Cold War America, Day 10 - Class Recap

Sometimes, to make art (like this couple I saw at the John Lennon Wall in Prague, Czech Republic last summer), you need a bit of help. That's what I tried to do today in class!

Hi everyone,

I hope you are as excited as I am about this newspaper assignment! The ideas for cartoons today should be pretty fun to see! The recap:

Learning Targets:
SS.HS.KN.ALT.09: I can identify how technological knowledge and innovation shapes a society, place, or region.
SS.HS.KN.ALT.17: I can explain the process of change and continuity in a society, place or region.
SS.HS.KN.ALT.23: I can describe the influences, impacts and resolutions of historical conflicts.

Soundtrack: “Killer Tofu" by The Beets. Selected because this song is from the cartoon "Doug" and we were working on political cartoons today in class. Listen to it again, here.

AGENDA 5/16/14:
News Brief
Bitstrips/Google Drawings
Blog Precap
Library

Homework: Continue to work on newspaper assignment, which is due next Thursday, May 22. Read the blog! Next news brief: Nana

Links to homework assignment and grading rubric:

Google Drive: Cold War Newspaper Final Project Assignment

Google Drive: Cold War Newspaper Final Project Grading Rubric

News Brief: Alex had the news brief today and chose this story to talk about: CNN.com - 'Unprecedented' wildfires, fierce winds lead to 'firenadoes' in California. I talked a bit about how this is a big deal in San Diego right now. Hopefully, the drought will end and they will get this under control!

Blog Precap: A "precap," because I showed this exact post, detailing how you could go about making your political cartoon!

Bitstrips/Google Drawings: I wanted to show the class a few ideas for how to do the political cartoon element that is required for your Cold War newspaper. I think you could have a lot of fun with this!

The first website I showed in class to help with creating a cartoon or visual metaphor for what is going on in the Cold War at the time you are making your newspaper is BitStrips.com/create/comic. I demonstrated a range of ways that website could be used! The only thing you need to watch out for is that in order to save, you need to sign up for the site. If you don't want to do that (it is not required for this assignment), you could either: 1) use the "Print Screen" function. If using a PC with this button, it acts like a screenshot of the entire screen, that you can paste in a Paint or Word document to edit or print. With a Mac, here is the guide to taking a screenshot:

Press the Apple key ⌘ + Shift + 4 all at the same time

You will see the cursor change to +

Drag a box around the section you want to copy and release the mouse

You will find a capture of the screen on your desktop again entitled ‘Picture _’

2) You could also just take a picture of the cartoon using your phone, and upload it to print by emailing it to yourself. This will almost certainly be low quality, though.

The second website I know of to create cartoons is the "Drawings" section of Google Drive. To get there, sign into your Google account, go to Drive, then click on "Create." This is what I am talking about:

That opens up a document that looks a lot like Paint, where you can insert images, play around with text and shapes, add lines, etc.

Basically, I want to see that you have a cartoon or visual metaphor that has some relation to what your newspaper headline and editorial is about. If you can try to make it funny (and be appropriate), that would be great! I am excited to see what you come up with! 

Library: The rest of class was spent on the computers. You definitely need to be working on this assignment over the weekend, because we only have one more day (Tuesday) of in class work before this is due, next Thursday! Please let me know how I can help, if you need it!