With some minor make-ups still to be completed...
As of now, I'm working on modifying the next text to be handed out tomorrow or Monday in Social Studies...and then I will do some of my own homework, and finally I'll spend an hour or two working on grading the Social Studies summative essays on the new nation period. Don't forget, the Westward Expansion text SARs are due tomorrow. In science, we will take some time to finish the engineering challenge on building an Earthquake-resistant structure. That'll serve as our lead in to discussing Earthquakes next week... Remember, I will be available until 4 pm tomorrow, and that Progress reports are due. See you in the morning! Occasionally, you guys say, "If you didn't assign the work, you wouldn't have to grade it..." You may have a point. I've entered the remainder of the "Madison" texts graded and entered, and the Inside Earth are also in. I'm working on the Andrew Jackson and the Second Party System and the Three Unknown Presidents texts tonight, and those should be on tomorrow's progress reports. I'll be able to start working on the Summatives in Social Studies probably tonight and tomorrow, as well as the Tectonic Maps for science.
This is not even the tip of a very large iceberg...I still need to write up quite a few things for next week, rewrite the new test for science, finish some more of my own homework for Math, and then cry myself to sleep. As usual! Just as a reminder: the next Social SARs is due Friday. You can find those texts posted from a few days back. I'll be available after school until 4 both tomorrow and Friday. It is worth saying now, as we come up on the end of the year, even in the midst of an overload of tests...I do love the privilege of spending time in a classroom with you all. See you tomorrow. I tried to run an update to the blog from my phone. Not so much... Alrighty, today in class you guys went over the Jackson and 3 Unknown Presidents texts. The next text was handed out: it will be due Friday. It is about Westward Expansion during President Polk's administration, and I will attach it at the end of this post. I got the tests from yesterday in science graded. They...were not great. Now, I knew that some of the questions I kept in were pretty ambitious. I'm confident that you guys knew the basic info necessary to figure them out...I just wasn't sure you'd have the patience to actually figure them out. Combine the fact that we had hit a lot of the material pretty lightly, plus had a spring break interrupt things as well as devote a lot of our time to Social Studies...I wasn't anticipating a lot of A+ scores. So, overall, there were about 8 questions that pretty much everyone missed...and based on the statistics, it seems likely that those who got them correct were lucky guessers. On reviewing those questions, for the most part they were on topics that came up in text or discussion, but weren't really reinforced by the study materials or worksheets. I was pretty comfortable throwing those out. That left me with about 3 or 4 questions for each class that were on the edge. For most of them , In my opinion they were comprehensible given what we covered...but given the lack of focus, I wasn't comfortable holding everyone accountable for those items, so I did curve a few more out, depending on the class. On the other hand, there was the general expected relationship between study time and score, which indicates that while the test as a whole was pretty brutal, it was also a fair test of understanding. So, after the curve, the average hovered in the 70% range for all classes. We can go over those scores Friday. For those who appeared the study a lot (self reported) and also fared poorly, I'm writing a different version of a test. I should have that ready for retakes for those of you who scored less than a 60% by Thursday. You can retake it during lunch, 10th period, or after school. We will talk more later. Finally, there is the summative in social studies tomorrow. You will be taking that in Mrs. Walkers room. She has about 15 copies of all the associated materials, and if you click on this link here, you can find all of the texts online as well. Several people stayed today to go over some of the questions on the test. Please remember, you can do whatever research you like outside of class for the questions, and can bring any materials (books, magazines, web printouts) to use as sources for the essay as long as you cite them so I can also find them to check your sources. My advice is to be positive, to be ambitious, and to walk in prepared! Comments and questions are welcome.
Maaaaainly because this week really threw me off my stride. I've got a huge stack of papers I brought home to work my way through. My aim is to get 'em all done by Sunday, but: we shall see.
So, today was a bit of catch-up. All classes had a little time to finish reading though the Three Unknown Presidents text. In my morning classes, we then reviewed some of the questions from yesterday's worksheet intended to prep for the Atmosphere test. I did end up pushing that to Monday, so we would have more time to work on some things today. (Mainly because I won't see you guys for class much next week. Thanks, PARCC!) In my afternoon class, we went through making changes to our maps to include info about plate tectonics. The finished version of those are due Monday. So! Relax, study, and come in Monday reading to take your Atmosphere test, turn in your new map with tectonic plates, and the Three Unknown Presidents SARs. Remember, if you do have questions, make sure you ask. Ta! So I'm stuck in bed, waiting. Why not update the website for today? While I wasn't around, the plan was to collect the Andrew Jackson responses, and then get started on the next text: Three Unknown Presidents. It is of course so titled because most people haven't heard much about Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison and John Tyler. Van Buren was an interesting guy, and you definitiely have a link to him you didn't know about. They called him the little wizard, because he was a real political expert. He could get deals done like no one else. He was also short. But! You know him from one of his campaign slogans, believe it or not. See, Van Buren was from Kinderhook New York. To get people to vote for him who new that town, and as a simple way to identify Van Buren as a candidate, people would say that he was "Old Kinderhook" as a shorthand for saying he was good. The phrase spread, and soon to say that something was O.K. just meant that it was good or acceptable. These days, we mostly don't know what OK means, but that's Old Kinderhook by me. On the other hand, lots of people will hear the famous campaign slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler too!" from Harrison's campaign, even if they never hear Harrison's name. This is somewhat ironic, but appropriate once you read about the relative impact of Harrison versus Tyler. I guess you could say its...OK! Haw! I'm planning to have Mrs. Walker go over those texts on Monday. Get the SARs done.
