Thursday, January 10, 2013
How to find classmates's blogs
The easiest way to find another student's blog is to go to my protopage where they are all housed. You can click on this link: http://www.protopage.com/twhittenburlington#Blog_posts/Class_Blogs, and you will see the blogs for everyone in both sections so you can view and comment on what others have created.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
In class essays are just the best...#sarcasm
For tonight, read pages 515-522 in the textbook.
Upcoming reminders:
The Crusades project is due at the start of class on Friday, January 11. Thursday will be a work period for you.
The test on Chapters 17, 19 and 20 will be on Wednesday, January 16. It will consist of between 40 and 50 multiple choice questions. (I will settle on the exact number by the end of the week.)
Your mid-term will be on January 23! Start reviewing now, as it will cover the first 20 chapters of the textbook. It will consist of 40 multiple choice questions, a full essay and an outlined essay. One will be Compare and Contrast, the other will be Change Over Time. You will have choice of topics. (So for the full essay there will be two essay topics from which to choose, and for the outline there will be two topics from which to choose.) You will need to bring a pencil and a pen with blue or black ink.
A study suggestion: take the 5 themes of the course and begin to identify information that fits under each theme for each region in each time period we've examined thus far. Color code it!
Another study suggestion: re-read your blog! tag assignments you've posted by region and time period and theme. Then you can re-organize the information to identify trends
Upcoming reminders:
The Crusades project is due at the start of class on Friday, January 11. Thursday will be a work period for you.
The test on Chapters 17, 19 and 20 will be on Wednesday, January 16. It will consist of between 40 and 50 multiple choice questions. (I will settle on the exact number by the end of the week.)
Your mid-term will be on January 23! Start reviewing now, as it will cover the first 20 chapters of the textbook. It will consist of 40 multiple choice questions, a full essay and an outlined essay. One will be Compare and Contrast, the other will be Change Over Time. You will have choice of topics. (So for the full essay there will be two essay topics from which to choose, and for the outline there will be two topics from which to choose.) You will need to bring a pencil and a pen with blue or black ink.
A study suggestion: take the 5 themes of the course and begin to identify information that fits under each theme for each region in each time period we've examined thus far. Color code it!
Another study suggestion: re-read your blog! tag assignments you've posted by region and time period and theme. Then you can re-organize the information to identify trends
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Friday, January 4, 2013
The Crusades Project
The Crusades Project
At its heart, your task is simple: Demonstrate your understanding of the Muslim perspective on the Crusades. Show me that you can articulate what the response of the average Muslim on the street from 1098-1291 was when he/she heard the word “Crusade,” and why did he or she have this response? You must incorporate at least three different Crusades in your project to show the impact they had on the Muslim world and worldview.
To do this, you have a wide-open field of options. You design the method by which you are going to show me your understanding. The requirements are these:
- You must make your thought process transparent throughout the project via your blog. To wit: you must address the following questions as you go along (so not just one blog post at the end, but several over the days—you should think of this as a project journal with daily entries):
Which 3 Crusades will you be focusing on?
Why are you making the choices you made as far as topic?
How do you hope to accomplish your goal?
How and where are you finding your information?
Is one search engine proving to be more useful than another?
What problems are you having with finding the information?
Why have you chosen to display your understanding in this way?
What problems occur(ed) with this choice?
Did it work as you envisioned? Why or why not?
Other topics you want to discuss.
- Your final product must be digital and accessible through your blog, either by link, download or by “hard” content (that which we can view on the blog itself). In the event that your project takes a form that is not "blog friendly," you must include explicit instructions on your blog as to how to access your project.
- You must find other students in any section of AP World who are either covering the same topics or using a similar methodology via their blogs and offer advice, share materials, provide feedback, or just give some general support for what they are doing. This may not only be the person you sit next to in class! YOU MAY COLLABORATE in any way you like, but you each must produce your own understanding, and you will receive an individual grade. Any commentary you offer on another student's blog must be copied and posted to your own blog. Be sure to incorporate the person’s name (i.e.: Dear Mary,...) in the post!
You may not just use Google for your searches. Use bing.com, yahoo.com, sweetsearch.com, or any other search engine you choose in conjunction with the big G. Here’s a helpful hint for you: each country has its own country code for websites. So if you go to: http://ftp.ics.uci.edu/pub/websoft/wwwstat/country-codes.txt, to see the list of codes, and then try www.google.JO, for instance, you get the Arabic version of Google that appears in the country of Jordan. This turns up some different results than Google.com does…Likewise Wikipedia is fine to use, but do not solely rely upon it; it is a good place to start, but a horrible place to finish. Reflect on the usefulness or non-usefulness of the non-Google search options in a blog post!
Feel free to rely upon your own pre-existing social networks, or reach out to others to help you out with this project. Facebook, Skype and Twitter are powerful tools with a global reach…
If you are stuck for ideas, have a conversation with me!
You will be assessed on the basis of the following items:
- Your adherence to the above criteria;
- The attribution you provide for your sources (EVERYTHING must be sourced) so you need a formal bibliography;
- The depth of research you do (Only using Wikipedia guarantees a grade not higher than a C for this section. You need multiple sources…);
- The depth of understanding you display (minimal, shallow, moderate, deep);
- The detail of events you provide as support (What happened in these Crusades to make the Muslim world react in the way you describe?);
- The creativity of your project. (You could make a poster and take a picture of it, but that wouldn’t be very creative, now, would it?)
This is due by the start of class on Friday, January 11th.
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Homework for January 3
For tonight, post the answers to the questions about the map on your blog. They can be boiled down to the following: Why did the textbook's mapmakers choose to represent Africa in the way they did, and what was the impact of this choice on your understanding of Africa; and then what is the impact of the additions we made in class on that understanding of Africa?
Continue reading to the end of the chapter, pages 496-504. We will discuss religion and African society tomorrow in class.
In the longer term, we will have a COT essay in class next week, a test on chapters 17, 19, and 20 the week after that, and about three days to review for the mid-term which will cover chapters 1-20 (though 1-6 is minimal!). Don't wait to study for the mid-term! Start now, and spend about 10 minutes a night reviewing material.
Continue reading to the end of the chapter, pages 496-504. We will discuss religion and African society tomorrow in class.
In the longer term, we will have a COT essay in class next week, a test on chapters 17, 19, and 20 the week after that, and about three days to review for the mid-term which will cover chapters 1-20 (though 1-6 is minimal!). Don't wait to study for the mid-term! Start now, and spend about 10 minutes a night reviewing material.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
First homework for the new year!
For tonight, do two things:
1) Post on your blog how you would want your story to be told. Would you want your life's accomplishments to be portrayed in a boring, textbook style, or in a style reminiscent of the griots of Africa?
2) Read in the textbook pages 483-496. It is a lot to read in one night, I know, but we are hitting the downward slope of the class--20 chapters in, and 20 to go by the end of April...
1) Post on your blog how you would want your story to be told. Would you want your life's accomplishments to be portrayed in a boring, textbook style, or in a style reminiscent of the griots of Africa?
2) Read in the textbook pages 483-496. It is a lot to read in one night, I know, but we are hitting the downward slope of the class--20 chapters in, and 20 to go by the end of April...
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Mongol Trial Results!
Happy 2013!
The results of the Mongol Trial are in and they are as follows:
Period 3
Score: Prosecution 299
Defense 392
On the Charge of Kidnapping the Mongols are found Not Guilty. The Prosecution offered no credible witness to speak to being taken against his or her will, and the defense successfully brought the issue of Prisoners of War to the forefront, which weakened the charge significantly. Thus the charge is dismissed
On the Charge of Terrorism, the Mongols are found Not Guilty. The Prosecution witness from Kiev was certainly frightened of the Mongols, as were the Chinese peasants however, merely being frightened of an enemy force in a time of war is not terrorism. The prosecution needed to do more work to portray the Mongols as attempting to alter political or social structures through the use of terror, and the defense successfully pointed to a state of war that the European Knight was in agreement with. Thus the charge is dismissed.
On the Charge of Genocide, the Mongols are found Not Guilty. Though the Prosecution proved an extensive body count as a result of the Mongol's activities, they were unsuccessful in painting the Mongols as deliberately seeking the extermination of an entire group of people based on shared characteristics. The Kievian priest did make this point effectively, but the presence of Friar John as a similar religious figure who survived his time with the Mongols undermined the argument made by the Prosecution to the extent that the charge must be dismissed as unproven.
Period 4
Score: Prosecution 410
Defense 351
On the Charge of Kidnapping, the Mongols are Guilty. The Prosecution presented convincing testimony from one Guillaume Boucher that the defense did not successfully dis-credit on cross examination. He was clearly taken from his home against his will, and he was prevented from resuming his life. There was additional mentioning of kidnapping of Chinese peasants, but this wasn't fully substantiated by the prosecution. Regardless, GB's testimony was fully convincing.
On the Charge of Terrorism the Mongols are Guilty. The Caliph offered clear testimony to the fact that the Islamic world was kept in a state of fear by Hulagu's actions, and this paralysis contributed to the collapse of his empire. Though the prosecution offered the testimony of a Kievian priest in support of the charge, the testimony was not credible to this point. The testimony of the Defense witness Friar John did speak to a deliberate attempt to instill fear in a population for political means, and when that happens, the verdict must be guilty.
On the Charge of Genocide the Mongols are Not Guilty. No testimony by the prosecution with stood cross examination on this charge. At no point was evidence offered that the Mongols targeted people for extermination because of an innate quality or characteristic, other than a lack of surrender. Though it was brought up that a notion of eliminating all Chinese people circulated among the Mongol leadership, no action along these lines was taken, and as a result, there was no genocide that was committed.
The results of the Mongol Trial are in and they are as follows:
Period 3
Score: Prosecution 299
Defense 392
On the Charge of Kidnapping the Mongols are found Not Guilty. The Prosecution offered no credible witness to speak to being taken against his or her will, and the defense successfully brought the issue of Prisoners of War to the forefront, which weakened the charge significantly. Thus the charge is dismissed
On the Charge of Terrorism, the Mongols are found Not Guilty. The Prosecution witness from Kiev was certainly frightened of the Mongols, as were the Chinese peasants however, merely being frightened of an enemy force in a time of war is not terrorism. The prosecution needed to do more work to portray the Mongols as attempting to alter political or social structures through the use of terror, and the defense successfully pointed to a state of war that the European Knight was in agreement with. Thus the charge is dismissed.
On the Charge of Genocide, the Mongols are found Not Guilty. Though the Prosecution proved an extensive body count as a result of the Mongol's activities, they were unsuccessful in painting the Mongols as deliberately seeking the extermination of an entire group of people based on shared characteristics. The Kievian priest did make this point effectively, but the presence of Friar John as a similar religious figure who survived his time with the Mongols undermined the argument made by the Prosecution to the extent that the charge must be dismissed as unproven.
Period 4
Score: Prosecution 410
Defense 351
On the Charge of Kidnapping, the Mongols are Guilty. The Prosecution presented convincing testimony from one Guillaume Boucher that the defense did not successfully dis-credit on cross examination. He was clearly taken from his home against his will, and he was prevented from resuming his life. There was additional mentioning of kidnapping of Chinese peasants, but this wasn't fully substantiated by the prosecution. Regardless, GB's testimony was fully convincing.
On the Charge of Terrorism the Mongols are Guilty. The Caliph offered clear testimony to the fact that the Islamic world was kept in a state of fear by Hulagu's actions, and this paralysis contributed to the collapse of his empire. Though the prosecution offered the testimony of a Kievian priest in support of the charge, the testimony was not credible to this point. The testimony of the Defense witness Friar John did speak to a deliberate attempt to instill fear in a population for political means, and when that happens, the verdict must be guilty.
On the Charge of Genocide the Mongols are Not Guilty. No testimony by the prosecution with stood cross examination on this charge. At no point was evidence offered that the Mongols targeted people for extermination because of an innate quality or characteristic, other than a lack of surrender. Though it was brought up that a notion of eliminating all Chinese people circulated among the Mongol leadership, no action along these lines was taken, and as a result, there was no genocide that was committed.
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