Wednesday 12-19 : MAKE UP ALL MISSING ASSIGNMENTS!

Seriously children, do you WANT assignments hanging over your head all vacation long? I sure don't! Get them done, get them handed, or forever maintain a respectful silence... because on the work we've done up until now, I will no longer be listening.

cheers,
Mr. L

Wednesday 12-19 : Time To Vote!!!

Hail Atlantis! And greetings to you, one and all!

As promised, I have winnowed down the possible names for our blog to a field of finalists. You will kindly please send me your

FIRST
SECOND
THIRD

choices for the names you like the best, second best, third best, in that order

In an email, with your name and "I voted" in the subject line.

Here are your choices --- and thank you for proving once again that no matter how creatively bizarre the name choices were for one set of students, the next set is sure to upstage them :-)



future acolytes

FDR Walks Again  

Donatellos Pizza Shop

kylaidyntopia slaves


Athlete's Mind 


How I Met Your Computer 

sun gods sacrifices

Contagious Syndrome

All About the Humans


JUST DO IT !

Velociraptors In Space

crazy cat Cornchip Blog

im not a genius so i dont have any names


Barbie's Rule !











Cheers,
Mr. L

Monday 12 - 17 : just for fun, name this blog

In the past, I have set up blog-based websites for each of my classes, shared the website address with my students, and after they have become comfortable using it, allowed them to rename the TITLE of the blog. Not the website address, just the title at the top.

Right now, our class website is called "World History Section 2"... a perfect name if you're having trouble sleeping at night. What I need for each of you to do is to send me an email with some ideas of your own about what our website should be called.

Make sure to put your first and last name in the subject line, plus the phrase "blog name choices"

In the body of the email, send me as many ideas as you would like, but try for at least four. Just to help you along, here are some actual "no I'm not kidding they actually voted for that one" examples:

Noise Aquarium

Code Monkeys

Dissonant Disturbances

Krakatoa's Revenge

The Skunk Werx

Deafening Silence

Hellen Keller's Traffic Dodgers

We Heart Bald

Vitamin E

Feeble Minded Pandas


So, with this in mind, send me four ideas of your own by email. I will do my best to sift through 'em, and come up with some finalists... next time we meet, you will have an actual vote, and from there I will work over next weekend to declare a winner :-)

cheers,
Mr. L

Monday 12 - 17 : political revolutions, step three

It has been said that "every organization is the lengthened shadow of one man". This means that every group, every movement, every revolution has had at least ONE indispensable leader. There is always at least one person who perseveres despite all odds, who cannot be bought, bribed, bluffed, bullied or silenced. Without this one person, the revolution in question would not have been attempted, much less succeeded.

It's like in the movie "The Matrix" : there are many brave and capable people fighting against the machines -- Morpheus, Trinity, Tank, Dozer, Switch, Apok, even Mouse -- yet there is one and only one Neo

So, who is your one? Who is your revolution's "Neo"?

When you figure that out, you will need to build a profile of this individual, including:

A) when and where they were born (one complete sentence)

B) formative experiences that helped them become the revolutionary leaders they became  (at least two complete sentences)

C) At least five character traits which enabled them to lead as they did
(at least two complete sentences per trait)

Send this material my way via Box.com or by email

Cheers,
Mr. L

Thursday 12 - 13 : political revolutions, step two

Now that you have chosen a "revolution" topic, the next step is to begin answering some simple questions about it, to wit:

A) What group or organization made this revolution take place?

B) What were the basic principles which this group stood for?

C) What other groups opposed this first group?

D) What were their reasons for being in opposition? Please do not "speak for them", let the opposition speak for itself 

E) Where did "the action" take place? In other words, where on earth did this happen?

F) When did this happen? Give the year or years involved

G) Did the revolutionary group achieve its aims? 

H) What happened to the winners? What happened to the losers?

I) What are at least four reliable website sources which you can cite? (You need to give me website addresses, people!)


Each question must be answered with at least one or two complete sentences. This information can either be uploaded to Box.com or emailed to me 

cheers,
Mr. L

Thursday 12 - 13 : political revolutions, step one

One very important and not to be overlooked aspect of political geography is the political revolution. By definition, a revolution is a sharp and drastic change in the way a society organizes itself. A revolution can be violent; precipitated by physical conflicts, riots, rebellions, even full scale civil wars. A revolution can also be (relatively) bloodless : nobody dies, but there is a dramatic change in a society.

