Fri., Sep. 30: DBQ Prep

**Update 2**: Sunday, midnight: Greece Podcast
Another podcast: Ancient Greece, from Beginning to End (Crete, Mycenae, Dorians, Classical Athens, Alexander and Hellenism--with a long pause for Socrates and Philosophy, and a few comparisons with China. You don't have to listen to it before the DBQ--it's long (45 minutes), and the textbook chapters are enough--but it will be assigned before the Unit Test, so it's your choice. And I think those of you who are thinkers will see that I tried to make it interesting (because it is). Right-click and "Save as..." here.  

**Update 1**: Sunday, 12.45 p.m.
As promised, an overview of China in a podcast. Download it here (Right Click > "Save as..."), and open it in iTunes or any player that plays m4v files. 

I did the whole Shang, Zhou, Qin, and Han. If you just want to skip to Qin and Han, scroll to about 15.45 (if you go to View > Chapters, you'll see each dynasty's chapter. Click on it to go straight to that section). Qin and Han are about 30 minutes altogether.

The audio is a bit soft in the Zhou section, but louder in Qin and Han. I didn't have time to add pictures in the Qin/Han section as much as I wanted. Maybe I'll do that later, but for now--take notes on the audio. I tell you what textbook pages I'm discussing as I go, so follow along in your textbook if you think that will help.  

 

For the DBQ Tuesday:

You won't see the question until you are in class. You'll have ten minutes to gather your thoughts, outline, make new groupings, and so forth.

Annotate DBQ at home with:

• analysis and background info (see Ashley's DBQ draft for success here, and for a pretty good "advanced road map" in her thesis)
• "insights" about the meaning and significance of the subject, and of the individual docs themselves (Brett's formative DBQ is a fine and depressingly rare example of insightful student writing)
• Good possible groupings that are general enough to include 2-3 docs, but not vague. See the "common social studies categories" in an earlier post, and remember our mini-lesson on the board about "bucketing."

FAQs:
1. "What can we bring to class?"

• the DBQ, annotated on laptop OR on print-out. Your choice.
• hand-written notes: NO FULL PARAGRAPHS: short bullet points only of 2/3 of one line maximum. If it looks like a paragraph, I WILL CONFISCATE IT!!! (Yes, I'm screaming and using !!!. That's how serious this is.) 
• the Formative Greek DBQ rubric with my red-ink feedback (to remind you what to improve over last time) 

2. "Can we write on our laptops?"
--No. Hand-written. WRITE LARGE AND CLEARLY. DOUBLE-SPACE. LEAVE MARGINS.

3. "What other docs will we have?"
--DBQ checklist
--Rubric (new: simpler, clearer, cleaner)

Wed., 9-28: Institutions and Philosophy + Ancient Chinese Empires

Two excellent DBQ drafts from students (exemplar 1, exemplar 2). Look at them, "grade them" according to the Rubric, and compare them with your own to see how to improve.

In Class:
1. Matrix seminar discussion.
a. What's it's message?
b. What institutions does Morpheus mention?
c. What symbolism did you notice?
d. What connections to Plato's "Cave" did you find?
e. Compare and contrast Greek and Chinese philosophy. What are their major differences?

2. DBQ mini-lesson: Effective "grouping" (a.k.a. "bucketing").

3. Athens Focus: The Peloponnesian War.

3. Read World History: Patterns of Interaction (blue) textbook on Qin (pp. 104-109) and Han Dynasties (pp. 200-207) as background info for Tuesday's DBQ.

Focus especially on Qin and Han government:

• how it worked, 
• changes and continuities from Qin to Han
• what theory--and what responsibilities--justified the ruler's right to rule

Monday, 9/26: Writing Workshop 2 + Greek Philosophy

Announcements
1. See updated HW at bottom.

Why 9/11? Is America an empire? 

