This is where Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address in Pennsylvania, after one of the most vicious battles of the Civil War, in 1863. Photo taken in 2014.
Hello DSJ students,
We continued our beginning of the year unit on race today. Here's what happened today in class:
Learning Targets Addressed:
Communicate effectively, both verbally and in writing.Explains the process of change and continuity in a society, place or region.
AGENDA 9/19/17:
Review of Four Agreements & Six Conditions
Small Groups
Where I’m From
Found Poem
Current Event
Harvard Implicit Bias Test
Homework: Read the blog! Post a comment if you have not.
---
For in class work and activities today, please see the PowerPoint we went through together, here:
To recap:
Review of Four Agreements & Six Conditions: We will always do this at the beginning of class, as it sets the foundation for how we want class to approach the issues we are studying.
Small Groups: Using the small group poll from last week, we assigned students into small groups (noted in the PowerPoint, above). Some of them are bigger than others - basically, we tried to balance desires stated on the form with people who we thought you might work well with in class. If you perceive any immediate issues, please contact us and we will work with you on a solution.
Where I’m From: The first activity in the small groups was to share the completed Where I'm From poems, which were assigned either the first day of class (if you were in Ms. Labossiere's section) or last week (if you were in my section). This was meant as a sort of "get to know you" activity in the small groups. We are looking forward to reading through all of your poems! Make sure to upload them to Google Classroom if you have not already, please.
Found Poem: This was a poem that Ms. Labossiere constructed from all of the "found" poems that you created last class about Charlottesville. She read the poem out loud to the class and it is linked to in the PowerPoint if you want to see what we all created together!
Current Event: We want current events to play a large role in the class, so I modeled what a current event presentation could look like in the future. We would like each small group to present on a story of current interest to the group/class, and to make sure to include two small group discussion questions as a part of the presentation, then ending with one whole class discussion question. The current event I presented on today was this one:
The questions I posed were:
1) What have you been taught about why the Civil War started? What are your current thoughts about it?
2) Advocates for Confederate monuments and flags say they express "heritage, not hate." What do you think?
Harvard Implicit Bias Test: The last part of class was devoted to defining the term "implicit bias" as well as taking the Harvard Implicit Bias test on Race, which can be selected here:
Review of Four Agreements & Six Conditions: We will always do this at the beginning of class, as it sets the foundation for how we want class to approach the issues we are studying.
Small Groups: Using the small group poll from last week, we assigned students into small groups (noted in the PowerPoint, above). Some of them are bigger than others - basically, we tried to balance desires stated on the form with people who we thought you might work well with in class. If you perceive any immediate issues, please contact us and we will work with you on a solution.
Where I’m From: The first activity in the small groups was to share the completed Where I'm From poems, which were assigned either the first day of class (if you were in Ms. Labossiere's section) or last week (if you were in my section). This was meant as a sort of "get to know you" activity in the small groups. We are looking forward to reading through all of your poems! Make sure to upload them to Google Classroom if you have not already, please.
Found Poem: This was a poem that Ms. Labossiere constructed from all of the "found" poems that you created last class about Charlottesville. She read the poem out loud to the class and it is linked to in the PowerPoint if you want to see what we all created together!
Current Event: We want current events to play a large role in the class, so I modeled what a current event presentation could look like in the future. We would like each small group to present on a story of current interest to the group/class, and to make sure to include two small group discussion questions as a part of the presentation, then ending with one whole class discussion question. The current event I presented on today was this one:
The questions I posed were:
1) What have you been taught about why the Civil War started? What are your current thoughts about it?
2) Advocates for Confederate monuments and flags say they express "heritage, not hate." What do you think?
3) In your opinion, should Confederate monuments be removed from open public display?
Thank you for your participation and discussion during this time!
The goal here was to learn a little bit more about our own personal attitudes and biases, as we continue with this work. We asked that you share your results in your small groups, as a part of building up that community. Did you find anything especially interesting or surprising about your results?
Thank you for your work today! We will keep at it on Thursday. See you then!