Your first step today is simple: choose a revolution to study. Here are some possibilities.... but by no means is this an exhaustive list:


American Revolution
Reagan Revolution
Bolshevik Revolution in Russia
Nazi Revolution in Germany
The Iranian Revolution
French Revolution
The Haitian Revolution
The Glorious Revolution (England)
Communist Cuban Revolution
The Mexican Revolution
Maoist Revolution in China
The Spanish Civil War (1936- 39)
The Easter Uprising (Ireland)
Tea Party Revolution
Cultural Revolution (also in China)
Turkish war of Independence
People Power (Phillipines)
Scientific Revolution
Warsaw Uprising
Occupy Wall Street Rebellions
The Arab Spring
Greek Civil War
Zanzibar Rebellion
Velvet  Revolution (Czechoslovakia)
Algerian Civil War
Kengir Uprising
Salt March (India)
Founding of Israel
beatnik/hippy movements
Mau Mau Rebellion
Lebanese  Civil war
Black September (Jordan)

As I say, you may choose from any of the revolutions on this list, or you may choose something completely different. In either event, please send me an email with the name or names of all people involved -- as well as the name of the revolution chosen -- in BOTH the subject line AND the main body of the email.

Following that, we can proceed with the next step

Cheers,

Mr. L

Tuesday 12- 11: a discussion of Political Geography & your questions and answers

ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL RIGHTY THEN!!!

Today, as promised, we are going to engage in a discussion of the questions which I asked you about political geography,as well as the questions which you yourselves have created. As an added twist,  there will be times during this discussion when I am going to randomly select people to participate using a small computer program of my design.

The record of this discussion will be typed up by a student volunteer as is customary, and when we are finished, it will be uploaded to this folder on Box.com found

HERE

After we are done, you will have time to finish up any other unfinished business, any assignments not uploaded, that sort of thing. 

Time permitting, I have a reflective writing exercise setup where you can add to this discussion after thinking about what has transpired

cheers,
Mr. L

Monday 12 - 10: Getting Ready for your Discussion & other matters

Greetings everyone!

Today you will be working to accomplish two distinct yet equally worthy goals:

A) Making sure that you are ready for our class discussion tomorrow. Remember that you will be held accountable for BOTH sets of questions I have asked you, as well as the four questions which you were asked to create and answer, all on the topic of political geography

B) Besides getting to me all those questions by email -- in other words, passing in your work-- you also need to make sure that you have passed in both sets of notes, as well as any other work which you still owe. Remember, progress reports may have been issued, but the grading must go on

cheers,
Mr. L

Thursday 12-6: some additional political geography questions from Mr. LaRue

If you are reading this, it must mean that you have finished the notes -- both part one and part two -- which I have provided for you in previous classes. Now I would like today to perform the following four actions:

A) Answer the questions which I have provided below 

B) Create four of your own questions. You may model how to phrase the questions based on questions I have already asked, but naturally, you CANNOT ASK A QUESTION WHICH I HAVE ALREADY CREATED

C) Provide an answer of some sort to each of your own questions. It doesn't have to be huge big deal... two complete sentences each will do.


PLEASE SEND YOUR ANSWERS FOR A IN A SEPARATE EMAIL.... the subject line for the questions from "A" above should have your name plus "Mr. LaRue's 2nd set o' questions"

The subject line for "B" should be your name plus "my Q and A"


OK, without further ado, here are my questions for today (ANSWERS MUST BE AT LEAST TWO COMPLETE SENTENCES EACH)

A) The second round of notes proclaimed that "the state" provides services, demands that we pay taxes and obey its laws, etc etc . Here's my first question: WHAT IS "THE STATE"? Please provide a definition of what it is, not what it does. And no, the one provided in the notes already is off limits.... I think its way too abstract, and doesn't hit near enough what a state actually is

B) What's the difference between a "state" and a nation? (Please bear in mind, by "state" I don't mean something like "South Carolina" or "Texas" -- I mean the definition as laid out in "A" above)

C)  Which one is more important? Why?

D)  Is America an example of a multinational state? If so, could we end up like the former Yugoslavia from your notes?

E) In the notes, the first part of the definition for a nation is "a culturally defined group of people" ... what do you suppose that actually means?

F) The definition goes on to say that these people have a " shared past and  a common future". Question : since America is composed of 310,000,000 people from every country on earth, what exactly is our "shared past"? 

G) Based on your answer to F, what do you think America's future looks like?

