Duck and Cover

Here is the Duck and Cover instructional video from the 1950's, telling people what to do in the case of a nuclear attack on the United States:



After watching Duck and Cover in class, students were surprised with their own atomic bomb drill. When the alarm sounded, they quickly got under their desks to protect themselves:





During the 1950's and 60's, a number of families built fallout shelters to protect them in the case of a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union. This video shows what those shelters were like:

The Butter Battle

On Wednesday, I read The Butter Battle Book by Dr. Seuss, to the classes. This book tells the story of the Yooks, who eat their bread butter-side up, and their enemy the Zooks, who eat their's butter-side down. In order to defend their way of life, each side compete's with the other building newer and more destructive weapons. As I read, students quickly realized that this story was a metaphor for the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.



Here is the TV version of The Butter Battle Book. It is not as good as the book, but may still be helpful in remembering the lesson of the story. The video is in three parts.

Part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3:

The Berlin Wall

Here is the Megastructures video we watched in class:

Understanding Communism

In order to better understand the differences between capitalism and communism (as part of our study of the Cold War), students participated in a classroom simulation in which each of them was assigned a role of either a peasant, skilled laborer, or wealthy individual in early 20th century Russia. They were required to budget how they would feed their family based on their income in a capitalist system, and then in a communist one. Afterwards, we discussed the pros and cons of each situation.



Histeria explains Communism:

Josef Stalin

Stalin speech - November 7, 1941[English subtitles]:



A little fun with Stalin (who was actually not much fun):

Cold War Tag

Gandhi

We just finished watching the film Gandhi, in order to understand how he inspired and influenced the American Civil Rights Movement. I have posted some videos that give us a little more insight into this great figure.

"One World" speech:


Rare film of Gandhi:

Civil Rights Protest March

MLK Jr. Assassination

Dr. King's last speech in Memphis, TN:


A short documentary about the assassination:


Robert Kennedy responds to Dr. King's Assassination:

March on Washington Act-it-Out

Kennedy and Johnson on Civil Rights

President John F. Kennedy's address on Civil Rights, June 11, 1963:



President Lyndon Johnson's remarks on signing the Civil Rights Act, July 2, 1964:

March on Washington

Filling the Jails in Birmingham

Here are some videos that relate to our reading of Section 31.6:


Martin Luther King Jr. comes to Birmingham:


MLK Jr.'s Letter from a Birmingham Jail:


Bull Connor:


Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing:

Act-It-Out: Greensboro Lunch Counter Sit-In

The Little Rock Nine

Greensboro Lunch Counter Sit-In

In class today we discussed the lunch counter sit-in protests of the Civil Rights Movement. Here is a great video about these events from the American Museum of History:

Happy Holidays from the 8th Grade Team

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

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

Shared via AddThis

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.

Dancing the Charleston

As part of our study of the Roaring Twenties, a number of students attempted to learn how to dance the Charleston, the most popular dance of that decade. All of the students who tried the dance did great and everybody had fun, even those who decided to simply watch.

I posted the video that I made below. Don't forget to post your comments.

The Charleston

Today in class we compared the two songs Charleston Party (which characterized the mood of the 1920's) and Brother Can You Spare a Dime (which characterized the mood of the 1930's).

The instructional videos below explain how to do the Charleston, the most popular dance of the 1920's. Learn how to do this dance and we will perform it in class later this week. Anyone who participates in the dance (no matter how good you are at it) will earn extra credit.

Sufferin' Till Suffrage

The roles that women played in America during the first World War helped lead to the adoption of the 19th Amendment. If you don't remember what that was all about, here's a video that might help:

Immigration Role Plays

Current Events Analysis Form

Due to popular demand, I have uploaded a copy of the weekly Current Event Analysis form. There is a link to it on the side-bar under "documents".

Immigration Poll

Since we are currently discussing the issue of immigration in U.S. today, I have added a poll about this issue to the side-bar. All responses are anonymous, so feel free to vote your conscience without having to explain anything. We'll discuss the final results in class next week.

Immigrant Interview with Mrs. Stan

President Obama's Speech to Students

Outsourcing Your Brain

Let me know your thoughts on this issue:

NP Social Studies on Twitter

I have set up a Twitter account (@npsocialstudies) for our class! I will use this to post updates on what is going on in class, homework assignments, and more. You will also be able to read my Tweets on the sidebar of this blog.

Go to Twitter.com/npsocialstudies to find out more.

Extra Credit - Interview Questions

To help us better understand what the experience of immigration is like, I am going to interview someone who immigrated to the United States using questions submitted by students. I will then post the interview on this blog and we will watch it in class.

I will give extra credit to students who submit questions for the interview. To participate, simply write your name, core, and question on a 3x5 index card and turn it in to me by this Friday (Sept. 4th).

Immigration Through Ellis Island

Welcome Back

To welcome you back, here are some videos about the first day of school:





And you may remember this one from the first day of Social Studies last year:



I'm very excited to be teaching 8th Grade Social Studies. While everything will be new to you this year, remember that it will also be new to me. I have never taught
8th grade, or this time-period before, so I am very excited about trying new things.

the curriculum will cover modern American history and Current Events. Here are a couple of videos that will serve as preview of what our focus will be this year:

The End

I just wanted to let everyone how much I've enjoyed this year. As I mentioned at our awards ceremony, this has been one of my favorite groups of 7th graders that I've had here at North Prairie. I hope that you have learned a lot about our country's history and that you had fun doing so.

Enjoy your summer!

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPod touch]

The Gettysburg Address

Math in Social Studies???

In order to better understand the differences between the Union and Confederacy at the start of the Civil War, we looked at the major resources for each side. Students took the amounts that each side had of each of these resources and converted them into percentage so that they could create pie-graphs showing the difference between them.

A Dividng Nation

Recently, students played the role of U.S. Senators in the first half of the
1800's. Some of them represented the North and some represented the South. They had to make compromises in order to keep the country together as issues such as slavery in the territories, the Dred Scott case, the Kansas-Nebraska act and the election of 1860 threatened to tear the country apart.

Gettysburg Address

The Lincoln-Douglass Debates

The Dred Scot Case

Frederick Douglass

Harriet Tubman

Slavery Story Quilts

We recently learned that slaves in the early 1800's used story quilts to pass on information to future generations. In order to show our knowledge of the conditions slaves lived under, and the things they did to cope with those conditions, we made our own "story quilts". The quilt squares convey information about such topics as; working conditions of slaves, living conditions of slaves, how slaves were controlled, how they resisted slavery, slave families and communities, slave churches, leisure time activities, and African American culture.

Into the West - World on Fire

This music video for the song "World on Fire" was used as a trailer for the Into the West mini-series. For extra credit, comment on this post explaining some of the ways that the film reflects the experiences of those who went west in the mid 1800's.

Life in the West

Life in the West

In order to learn about what life was like for the different groups that went West in the 1800's, students will be creating mini-dramas. The first step in this project involves each student group reading about the group of settlers they have been assigned and finding out why they moved West, the hardships they faced, and the legacies that they left.

Happy 200th Birthday Abraham Lincoln!

Manifest Destiny: A Review

**For extra credit, post a response answering this question: Which lands would you say were acquired in an honorable way and which ones weren't? Explain your answer.**


Here is the video "Elbow Room" from Schoolhouse Rocks:


Three of the major acquisitions that we discussed in class (Texas, Oregon, and the Mexican Cession) took place during the Presidency of James K. Polk. Here is a fun song about his term in office written by the band They Might Be Giants.



Lyrics:
In 1844, the Democrats were split
The three nominees for the presidential candidate
Were Martin Van Buren, a former president and an abolitionist
James Buchanan, a moderate
Louis Cass, a general and expansionist
From Nashville came a dark horse riding up
He was James K. Polk, Napoleon of the Stump

Austere, severe, he held few people dear
His oratory filled his foes with fear
The factions soon agreed
He's just the man we need
To bring about victory
Fulfill our manifest destiny
And annex the land the Mexicans command
And when the votes were cast the winner was
Mister James K. Polk, Napoleon of the Stump

In four short years he met his every goal
He seized the whole southwest from Mexico
Made sure the tarriffs fell
And made the English sell the Oregon territory
He built an independent treasury
Having done all this he sought no second term
But precious few have mourned the passing of
Mister James K. Polk, our eleventh president
Young Hickory, Napoleon of the Stump

12 Angry Men

As a follow-up to our study of the Constitution we are watching one of my favorite films; 12 Angry Men, and discussing how our rights, specifically those listed in the 5th and 6th Amendments often must compete with our human nature.

Here is a trailer for the film:


For extra credit, post a comment answering this question: In what way does the film show us the importance of the 5th and 6th Amendments, specifically when it comes to the role of "reasonable doubt"?

Springfield Trip

There is still plenty of room on the Springfield Trip for students and parents. E-mail me for details.

The 19th Amendment

Constitution Test

REMINDER: The U.S. Constitution Test will be taken on Wednesday, January 28th.

Constitutional Law Competition

How a Bill Becomes a Law

Here are two very different takes on the process by which a bill becomes a law. The first is the famous "I'm Just a Bill" from Schoolhouse Rocks. The second is a scene from the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington in which a naive new senator's secretary explains the difficulty of actually getting a bill passed.

CONSTITUTION TEST!!!!!!!

The Constitution Test will be on Wednesday, January 28th. Study Guides will go out either Monday or Tuesday of this week.

E-mail me if you have any questions.

Still Learning

I've been playing around with our new Smart software. Here is an experimental video I made with the program reviewing the Legislative Branch.

Three Branches Quiz

Take the quiz below for Extra Credit (and to help prepare for the Constitution Test). The answers will be sent to me. Don't forget to fill your name in.

The Three Branches of Government

The Preamble

the Preamble of the Constitution is a single sentence introduction to the document. It states the purpose of the new form of government with its six goals:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Here is the Schoolhouse Rocks video that teaches about the Preamble:


This video is from the Andy Griffith Show (from the 1960's). In it, the character of Barney claims that he still remembers the entire Preamble from when he learned it in grade school. Watch and see how well he really remembers it:

The Consitutional Convention - An Overview

The Declaration of Indpendence, Illustrated Children's Version

Happy Thanksgiving

President Franklin Roosevelt proclaims a National Day of Thanksgiving:


Charlie Brown Thanksgiving:

Kermit the Frog Helps Write "Yankee Doodle"

The Declaration of Indepence from the Mini-Series "John Adams"

Ben Franklin on the Continental Congress

An actor portraying Benjamin Franklin shares some of Franklin's thoughts on the Continental Congress:

No More Kings

Sit Down John

As we complete our Declaration of Independence, Illustrated Children's Version we are viewing my favorite movie: 1776. Here is one of my favorite scenes/songs from the film:

From Picking Cotton to Picking Presidents

Overlaid:


The images above and the text below were copied from the site http://strangemaps.wordpress.com.
Both these maps show the same segment of the southern United States, and demonstrate a similar pattern. Yet each describes a wholly other era and a completely different process.

The bottom map dates from 1860 (i.e. the eve of the Civil War), and indicates where cotton was produced at that time, each dot representing 2,000 bales of the stuff. Cotton was King back then, and mainly so in the densely cultivated border area between Louisiana and Mississippi, and in an equally dense band of cotton cultivation starting west of the Mississippi-Alabama line, tapering out across Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. Other cotton centres are the areas around Memphis and what appears to be Lawrenceburg in southern Tennessee.

The top map dates from 2008, and shows the results of the recent presidential election, on county level. Blue counties voted for Obama, red ones for McCain (darker hues representing larger majorities). In spite of Obama’s national victory, and barring Virginia, North Carolina and Florida, all Southern states (i.e. all states formerly belonging to the Confederacy) went for McCain. The pattern of pro-Obama counties in those southern states corresponds strikingly with the cotton-picking areas of the 1860s, especially along the Louisiana-Mississippi and Mississippi-Alabama borders (the pattern corresponds less strikingly and deviates significantly elsewhere).

The link between these two maps is not causal, but correlational, and the correlation is African-Americans. Once they were the slaves on whom the cotton economy had to rely for harvesting. Despite an outward migration towards the Northern cities, their settlement pattern now still closely corresponds to that of those days.

During the Democratic primary, many African-American voters supported Hillary Clinton, thinking it unlikely Barack Obama would win the nomination, let alone the presidency. When it became apparent that Obama had a good shot at the nomination (and thereafter at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue itself), their support for Obama became near monolithic. As it turns out, president-elect Obama won with the an overall support of 53%, but that includes over 90% of black voters (1).

And while their votes did not swing their states towards ‘their’ (2) candidate, the measure in which black residents of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina voted for Obama is remarkable in that this particular voting pattern still corresponds with settlement patterns of almost a century and a half ago.

Declaration of Independance Children's Book

Students are currently working on their "Illustrated Children's Version" of the Declaration of Independence. They have rephrased key excerpts from the document into words that an elementary school student could understand and now they are putting the words and images together to make a book.

Interactive Whiteboard Fun!

Recently we have been using our new interactive whiteboard in class. Usually this type of technology costs a few thousand dollars to outfit one classroom, however the school district did some research online and learned how to configure a similar setup using only a Wii controller and an infra-red pen-light.

The interactive whiteboard works like a touchscreen, allowing students to digitially draw, write, or annotate on anything projected by the computer. So far we have used this technology to examine and annotate historical images, to better understand the electoral process, and to model assignments.

Students shared the images they drew in response to Preview 6 ("Describe a situation in which you could have used the words: 'It was the last straw'"):

Before begininning Activity Notes 6 (repharsing excerpts from the Declaration of Independance), we did a couple of examples together as a class:

In the days before the presidential election, students made predictions about how they thought each state would vote. By simply touching the states on the screen they could turn them red or blue (just like on CNN!):

Sesame Street Does the American Revolution

Here are some classic Sesame Street videos about the American Revolution. The first is about Thomas Jefferson writing the Declaration of Independence. The second video reenacts the choosing of a national bird.

Springfield Trip

There is still lots of room for the Springfield Trip, May 22-23. You can get a registration form from the office or Mr. McCarthy.

The Declaration of Independence

A very good dramatic reading of the Declaration:



And here is the video "Fireworks" from Schoolhouse Rocks

Pop vs. Soda

I found this on one of my favorite sites: http://strangemaps.wordpress.com. You may want to click on the map to view it better.



Here is some of part of the text that accompanied the map:
"When on a hot summer’s day you buy a carbonated beverage to quench your thirst, how do you order it? Do you ask for a soda, a pop or something else? That question lay at the basis of an article in the Journal of English Linguistics (Soda or Pop?, #24, 1996) and of a map, showing the regional variation in American English of the names given to that type of drink.

The article was written by Luanne von Schneidemesser, PhD in German linguistics and philology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and senior editor of the Dictionary of American Regional English. And although there might be weightier issues in life (or even in linguistics) than the preferred terminology for a can of soft drink, there’s nothing trivial about this part of the beverage industry.

“According to an article last year in the Isthmus, Madison’s weekly newspaper, Americans drink so much of the carbonated beverages sold under such brand names as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Sprite, Mountain Dew, and 7-Up that consumption averages 43 gallons per year for every man, woman, and child in the United States,” Von Schneidemesser begins her article. “The Statistical Abstract of the United States (1994) confirms this: 44.1 gallons per person in 1992, compared to the next most consumed beverages: beer (32.7 gallons), coffee (27.8 gallons), and milk (25.3 gallons).”

-coke: this generic term for soft drinks predominates throughout the South, New Mexico, central Indiana and in a few other single counties in Nevada, Utah and Wyoming. ‘Coke’ obviously derives from Coca-Cola, the brand-name of the soft drink originally manufactured in Atlanta (which explains its use as a generic term for all soft drinks in the South).

-pop: dominates the Northwest, Great Plains and Midwest. The world ‘pop’ was introduced by Robert Southey, the British Poet Laureate (1774-1843), to whom we also owe the word ‘autobiography’, among others. In 1812, he wrote: A new manufactory of a nectar, between soda-water and ginger-beer, and called pop, because ‘pop goes the cork’ when it is drawn. Even though it was introduced by a Poet Laureate, the term ‘pop’ is considered unsophisticated by some, because it is onomatopaeic.

-soda: prevalent in the Northeast, greater Miami, the area in Missouri and Illinois surrounding St Louis and parts of northern California. ‘Soda’ derives from ‘soda-water’ (also called club soda, carbonated or sparkling water or seltzer). It’s produced by dissolving carbon dioxide gas in plain water, a procedure developed by Joseph Priestly in the latter half of the 18th century. The fizziness of soda-water caused the term ‘soda’ to be associated with later, similarly carbonated soft drinks.

-Other, lesser-used terms include ‘dope’ in the Carolinas and ‘tonic’ in and around Boston, both fading in popularity. Other generic terms for soft drinks outside the US include ‘pop’ (Canada), ‘mineral’ (Ireland), ‘soft drink’ (New Zealand and Australia). The term ‘soft drink’, finally, arose to contrast said beverages with hard (i.e. alcoholic) drinks.

2008 Election by County

The two maps below compare the national election results when viewed by county versus when viewed by state.

Sidebar Fun

Check out the new additions on the sidebar, including the class survey application. Comment to this post about the additions for extra credit!

Kermit the Frog and George Washington

Cute video but NOT based on a true story.

Election Results by Illinois County

Election Results

The Electoral College