Tuesday

Today in class students explored the life of Osama bin Laden using this Interactive Timeline from the New York Times. Everyone answered the questions from the timeline worksheet posted below.



Homework: Finish the timeline assignment, it is due on Wednesday.

Monday

In light of the news that broke last night about the death of Osama bin Laden, I have changed plans with regards to the WWI unit project.  Instead of beginning a WWI video project today, we will spend the next three days exploring the background of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and the War of Terror stemming from the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

- Today in class we watched and read President Obama's speech from 5/1
- Read a NYT article about how the news broke last night through social media
- Read a CNN article about the individual who broke the news on twitter

Tomorrow we will explore an interactive timeline from the New York Times about the life of Osama bin Laden.

Ultimately, what I hope to have students demonstrate is their understanding of how the end of WWI, the Treaty of Versailles and the policy of appeasement towards Hitler prior to 1939 compares to the actions taken towards Al Qaeda and bin Laden.  Students will be expected to find connections, similarities and differences between the two events and we will be producing podcasts for each class exploring these issues....stay tuned.

Friday

C Period - Students finished the Road to WWII DBQ

D, E & F Period - Students finished the Road to WWII DBQ. They then worked in small groups to write a statement addressing the policy of appeasement that was taken towards Hitler prior to 1939.

Groups used:
Hitler's 1923 Treaty of Versailles Speech
WWI Casualty Statistics
Treaty of Versailles
Road to WWII DBQ

Each group wrote a rough draft statement using information from the resources listed above and then emailed a final draft of their statement to me by the end of the period.

Thursday & Friday (4/28 - 4/29)

All students are exploring the connection between WWI and WWII by completing the DBQ below:

Thursday & Friday

Thursday - Students worked in groups to complete a simulation of the Paris Peace Conference & the Treaty of Versailles. Each group had to evaluate 10 issues that needed to be solved at the end of WWI and write a recommendation to the Paris Peace Conference from a specific perspective as to what should and shouldn't be included in the Treaty.  Each group then emailed their recommendations to me by the end of the period.

Friday - Students analyzed the actual Treaty of Versailles & then edited a political cartoon & wrote a response analyzing the Treaty.

Have a great vacation!

Wednesday - Half Day

All Classes - Students analyzed statistics from WWI and created two graphs based on any information available in the statistics chart. Once the graphs are created, students will write a short analysis of each graph. The analysis should include the following:
- What did you graph?
- What does it reveal?
- Why did you choose that information to graph?
- How does this graph improve, impact or change your understanding of WWI?

All Classes: Students learned about two contradictory events from WWI, the war atrocities committed by the German soldiers in their advance through Belgium, and the Christmas Truce from 1914.

We read from the two documents below:


We also watched this short documentary on the 1914 Truce:


Students then wrote a reflection to the event by answering the question:
How could these two events take place in the same year of WWI?
- Consider being a soldier vs. being a human
- Consider when these events took place
- Consider the role of humanity & violence in a time of war