Watch adults debate that here. Our first Summative Seminar (the week after the DBQ) will include the question, "Is America an empire?" So this might give you good evidence to discuss:



In Class:
A. Writing Workshop 
1. Hand-Outs:

1. Cause/Effect Essay Drafts--look at feedback, clarify the changes you need to make for final revision, hand back to me. I'll return them later for you to revise and submit for Summative Grade.
2. Revised Essay/DBQ Rubric
3. "Formal Academic Essay Don'ts"

2. Collect Greece DBQ drafts.
--I'll check only these things:

• Complete Thesis Sentence + Road Map 
• Body Paragraphs (I'll only check one):
• Full Topic Sentence at beginning of paragraph
• Proper Document inclusion and citation
• Transitions within and between paragraphs

 3. Mini-Lesson: Writing Introductions and Conclusions (Powerpoint here)

B. Greek Philosophy:

Mini-Seminar: Practice making contributions before we have a Seminar Test

1. The Babylonians were not harsh to all the societies they conquered. They were very harsh to the Hebrews in Israel, though. What do you think made the Babylonians decide to destroy the Jewish Temple and deport the leading Jews to Babylon?

2. What was the difference between the Jews, who the Babylonians punished, and the other cultures that they tolerated?

3. What do you know about Jesus? What was his religion? Who crucified him? Why was he killed?

4. What do you know about Socrates? 

5. What do Socrates and Jesus have in common? Why did Confucius' life escape this?

What is philosophy, and why is it dangerous to practice it?

Watch the three videos below:



Confused? See if this clears things up:



HW:
1. Watch this podcast (download it) on Confucianism and Taoism. Since your DBQ will include China, going a bit deeper into these two philosophies will help. Pay attention to specific quotes and main ideas, because they may show up on tests.

2. Watch this clip from The Matrix, and be prepared to discuss how it relates to Plato's Allegory of the Cave:

Thu, Sep. 22: DBQ Workshop

In Class:

A. Writing Workshop: DBQ

1. Compare "bucket" patterns in fours, present which ones you thought best (best label, most documents supporting it).
2. Use this DBQ checklist to learn what an "A" looks like for

• Thesis Sentences
• Topic Sentences
• Incorporating Documents as evidence
• Analysis and insight

Homework:  Greece DBQ


Download and do "Greek contributions to Western civilization" DBQ. Use the Checklist linked above. In your essay, only include:

1. A thesis sentence + road map (original if you're good, cliche if you're average)
2. Topic sentence 
3. Three body paragraphs:
4. 2-3 documents per body paragraph
5. Strongest argument in first body paragraph, weaker ones next.

Print out and bring to class.

FAQs:
1. "Do we have to answer the questions under each document?"
--No. But you should be able to in your head, and on future tests.

2. "What are the common "buckets" (grouping categories) for history essays?"
These are the basic ones, though others are possible too:

• political
• economic
• social
• cultural
• religious
• geographic 

Week 6: Tuesday, Sep. 20: Philosophies of China

Announcements:

I spent much of the weekend trying to put out fires because of technology, and that consumed time and caused bumps--including unclear HW instructions. So here's the policy: if my instructions are unclear--I mean obviously unclear, not little nit-picky things--then trust me to be reasonable and not blame you. Choose the easier choice: in this case, between "do the worksheets" and "don't do the worksheets," choose the second one. I'll understand and won't penalize you.

But do do the easier choice faithfully--in this case, the readings. (And you should always annotate, at least lightly, when you read. It helps you find the stuff later that you found most important the first time you read. Annotating--light annotating--should be a habit for this class.)


Two Changes:

1. We've Moved: The Moodle server is obviously unreliable. That's not Moodle's fault--it's a good software. It's the fault of the free server. So we're moving to this Blogger site, which is run by Google. Google never goes down. So we can trust that we won't have "site down" problems from now on.
2. File-Sharing Won't Surprise Us Anymore: SAS encouraged Dropbox to share files. Our class discovered that Dropbox has a data limit for file sharing. So I'll be using SugarSync instead of Dropbox now to share files. Nothing will change for you. You'll still just be clicking and downloading links. We just won't be surprised by "service suspended" bombshells anymore.
3. Just to inform you: I'm still working on my Research Methods class for my Master's Degree. My research proposal paper is due to my professor today (and I still have to do the research by reading a lot of books and designing a research experiment, and then carrying it out, so I'm not saying "It's over."). I should have more time to devote to teaching instead of homework starting tomorrow.

Click the link below ("Read more") to see today's lesson notes: