Hello!
Gosh, with break in the mix it's been awhile now since I made a new post!
Happy belated Halloween!
Here's what's been going on in Social Studies so far this quarter:
7th Grade:
We have been learning about World War 1/The Great War; right now we are still learning about the causes of the war, which were Imperialism, Nationalism, Militarism, and Alliances. We've been writing journal entries each day about each one of the four main causes in turn, thinking about the advantages and disadvantages of each attitude/policy (e.g. What are some positive outcomes of "nationalism"? Negative outcomes?) Students have been working on a listen-and-draw activity where I read small sections of the textbook while they draw what they hear; then they have time to verbally share with each other what they have drawn, and to write captions describing each little sketch. Students have also introduced themselves to the topic by exploring the PBS website, The Great War, and completing some graphic organizers.
Along with this, students are now testing over countries in Eastern Europe; because of the larger number of countries in this region, and the students' general unfamiliarity with them, I have broken the region into two, eleven-point quizzes.
We've also been listening to some instrumental interpretations of WW1, particularly the soundtrack to the documentary, The Great War, and the soundtrack to the Minnesota-based original stage play, All Is Calm.
Later this week and next week we'll start looking at some digital archives of sheet music (primary source documents) from the WW1 era, as well as some WW1 poetry.
8th Grade:
We started off the quarter last week by learning some of the basics of capitalism and communism; students watched online tutorials from Khan Academy and took some basic notes about the major tenants of each paradigm. This will come in handy as we continue to read through the novel, Animal Farm, which we began together in class yesterday. Students also created graphics to explain the major tenants and then used each other's drawings to play a game of Charades acting out the same themes.
Today in class 8th graders did a truly FABULOUS and impressive job analyzing two well-known political cartoons depicting European imperialism in Africa and China. I wish you all could have witnessed the high-level of observations, analysis, and discussion that my students created in class! I was so pleased.
For the next few weeks we'll be studying the decline of European imperialism, looking especially at the British Empire and independence movements in India (i.e. Gandhi) and South Africa (i.e. Nelson Mandela). Students will become familiar with terms such as The Salt March, and Apartheid.
Many 7th & 8th grade students took advantage of the extra credit reading opportunity, and both grade levels have had a few class periods of work time on their independent country research projects.
Hope to see you at Family Night this Thursday!
Thanks,
Ms. Hood
