United States History

During the week of March 31, we are watching the movie Saving Private Ryan.   As we watch the video, be thinking about the following things—

1. What would your state of mind be like going to, arriving at, and after storming the beaches of France?
2. Was going to save Ryan worth the lives lost along the way?
3. What might have caused Tom Hanks’ character to attack the machine gun nest rather than going around it?
4. How do you think you would have made out in the living onditions that these men had to live through?

The presentations are under way and looking terrific!  We are learning lots about the interviews everyone conducted.  It should make studying World War II a lot more personal!

Below you should find pictures of the displays!

Coming in the fourth quarter of this school year–

• Interview Presentations
• Pearl Harbor
• Saving Private Ryan
• Hollocaust Story Books
• Night
• Duck and Cover
• Birth of Rock n Roll
• The Sixties
• Cuban Missile Crisis Simulation
• Civil Rights Movement
• Vietnam

On March 12, we will begin using room 102 for our presentations of the World War II interview projects.  On March 12, we will be in room 102 and for the first 15-20 minutes, you will have the opportunity to set up your display in your assigned area.  Your display should include—

• A tri-fold poster display with a title in big letters at the top

• Pictures of people, places, events mentioned in your paper (either from the Internet, magazines, etc. or from your interviewee)

• INFORMATION from your paper–this is at your discretion how to do this—you might make note cards with main ideas on them, you might write main ideas near each picture–do whatever you like to make this happen

In addition, if you have any artifacts that you were given by your interviewee to use, you can put them on the table in front of the poster. 

If you would like to invite your interviewee to see the projects, PLEASE DO!  Your interviewee is welcome to come on March 12, 13, or 14 during 7th hour.  It may be better if he/she came on the 13th or 14th purely because the displays will already be set up.

You will be graded on the effort that you put into the presentation, your ability to answer questions about your paper / interview, your dislpay, and your classmates’ reviews.

Each class member will be required to fill out a review sheet on each of the other displays in the class.  In addition, they will be required to ask 5 questions of each class member on the review sheet. 

Finally, on the 13th and on the 14th, social science classes and school administrators will be invited to walk through and look at your displays and see what you have been working on for the past 9 weeks.

Remember when you thought “I have 8 weeks to get that done.  I can put it off.”  That’s no longer the case!  Papers are due THIS WEEK!  A few people asked if I would post an example of how the wording should look for the paper.  Below you should find that.

On December 7, 1941, Japanese war planes carried out a major offensive on the United States Naval base in Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor.  According to Wikipedia, 2,388 were killed and 1,178 wounded.  Velma Clydesdale recalls hearng this news on the radio.  “We had just come out of church.  I remember wondering why the Japanese were mad at us?  We had always expected an attack from the Germans or Italians because of our support for the British.”  She went on to explain that nobody understood the attacks, which of course caused panic and fear to run rampant throughout the country.  Velma compared the feeling to the day the Twin Towers were attacked in New York.  “Everyone was glued to their radios the entire day, trying to find out what had happened.”  She said she remembered it feeling real when the pictures came out in the news papers that week and President Roosevelt told the country that we were at war.

 Your job today is to break up into the groups of 3 as assigned below.  Your job is to “sell” a campaign for the war.  During World War I, civillians were forced to cut back and ration their food supplies.  Food was needed to feed the troops overseas in the war effort.  Much of the food that was farmed was shipped off.  In order to do their part, families planted “Victory Gardens” in order to grow their own food so that they would not cut into the supplies of troops. 

With this in mind, your job is to come up with a campaign that gets people involved in the war effort by doing something simple at home.  Your group should make a poster for your effort that incluldes a picture of the effort as well as a slogan for it.  Your poster is due at the end of class.  Someone in your group should ALSO be preparing a 1 page—that means a full page, not 1/2 or 3/4 page paper that explains what your program is, how it works, and how it helps the war effort.

GROUPS

1. KA, CC, RC
2. BF, AM, MO
3. RT, KR, CM
4. RH, AE, TB

On Monday February 11, students from Mr. Clydesdale’s class participated in a short simulation of World War I trench warfare.  After red and green “bullets” (balled up sheets of paper) filled the air, students were pictured below writing letters home from the war from the safety of their trenches.

Today your job is to use a little bit of your imagination and a lot of your intelligence. 

America has been invidaded.  China has decided that it is in their best interest to come to America and coloninze it.  The massive amounts of raw materials have definitely peeked their interest.  The settlers that have come to America are attempting to inject their way of life into American life—culture, religion, etc.  Your job today is to rally the Americans together and call for action. 

• First—write a 1 page “letter to the editor” that lays out exactly why you are upset about this occurance and what people should be doing about it.
• Second—Make a poster for a rally that is being planned to put your ideas into effect.
• Third—Write one page that tells how you would feel if this happened and how you feel about the fact that America tried to do the very thing that we are imagining China doing in several areas around the globe in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.

Step1 and Step 2 are due by the end of class today. 

Step 3 is due tomorrow at the start of class.

oral-history-project.doc

Everyone has signed up for the interview project.  That is terrific.  We don’t need to scurry around at the end to find someone to interview.  Our next step is to set up the interview itself.  Here are a few tips for you when you are conducting the interview–

• Be kind and courteous
• If your interviewee starts to take the converstaion in a weird direction, hang on for a minute and see where the ride goes–sometimes this winds up being where you get your big information!
• Keep your ears open for things that don’t make sense and ask for clarrification if they do not clear up on their own.
• At the very least, bring a notebook and write down as much as you can.  If possible, bring a tape recorder or a video recorder.  This way you will not forget the stories you hear.

Attached to this post is a copy of your rubric.  You will receive a copy of this in class.  February 29 will be here before you know it.  It will be nearly impossible to get a passing grade for this 9 weeks without doing this assignment.  Make sure you do get your interview done.  The sooner you get it done the sooner you will see how much information you have.  Some people may need to arrange a second interview with their interviewee or find a new interviewee completely.  Be sure to ask Mr. Clydesdale whenever you come across something that you are unsure of!