H) In the notes, it is pointed out that the boundary lines of other nations have shifted over time. How likely is it that this will never happen here in America? And in the event it did happen, what might precipitate this/make it happen?

I) In the notes, it states that the earliest rulers ruled over a group of followers, not a particular territory. Question: what kind of modern day organizations can you think of that are like this? List them, and explain why they belong in this list

J) For "I" above, which do you think is more important for these "rulers" : their organization, or the nation where they reside/ the state they live under?

K) What about the people who these rulers are in charge of? Where does their allegiance lie?

OK, that should be enough exercise for today. Just make sure to get it done, as I would like very much to have a class discussion of a random sampling of all sets of questions the next time we meet

cheers,
Mr. L

Monday 12-3: political geography questions, part one

Greetings once again!

OK, so now you have some basic terms and concepts to begin this new section of the course... now let's apply them to answering some questions:

Please note, at least two complete sentences to explain each of your answers

A) The notes pointed out that there are many nations that are now independent which were once part of bigger empires. Question: is it inevitable that big "multinational" empires will split apart? 

B) The notes also pointed out that many of these new smaller nations had some serious problems. Do you believe that these problems are due to them being smaller, or because of their previous position trapped inside a large empire?

C) For B above, how might you go about researching an answer for this question?

D) The notes point out that the word "ethnic" comes from the Greek word ethnos meaning "people" or "nation". The word politics comes from the Greek word "polis" meaning city. Question: what could possibly happen to a city that is politically divided along ethnic lines...one where the various ethnic groups absolutely do not get along?

E) What could possibly happen if an entire country was divided in this fashion?

F) Please list -- using complete sentences -- at least three benefits to a city or a nation being ethnically homogeneous --- meaning all from the same ethnic group

G) Please list -- again using complete sentences -- at least three benefits to a city or a nation being ethnically diverse

OK, that should be enough exercise for today. Don't forget, you still owe any and all "unfinished business" from the previous section of this course

cheers,
Mr. L

Tues 12-4: Political Geography Notes, Round Two

Greetings, everyone!

Last week, we began with our first round of notes on political geography. Today, your task is simple: type up and send to me in an email this second round of notes. When next we are in class, there will be a collection of questions for you to come up with some creative and thought/debate provoking answers, which -- I hope -- will to a debate of sorts. 

In any event, here they are :-)

Cheers,

Mr. L

Thursday 11-29: part one of the new topic of Political Geography

Dobro utro, Kamerads!

Today, as promised, we will be starting a new topic in this course: POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY

Per our usual start, we will begin with some terms, which you will find below and will type up in an email and send my way. Following this, there will be a small assignment which involves applying some of what you have just read to answer some open ended questions which I will be asking you. 

It is my hope that your answers to these questions will serve as the basis for a future debate in this class. My favorite sport after all is and always will be politics  :-)

Cheers,

Mr. L

Tuesday 11-27 : getting it all wrapped up

And a hearty yip yip, yip yip, yahooooooo to you all!

Today, we will focus on the following:

A) Getting to me all the facets of your research for your chosen topic in your culture. By the time you read this, emails will have been sent out about what each of you owes

B) Getting your "first person culture" stories in to me. Again, an email will have been sent out to those of you who haven't sent it my way just yet 

My goal is that by week's end, we will begin a new topic for this class. Therefore, the above needs to be done during today and Thursday.

cheers,
Mr. L

Monday 11-26: Tell Me a Story

Greetings, and welcome back!!!

Today, I want you to make use of what you have collected so far while researching your chosen culture. You will use this material to tell me a story. That story will be about a member or object which is part of the culture you have chosen for your topic. Here are the ground rules

A) The story must be told from a "first person" point of view. This means, for the purpose of your story, that you ARE that person, or you ARE that cultural artifact

B) You must make use of the following facts which you have collected, researched or told me about thus far

C) That's at least a total of 23  keywords from "Speakin' the Lingo"

D) Plus a mention of each one of the eight icons you profiled for  "Icons" assignment

E) plus at least six of the patterns you discerned during the "lather rinse repeat" assignment

F) And of course, a mention of at least least 11 aspects of your culture from sets of facts gathered during "Topic guidelines". By the way, if you didn't finish the assignments previous to this, it'll make it much harder to do this properly, so you'd better get those other assignments done first

G) You must also include at least four images that have to do with your culture... anything as long as they are school appropriate

H) You may use any format -- A Word document, PowerPoint, even a webpage if you know how to create such a thing

I) Make it exciting..gripping... NOT BORING. This is YOUR culture you are talking about..... if you make that boring, or get cheap on me in any way, it means you WANT to fail. And I'm not having that.

J) If it makes it easier, you can arrange a conflict between yourselves and one of those "inferior cultures" you profiled during the "diversity vs superiority" assignment

J) Each person involved in a project must send me their own copy, either by email or through Box.com.  No excuses

Good Luck, and have a great week off. See you on the other side

Cheers,
Mr. L

Thursday 11-14: speakin' the lingo

Greetings, fellow Earth dwellers!

Today, as part of your ongoing drive to explore your chosen culture -- and share it with the rest of us -- you will need to tell me how a person would "speak" your culture's language. Every culture has its own set of what I like to refer as "keywords", terms important enough that they help define the culture itself. 

For example, in nerd culture, "n00bs" are people clueless about technology, "treeware" means stuff that's written on paper, while "TLDR" means too long, didn't read (usually applied to useless piles of treeware) and so on

Alternatively, in survivalist culture, "TEOTWAWKI" means the final collapse of society or "the end of the world as we know it", while "preps" means stuff that's bought or steps taken to be prep-ared  for TEOTWAWKI

So, what are your culture's Keywords ? Let's have a bunch, complete with the definitions.... I think 23 will do.  Why 23? Well, for those of us who see hidden significance in numbers, 23 is the first prime past the number of fingers and toes on the human body.

Just sayin'.

In any event, send these 23 to me by email...remember to put your name(s) and the words "speaking the lingo" in the subject line


cheers,
Mr. L

PS Any remaining assignments which you still owe... well, what on earth are you waiting for? Get 'em to me, tutto pronto!

Tuesday 11-13: icons

Hello, hello!

If you're reading this, then it can only mean you have completed the "patterns" assignment; to which I say, "Yip Yip, Yip Yip, Yahoo!"

Now what I'd like you to do is to to begin listing some "icons" of your chosen culture. These are people who represent and embody your culture. In some cases, they even helped found that culture.

Every culture has its icons. For example, early punk culture had Johnny Rotten, Sid Vicious, Wendy O Williams, Jello Biafra, Debbie Harry and the Ramones brothers, etc etc

Nerd culture has Linus Torvalds, Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates, Kevin Mitnick, Richard Stallman, Steve Jobs, Sergei Brin, Grace Hopper etc etc

Here is what you will need to do:

A) set up an email (or a computer file) named after yourself, plus the word "icon"  (Again, each one of you must send me either an email or a file, even if you are working in partners)

B) In the main body of the email, list at least eight icons of your culture

C) Beneath each name, list at least four aspects of your culture that these icons represent. 

D) For each aspect, write one complete sentence explaining what makes these people "representative" of your culture

Send it my way!

cheers,
Mr. L

Monday 11-12 : lather rinse repeat

Hello everyone; howdy, howdy, howdy!!!

Culture is determined by patterns. Patterns are based on repetitions; acts that are done over and over again. As we've seen, with individuals, those patterns are called habits, while with groups of people they are called customs. Customs are grouped together to become what is called "culture"

Habits can be observed in any number of ways. For example, we've just come through a big Presidential election. Every four years, there are speeches, primaries, conventions, debates and voting

For another example: Christians generally attend church on Sundays; Jews on Saturday. Muslims are called to prayer five times a day. Those are all patterns

Here's a third example, one of my own: in America, we have entered the "eating drinking and spending a lot" time of year. It starts with Halloween,  goes through Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Super Bowl Sunday Valentines and St. Patrick's Day

So here's what I want you to do:

A) Pick out at least 11 patterns that can be observed in your culture

B) For each one of these, use at least one complete sentence to describe what it is that's happening and when it happens

C) Also for each one of these, use at least one complete sentence to describe how often it happens


D) Also for each one of these, use at least one complete sentence to describe where it came from. How did it begin?


Each of you is responsible for sending me this information by email with your name and the word "patterns" in the subject line. Your answers must be listed as specified in the main body of the email

cheers,
Mr. L

Thursday 11-8 : diversity versus superiority

In modern times -- at least in America -- there is much talk about cultural diversity, tolerance towards other cultures, "can;t we all just get along?", etc etc

Well, since I am the kind of instructor that I am, and this IS a class based upon on open ended inquiry, I say tough nertz to all that happy talk. Today, I want you to prove to me that your chosen culture is superior to all others. Here is what you must do

A) either create a file or start an email

B) the file name must be your name(s) plus the name of your culture plus the phrase "we're better than you and we know it!"

