgrid (and google classroom stream) videos due Wed.
  • Tuesday: Make comments on all other flipgrid (and google classroom stream) videos due Wed.
  • Wedensday: Reading on Origins of Cold War due on Friday.
  • Thursday: Same
  • Friday: Vocabulary due Tuesday (check google classroom by Friday)

Week of 9/10/18

This week will be all about developing our Op-Ed video podcasts as to whether or not the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary. Monday's class will be your period to get some research / script writing done in preparation for your video. Don't forget to record your video using the flipgrid link that was posted on the google classroom assignment. Please let me know ahead of time if you have any questions. In class, we will try to hear from sources that are critical of the dropping of the bombs as well as those who feel that the dropping of the atomic bombs were necessary. Over the weekend, you want to view all videos and provide a comment of constructive feedback for each video.

Assignments:

  • Monday-Thursday: Post your video od-ed to flipgrid. This is due Friday, 9/14.
  • Friday: Watch each video and post a comment of constructive feedback by Tuesday.

Week of 9/4/18

Welcome back for week 2! I hope that you had a wonderful Labor Day weekend. This week, we will be doing a lot of content in class on the conclusion of WWII and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The assignments are listed below. If you are in honors, you have to create a slide in the shared slide deck through google classroom. Post your slide by Friday, 9/7. In class this week, we will start off finishing our lesson on the Pacific theatre of WWII on Tuesday. Then on Wednesday, we will be constructing a timeline of the major milestones in WWII that we need to remember towards the end of the war. On Thursday into Friday, we will be looking at contrasting views of the bombings. Also on Friday, we will be explaining our first project due on 9/14. This will be a video podcast that you create explaining your opinion on whether or note you feel the bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary.

Assignments:

  • Monday: No school, Labor Day
  • Tuesday: Please read the section on the Pacific War from "The Americans" by Wedensday. This can be found in the "documents" section of this webpage (sorry for the lousy scan work). A hard copy will be available in class Monday.
  • Wednesday: Take two nights to complete the contrasting viewpoints of Hiroshima and Nagasaki assignment found on google classroom. Complete both the reading and the video screening by Friday.
  • Friday: Begin researching for your podcast assignment due on Friday, 9/14.

Week of 8/29/18

Welcome to Modern American History! I am so happy to have you in my class. Many of you, I have had when you are in 8th grade. For those of you I did not teach, I look forward to getting to know you. This week, we will start by reviewing class policies. Thursday and Friday, we will get to know you from your (updated in the past 4 years?) favorite place. On Friday, we will also take a google form that asks for your interests and comfort level regarding the units we will be studying this year.

Assignments:

  • Wednesday: Please have your social contract signed by Friday. Please also finish your favorite place google map pin by Friday.
  • Thursday: Same HW
  • Friday: No HW