Since I wasn't around today, we couldn't really do what I wanted to. So, last night I wrote up some practice problems to help with tomorrow's test. Those are tougher because they are mainly application, so...I am also including the key for them here as well. The test is still on for tomorrow. 30 questions. Come in ready to go. Hopefully I will see you there.
Okay, apologies everyone. I had a wee bit of chest pain today at lunch, so I'm currently in the hospital for tests. No need to worry or wish me well. Everything so far is showing I'm fine. It falls more under the heading of "Better safe than sorry. No, you cannot leave." I am not looking forward to staying here tonight. In any case! In two of my three groups, we had some time to finish the "Jackson" text. The SARs are still due tomorrow. Yes, there will be actually sub plans. Yes, there will be actual work to do. Sorry. The real trouble was science. We pulled out the maps we made last week, with the various rift valleys, and mountains, etc. Now, knowing what we do about how the moving plates (tectonic!) that make up the surface of the planet are what cause those things, we need to go back and draw in where those plates must be to explain the features on our maps. (In a few cases, we might need to relocate or redraw some of those features to make them easier to explain with tectonic plates.) Also, after drawing out plates in, it might be necessary to add features if there are places where plates are converging (mountains! volcanoes!) or diverging (ridges! rift valleys!) but we didn't draw in the features that should be there. That said, while it is simple once you get the task, it is not simple until you understand it, so...my afternoon class wasn't able to work on it today, and the same will be true tomorrow. In consequence, I'm going to have to push it back. Hopefully I will be back by Friday, and we can see if we can squeeze time in to go over it then. For the classes who got to start it today, just hold onto it for now. I cannot attach the updated alternate version of the Jefferson text, since I am at the hospital and I don't have access to it. I will upload the Jackson text I currently have access to. Be forewarned! The questions are the OLD version. The text itself is largely the same. If you need the new version, I suggest asking a friend, or perhaps some helpful person will post them in the comments section? So sorry, guys. I hope to see you soon.
I mean the title not in the modern sense of the curmudgeon who doesn't believe in or enjoy anything. I mean it more in the original greek sense. Kunikos? Kunikas? Something like that. Whatever. In any case, it basically means "doglike." As a philosophy, what this means can get a little involved, but for my part, what I mean is that at the moment, I am enjoying my life like a dog. More specifically, like my dog. I am pleased, busy with inconsequentials, and happy regardless of what is happening. It has been a lovely day, and tomorrow looks good as well. So! We started off today with Social Studies in most classes. We reviewed some of the more important events in the lives and presidencies of James Madison and James Monroe. We mentioned John Quincy Adams, but sadly did not really examine him closely. He was a fascinating man, very much a product of his relationship with his father (John Adams, our second president) and a sort of bellwether for the changing progressive sentiment of the northern states. With that said, he did not accomplish much during his presidency that is worth our time right now, excepting his role as a symbol of the anti-slave sentiment that was growing in the north. In any case, we discussed how Madison had a dual role as "Father of the Constitution" and as a devoted Jeffersonian. These goals may seem to conflict, but in many ways, it could be argued that he was more of a Jeffersonian than Jefferson. We talked about how earlier in his career, Madison had defended the Jefferson administration when they were sued by Marbury, who claimed that he had been illegally denied an appointment as judge in the last days of the Adams' administration. Historically, while the Supreme Court agreed that under a recent law Marbury was indeed entitled to be a judge, they also claimed that the law itself was unconstitutional. Because this meant that Jefferson did not have to appoint Marbury as a Judge (since the related law was no longer a law,) Jefferson did not argue with the court when they declared the law illegal. In the process, the judicial right of Judicial Review had been invented, which would enliven the court and make it a truly equal branch of the government. We then discussed how Madison became president, eliminated the National Bank, fought the War of 1812, and then helped recreate a new National bank because he realized one was needed. By the end of the War of 1812, peace was secured with Britain, although no real gains had been made, and much money was lost. Madison's successor was James Monroe. He declared the American Continents off-limits for any European powers. We also briefly talked about the Missouri Compromise, which dealt with how to keep the pro-slave and anti-slave factions int he government balanced. There were concerns that adding new states would give one side or another enough control to make slavery totally legal or illegal. The solution was to add equal numbers of slave and free states, to maintain the balance in the government. At first, Missouri was admitted as a slave state while Maine joined as a free state. After that, all new states south of the Mason-Dixon line would be slave, and all north would be free. This wuld keep the peace...for now. Tomorrow, we will start work on the Andrew Jackson text. Probably. I'm brewing up something else, but I won't promise anything until that is done. I also handed out the next Summative in Social Studies. We will take that next Wednesday. Yes, that is during PARCC. You'll take it in Mrs. Walkers class, I expect. I cannot attach the text from home, because certain filters are up on the work network due to PARCC, so I'll attach a copy tomorrow morning on tomorrow's post. I will attach the related texts for the New Nation period below, though. You will find the "Madison" alternate text is not attached...but you can find it in a post from a few days ago.
In science, we went over the general responses to the SARs in the "Inside Earth" text. We also went on to talk about the role of plate tectonics in certain land formations, and of the role of volcanoes in Earth's history. I'm loading an alternate version of the PowerPoint we referenced in class today. I'm going to attach that at the end (after editing,) but I'm also attaching a quick YouTube video that does a decent job of showing the convection currents in the mantle that drive the motion of tectonic plates.
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Mr. StevensonScience Teacher. Fanatic lover of Board games. Historian. Huge Nerd. Scholastic Bowl Coach. |