I might have mentioned to a few of you that I have a friend from college, Chris Coleman, who is a two-time Olympian (in 4-man bobsled - he was in the 1992 & 1994 Olympics) and now works for the U.S. Olympic Committee out in Colorado... He also happens to be a photographer and took some great pictures/videos of the Olympics... He's in Vancouver and pretty much gets to go and see all of the great events (yes, he knows I'm jealous)... To see them, go to google and look up iceman9294... You might see a person or two that you recognize...
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You can put both your write-ups for "60 Minutes" and "The Amazing Race!" here (thought I'd save some space). Regina brought up a very interesting point to me. I hope that you all know about the HUGE earthquake that occurred yesterday in the country of Chile. She asked me if the earthquake would affect "The Amazing Race." Just to let you know, the actual show was taped months ago, as are most of the reality shows. It takes them months to take all of the footage they've shot and edit it down to a one-hour show each week. Enjoy the shows! (Reminder -- our last Socratic Seminar on "1984" will be tomorrow -- bring your questions!) While we were listening to the song "The Resistance" during today's class, I started thinking about the concept of time. I started thinking about Winston and Julia and how they never knew how much time they had left together before the Thought Police would find them. I started thinking about the Montgomery Bus Boycott and about the people who protested. I thought about all of the years of abuse that those who boycotted had endured and how much satisfaction they must have had after they outlasted the bus company. It was all a matter of time. Everything is a matter of time. The amount of time they'd endured segregation, the amount of time of the bus boycott, the amount of time it took for them to be truly equal under the law. I started thinking about how many times students refer to time during the day. My favorite time-related quotes include: "I didn't have time to do the homework, Miss" or "Do I really have to get a late pass, Miss? I'm only one minute late!" After all, what could possibly happen in a minute, right? Well, I found this interesting visual called "20 Things That Happen In A Minute." It was kind of neat, so I thought I'd share... http://www.insurance-quotes-for-you.com/20_Things_That_Happen_In_One_Minute.html Feel free to comment... As you finish reading "1984," I want you to think about a question that has come up in our previous discussions -- "Can you compare the society of Oceania (under Big Brother) to any other countries in today's world?" After all, it's nice to have a theory and write a book about it, but does it really exist? Well, there are many places in the world (including our own society) where you could make some comparisons between that society and that of Oceania. In my mind, however, there is no nation that comes closer to the ideals of "1984" than North Korea. Here's a prediction -- sometime in our lifetime, the government of North Korea will fall, and when it does, and people see the conditions under which the North Korean people are living, it's going to be the most shocking story of the decade. A few years ago, Lisa Ling, a reporter for National Geographic, traveled to North Korea. I will let you judge for yourself whether the government and people of North Korea bare any resemblance to the situation in Oceania. The video is a bit more lengthy than I normally post (46 minutes) but you're on vacation right? You've got nothing but time! Keep in mind that this video was not made that long ago and that people in North Korea are still living under these exact same conditions. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxLBywKrTf4 I would appreciate your comments on the video no later than Sunday night, 11pm. Beginning at 8pm on Sunday night (right after "60 Minutes"), there is a reality show on CBS called, "The Amazing Race." The how consists of 11 teams racing around the world for a $1 million dollar prize. You will be required to watch the show each week and answer the 3 following questions: 1. In what city are the contestants starting the race this week? In what country? On what continent? 2. Name ever city that they travel to during the show. In what country is that city found? On what continent? 3. Tell me what part of the show you found the most interesting. In which city did it take place? Why did you find it interesting? I hope that you enjoyed the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. For those of you that missed it, the Olympics will be on every day/night for the next two weeks. It's always exciting, so please try to catch a bit of it... I'd love it if everyone would comment on one thing they saw on the Olympics in the next week that was amazing (please let's not turn this into a discussion of the poor Georgian luger -- that was obviously quite sad, but let's concentrate on future Olympic events). As for the things you need to be doing over break, please read carefully, because I've changed a couple of things: 1. Two sets of vocabulary sentences. I will put up a posting for both of them and you can put them in their appropriate spots. List #2 is due this Sunday (tomorrow) at 11pm and List #3 is due by next Sunday at 11pm. Also, please add your vocab words to the many that you already should have in your notebooks from the RealClearPolitics assignment. 2. Finish the book "1984." Our last Socratic Seminar on the book will be on the Friday that we return. 