Wednesday, February 5, 2020

The American Dream: Revisited, Day 4 - Class Recap


Serena Williams in Arthur Ashe Stadium at the US Open tennis tournament in New York City (see today's Black History Month fact). Photo taken in 2011.

Hi everyone,

It was a short Wednesday today, as there was Community for forecasting for next year. Here's what happened today in class:

Learning Targets Addressed:
Communication LT 1: I can communicate effectively, both verbally and in writing.
Critical Thinking LT 5: I can justify and support arguments or interpretation with appropriate evidence.

AGENDA 2/5/20:
News Brief - Kamil
Socratic Seminar Debrief
The Line
Discussion

Homework: Read the blog! Complete and turn in any Socratic Seminar materials if you have not yet. Next news brief: Connor.

News Brief: Kamil had the news brief today and selected an article about this story to talk about: ScienceAlert.com - Incredible NASA Simulation Reveals How Earth Would Look if The Oceans Drained Aw. After discussing the story, we also checked in to see if anyone was up to anything interesting or fun outside of class. There is also a LOT going on in the news in the United States, so we tried to talk about and understand that.

Connor was assigned to do the next news brief.

As part of the news brief, we also watched the one minute BBC World News update. Here's the link to see the latest one minute update, at any time of day (it will probably be different from what we watched in class):


Today's Black History Month fact is that on February 6th, 1993 (27 years ago tomorrow), Arthur Ashe (the first African-American winner of the Wimbledon tennis tournament) died. He was a pioneer in tennis and the biggest tennis stadium in the world (at the US Open in New York City) is named after him.

Socratic Seminar Debrief:
 I wanted to check in and see what students thought about how the class discussion on the American Dream went last class. It's usually a bit awkward unless we practice and talk about what could go better, so I was happy to hear the feedback and thoughts for what went well and what could be improved. Thanks for sharing, everyone!

The Line: Next, the class watched a short documentary called "The Line" about the poverty line. As we wrap up our revisiting the American Dream unit, I wanted to show just how difficult it is to rise out of poverty, even with a lot of hard work and determination. Here's the worksheet passed out in class:


Here is the documentary itself:



Discussion: After the film (this will be next class, due to time running out today), we discussed the documentary and our thoughts on it. Next class, we will begin our unit on the Roaring '20s in the United States! Thanks for your work on this first unit, everyone!

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