Happy Holidays from the 8th Grade Team

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Montgomery Bus Boycott

Below is a video of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in a televised announcement discussing the boycott. After watching the video, post a comment comparing and contrasting the real Dr. King with his portrayol by the actor Jeffrey Wright in the film Boycott for extra credit.



This is a segment from the Civil Rights Movement documentary series Eyes on the Prize:

Rosa Parks Act-it-Out

Rosa Parks

The following video is from an interview of Rosa Parks during the Montgomery Bus Boycott:



Here is a segment from an interview Rosa Parks gave later in her life:




Here is video someone took at the museum that displays the acuatl Rosa Parks bus:



This video is from one of my favorite TV shows, Histeria:

Thurgood Marshall

We have been watching the film Separate But Equal in class, telling the story of Supreme Court case Brown vs. Board of Education. One of the main characters in this film is Thurgood Marshall, who at that time was a lawyer for the NAACP. I found some intersting interview footage of the real Thurgood Marshall who, in 1967 was the first African-American appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

WWII Commemorative Stamp Sets

Recently, students processed what they have learned about World War II by creating “commemorative stamp sets” that illustrate the significance of the war. Specifically, they had to create three stamps that showed how three of the different groups of people that we studied were affected by the war, and one stamp that memorializes a specific battle or event.

Here is a sampling of what they did:

I Ain't Got No Home

In my REaD class today we finished reading the book "Zen, and the Art of Faking It" by Jordan Sonnenblick. I chose to read this book because one of the main characters and I share a love of Woody Guthrie's music. So, I thought it would be fitting on our last day of this REaD session for the class to sing one of the Woody Guthrie songs talked about in the book. Here is our rendition of "I Ain't Got No Home":

Audio Recordings of WWII Radio Broadcasts

Core A:



Core B:



Core C:



Core D:

WWII Radio Broadcasts

Student groups created World War II Radio Broadcasts in order to teach the rest of the class about how the war affected various groups of Americans including the government, consumers, women, Japanese Americans, Jewish Americans, American Servicemen, and African Americans.

Each broadcast included a promotional poster, introduction, lead story, advertisement, human interest story, and conclusion. All of the groups did a great job and the students really enjoyed listening to and learning from their classmates on the "radio".

Below are some pictures from this activity. I will post the audio recordings of the radio broadcasts soon as well.

Listening to a broadcast: Promotional poster: The audience: Inside the studio:

WWII: Edward Murrow Radio News Broadcast

World War II

Here is a newsreel-type cartoon that was created to explain the events leading up to World War II in Europe:



The War in Europe:



The War in the Pacific:



The Battle of Midway:



Iwo Jima:

The Grapes of Wrath

We are currently watching and discussing the film The Grapes of Wrath in class. Here is an original trailer for the movie that focuses on the popularity of the book at the time that it came out:

CD Covers

When we began studying the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression, we analyzed two different songs: "Charleston Party" (which reflects the spirit of the 1920's), and "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" (which reflects the hardship and despair of the 1930's). As we finished our unit of study for these decades, students created CD covers for each of the two songs, showing elements of each time period that they learned about. I put these together into slide shows to go along with each of the songs:

"Charleston Party"


"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?"

New Deal Act-it-Out

Civilian Conservation Corps

The CCC was one of Roosevelt's first New Deal programs. Here is a short video that gives a little more information about what this program did:

Civilian Conservation Corps

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Images of the Great Depression

Here are a couple of great slide shows of Depression era photos that I found. The first one focuses on the lives of migrant workers, people who left their homes in the midwest to seek work in California. The second has more pictures that show city life during that time period.

Great Depression Act-it-Out

All of the classes did a great job in preparing and performing their "Act-it-Outs" about the Great Depression. I put together a video that shows pictures from all of the classes accompanied with the audio from Core D's performance.

Apple-Pie Blues

As part of our study of the Great Depression we talked a little bit about Blues music. Students were encouraged to write a blues verse for extra credit. "Cuddlefish" Kate, however, went and wrote an entire blues song. It was pretty good, so I performed it live for Core D. Here is the video with a little bit of effect to make it look older:

Writing the Blues

Today in class we talked a little bit about the Blues and blues artists who made music during the 1920's and 1930's, and we even sang a little blues. For extra credit you can write a blues verse and submit it to me on Tuesday. I will take the ones that are good and turn them into a song.

Click on the title to this post to link to a set of "instructions" for writing the blues.

Crash!!

Here is the video I made of stock market activity "Crash!" that we did in class. It's accompanied by a great song from the 1920's.