3. You do not have to do any articles for RealClearPolitics this break -- instead, you will be watching a TV show called "The Amazing Race"! This show is amazing -- people travel across the world and do different sorts of tasks in a race around the world. After 16 weeks, the winner takes home $1 million. The show begins tomorrow night (Feb. 14) at 8pm on CBS (channel 2). I will put up a posting soon telling you the questions you will have to answer. Again, if you're not home, you can watch the video online the next day. Answers to the questions that I post will be due by Tuesday night at 11pm. Have a great break! Premieres Sunday, February 14, 8/7c As I was talking about during our last class, when I was young, the only time you could watch cartoons was for about 3 hours on Saturday morning (there were really only 3 channels and no cartoon channels). During these cartoons, they used to play other shorter cartoons, called "School House Rock." These were educational videos, although we didn't realize it was educational because they were made into cartoons - yes, they tricked us little kids into thinking we were watching more cartoons - we didn't know we were learning! They had videos in a number of categories: Grammar, History/Civics, Science, Economics, and Mathematics. You ended up seeing these videos so many times that you memorized the songs (they were very catchy tunes) and therefore, you ended up learning the information. I've attached 8 of these videos below. Since we were talking about grammar the other day (and will be talking about it on Friday -- we will NOT have a Socratic Seminar this week), I included 5 grammar videos. The most classic are the "Adverbs" and "Conjunction Junction" videos. I also attached 3 of their classic historical videos, simply because I've always been a history geek, so they were always my favorites. My all-time personal favorite was "How a Bill Becomes a Law." Remember that these cartoons were made back in the day when cartoon effects were not as advanced as they are today, but they got the point across. Enjoy! GRAMMAR VIDEOS: A Noun is a Person, Place, or Thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2iLAI0gUW0 Grammar Rock Adjectives: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYzGLzFuwxI Interjections! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhHpJ45_zwM Grammar Rock Adverbs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7wnT8iiR8w&feature=related Conjunction Junction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkO87mkgcNo&feature=related HISTORY VIDEOS: How a bill becomes a law: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEJL2Uuv-oQ Preamble (to the Constitution): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNb9AoY5XXE The Shot Heard ‘Round The World (American Revolution): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VQA5NDNkUM&feature=related We usually think of art as the type you do in Ms. Rodriguez' class (drawing/painting) or performance art (dance/acting). One type I'd never given much thought to was "sand art." There's a woman from Ukraine (a country near Russia) named Kseniya Simonova, who was a contestant on "Ukraine's Got Talent" (yes, even the Ukraine has their own version of the show). In her performance, she uses sand art to tell the story of Germany conquering Ukraine during WWII and the subsequent German occupation. I've never really seen anything like it... Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOMgDbcA84A Well done on the Socratic Seminar, although we really need to be careful not to talk over one another/interrupt one another... Andrew -- "Do you think Julia has an influence on Winston and is it positive or negative?" -- Angie -- yes, very important to his thoughts -- he's able to express himself with her -- Regina -- yes and no -- she just wants to go against them Regina is now attempting to spoil the book for everyone by telling them that there's a telescreen in the room -- but does it work??? -- Angie wonders if Julia is against him -- is she working for the government? Angie -- "In the U.S., is there a group like the Brotherhood (against the government) in our country? Like Al Qaeda?" -- Katherine -- like the people who are hiding Osama Bin Laden Regina -- "If we'd lost certain wars in the world, how do you think things would have been different?" -- ex. Civil War? Katherine -- Battle of Tours -- would have changed us to Muslims (way to get the global class in there!) Randy -- Revolutionary War -- if the British has won, would have been the same as Big Brother Katherine -- "Do you think that the history we know makes up the country today?" -- the things we learn about in the textbooks -- Regina -- because we know our history, we look to it to think about what we'll do in the future -- they don't have a specific truth -- Katherine -- what if they brainwashed kids to remember certain things? Regina -- we have certain goals -- if you don't know the history, how can you get to those goals Shelly -- if you don't have the information, how are you going to live in your future? Justin -- "Do you think that Julia's part of working with Big Brother is planned? Is the note meant for someone else?" -- Regina -- thinks Julia is a "mole" -- she's watching him -- Shelly -- she's breaking the rules too -- Angie -- thinks Julia's trying to get him in trouble -- Regina -- foreshadowing? -- Justin -- connection -- Big Brother is like the Capital in Hunger games because Winston is going against Big Brother the way the girl goes against the government -- Katherine - p. 125 - there are others breaking the rules -- they think others are into Big Brother so they don't know that each of them is against the government... If they get together, and with the Proles, they'd bring the government down Justin -- "I wanted to rape her and then murder her" (p. 121)... Question -- Why is love equal to violence?" Andrew -- "I want people to be corrupt to the bone...' Why doesn't he like perfect people -- does it have to do with Big Brother?" -- Justin -- wants to share the blame -- Shelly -- Big Brother wants people to be perfect (for him) Angie (p. 75) -- "We're all already dead" -- they're willing to die for something -- Katherine -- how are people from the future going to know they tried to make a change if they change the future?" Ms. Cohen -- "Is it worth fighting for something if it's a losing cause?" -- Katherine -- yes, people will finally open their eyes -- people have to die for causes -- Regina -- it's because of people we don't write about what we do things in the future -- influence those we know about -- Shelly -- MLK might have been influenced by people we didn't know Regina -- "What's up with Winston being completely terrified by rats?" The perfect ending question -- you'll realize why as you read on... :) |
Assignments:1. Answer any and all blog posts to the left by their due dates (which can be found on SnapGrades) * Ms. Cohen's Contact Information *
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