C) If it's an email, you just simply put what would be the file name in the subject line

D) Using at least 13 aspects of your culture out of the 17 you sent my way the other day, you must make your case for superiority. Explain -- using at least two complete sentences per aspect -- just why this aspect proves that you're better

E) after finishing this part of the assignment, you must fan out across the room and look at other cultures. You must find at least three aspects from each of those cultures that you feel proves your point even more that your culture is the best. 

F) For each of those three aspects, write at least one sentence explaining how this aspect proves your cultuyre's superiority over theirs

G) For every culture which you "discover" that doesn't even have its 17 aspects ready yet, list the name of that person or persons, the name of their culture (if any) and then type up at least two complete sentences proving to me how their literal "lack of culture" proves your superiority over them

When you are finished, make sure that you either upload the file or send that email my way

cheers,
Mr. L

Monday 11-5 : the diffusion of culture

Greetings, fellow primate type creatures!

In our previous assignment, we had 

A) defined some terms about culture

B) applied these in the process of listing seventeen aspects of a culture that you like, or at least know something about

C) divided these up into various categories -- economic, spiritual, musical, etc etc

Now its time to take this even further. Here is what you will need to do:

1) Pick any one of these. And fer cryin' out loud, don't take all day -- just pick one. DO IT!!!!

2) For example, if I was talking about culture, I might settle on "nerd culture". One aspect of that culture is the importance of energy drinks and other similar products. One example of such is a product called Jolt cola. so, for the sake of example, I'll pick Jolt 

3) In the next step, you will need to break that example of culture into its parts. For example, Jolt cola -- when it was first produced -- was an energy drink with  "all the sugar and  twice the caffeine" and it came in a glass bottle with a colorful painted label -- with a prominent lightning bolt as its logo --that was affixed with some sort of adhesive. So, (some) of the parts for that could be listed something like:

• sugar
• caffeine
• carbonation
• bottles
• glass
• paper
• adhesive
• logo

4) For each one of those parts. start to trace back where and when and how they began. For example, I could trace the roots of the company to the founding of Wet Planet Beverages by a man named CJ Rapp in 1985. I could look up the origin of the first caffeinated beverages -- including coffee and tea -- as well as the origins of carbonation and carbonated beverages. I could look up the invention of bottling, the invention of glass, where each of them began, and so on and so forth

5) As always, list each website resource for the information with its exact webpage address, along with at least two complete sentences that explain when and where each component came from. 

6) Where stuff comes from is a crucial part of the diffusion of culture... its tells us where the things we take for granted actually came from

7) For each example of culture, break it down in to at least seven parts...more if possible

8) repeat this process with at least one example of culture from each of the categories you set up in the previous lesson

Send all this information to me either by email or as computer file uploaded to Box.com.   The subject line (or filename) should be your name plus "diffusion of culture"

cheers,
Mr. L

Thursday 11-01: you gotta get some culture

(Before we begin  let me remind each of you that starting this assignment in no way means that you do not have to complete and hand in the assignments which came before it. If you haven't done or uploaded an assignment  as the Nike ads say "JUST DO IT"

OK,now for the next step in this process, you will need to apply some of your new found knowledge. Here is what I want you to do:

A) Pick out a culture with which you are familiar -- most likely, the one in which you have grown up

B)  Begin listing some of the more important aspects of that culture... begin with at least seventeen of them  (yeah, I know, another prime number)

C) Write at least two sentences for each aspect; the first sentence is for an explanation of what this thing is, and the second is for how it is significant for this culture of which you speak

D) Divide up these aspects according to different cultural categories: 
economic/occupations
sports
art
politics
music
food
religion/faith
fashion
fads/gadgets
etc etc

E) Either set up this as a file named after yourself plus the phrase "culture 17" and upload it to Box.com,

OR

F)  send it to me by email with name and the phrase "culture 17" in the subject line, with the information in the main body of the email

Cheers,
Mr. L

Tuesday 10-30: a new topic --> CULTURE

Hello there!

If you are reading this, it can only mean that have finished your slideshow presentation about population. With that done, we will head into a new topic, CULTURE

The first step -- as ever -- is to get a handle on some basic terms. Here is what to do:

set up an email to be sent to me at mrlarue2013@gmail.com

put your name in the subject line

In the body of the email, type up all the terms and defintions found after this point

send them to me, forthwith

cheers,
Mr. L

PS If you cannot finish this in class, you must finish it up for homework