Today is Wednesday, an A Day.

On this date in American history:

September 16th, 2009 : US rapper, Jay-Z, breaks Elvis Presley’s record as the solo artist with the most number one records (11).

Today’s Lesson.

1. Starter Question: 10 minutes. How does our class list of problems connect to the history you read about in Module 0.4?  In other words, can you see our recent history as a cause of some things you wrote? The election of course is obvious. But you can and should still talk about it. But beyond the election, can you make a connection?
2. Activity two- 5 minutes- As we dive more deeply into thinking about why American history is important, I want to think about its connection to an “American Identity?  When I google image searched American identity, I got this picture, one of an increasingly frayed American Identity. https://images.app.goo.gl/2CtBSE39xqAMiLhq6

1.  Reflect on the graph (of correct/incorrect answers) I will share. Other than reinforcing the tendency to check epic fail, what does this information tell you? Why would I give you this test? What’s the point?
2. Discuss.

HW for Tomorrow-

HW- for Monday-

1. HW: Either take a photo or create an illustration that best captures the definition of America. The picture must be either an original drawing OR a photo you snapped or have snapped. It can be in your camera roll- but I’d love for you to think of a new one. No scrolling through Flikr  ;). 
2. We will be using the image in class on Monday, it is imperative that you share the photo to the Padlet Wall by Monday. 

You will place them here:

https://padlet.com/amcdonnell/7dy3ge2x23qlbxog

As you consider Frethorne today, a short glimpse at Jamestown which the English started to colonize in 1607.

Why did Virginia start in Jamestown, why there?

The English colonists who arrived in 1607 picked that site far upstream from the coast to avoid the Spanish. They also feared the French and the Dutch.

Today is September 14. Today is the second day of class and an E day.

On this day in history among other things, this happened :

• 1866 – George K. Anderson patented the typewriter ribbon.
• 1899 – In New York City, Henry Bliss became the first automobile fatality.
• 1901 – U.S. President William McKinley died of gunshot wounds inflicted by an assassin. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt, at age 42, succeeded him.
• 1940 – The Selective Service Act was passed by the U.S. Congress providing the first peacetime draft in the United States.
• 1948 – In New York, a groundbreaking ceremony took place at the site of the United Nations’ world headquarters.

In class today, there are three tasks. You can start right away with the quiz. Of course, I will ask you to not look at the reading as you take it. 

1. Take Freethorne Quiz. It’s Module 0.6 in Canvas.
2. Once done, look at our current lists- from the 2020 dates only- and come to an agreement on which 10 would represent a consensus of the group’s concerns. I will invite you into groups that you will join upon completing
3. Look at the excerpt of textbook in the reading in Module 0.4.   Look again at the Wordcloud and at our representative list, where can we find the roots of these concerns in the history of our time. The wordcloud is below, you can click fullscreen to see better. At first glance, I am struck by how much more serious your lists are when compared with the lists from the earlier eras, though, Jai’s 1971 list is pretty heavy too. I also want to acknowledge the existential dread those of us felt in the 80s as we lived under the threat of nuclear war. (It hasn’t gone away, but the fear of it is much less.)

To help determine our class’s list of 10, use this tool.

For HW this week, for Thursday, re-familiarize yourself with the Freethorne reading in the packet. We will talk about it then

For Wednesday, you have no HW though I recommend that you start your first journal. Click here to get started in making your own blog.

Finally, I’ll end with some grammar humor. Yes, there is such a thing!

and finally, this picture of this cat from the terrible fires in California grabbed my attention.

today is Friday, day one of the semester.

Welcome! 

In honor of our school’s 175th Anniversary, I share this advertisement from 1899. Note we had 3 campuses! And we supplied students with filtered drinking water! 

Okay, now let’s get started…

Dear 11th Graders,

     Does that sound a little strange? 11th grade? I am very much looking forward to teaching you this year. Believe it or not, this year will pass very quickly and I have a whole lot of things I want you to experience.

     Teaching is not just telling and learning isn’t just listening. Your experience, of course, teaches you this. So, I really don’t want to be talking at you all the time. I will at times, have to be the “sage on the stage” and I will have to do most of the speaking. But most of the best learning happens when you are actively engaged in learning. So, what I am telling you is that I need you to be involved. The success of the class will depend just as much on you as it will on me. Because, as I say above, teaching is not telling. There will be many projects, simulations and presentations. We will also take time to examine the present as we look at 400 years of American History. This course examines American history and culture from the colonial times to the late 20th century.  You will rely less on textbook work in this course and more on primary sources: letters, charters, legal codes, etc.  Our goal is two-fold: first, we hope that you become more knowledgeable about the United States; second, we hope you will become more critical in their thinking and reading so that their ability to analyze and intelligently question what they read, hear and view will improve.

Required Texts:

• Most of our reading will be primary sources.  Some will be secondary sources.  Almost all of them will be in the document packet. (two volumes),  The document packet will also be available as a PDF to download into a PDF annotation tool such as Notability or Kami.
• DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk (on Amazon.com, e-version, and in many bookstores)
• Some type of system for taking notes is essential.  This might be a notebook or digital.
• We will occasionally use secondary sources and for a textbook, we will occasionally use  Digital History and more frequently,  The American Yawp.  These websites serve as our e-textbooks.  
• Here is a link to the document packet.

You are strongly encouraged and occasionally required to write highlights and annotations in all text material.

Blog:

     You are expected to contribute almost every week to a blog that can be seen by others in the class. Over the course of the first semester, you should have at least 12 posts which cumulatively reach about 3000-10000 words. (We will talk about the 2nd semester later.) These are not expected to be completely polished pieces of writing, but they should show your engagement with the readings and your peers, and create a ground you can build on in later work and discussion. (The word minimum is not particularly high, a page of single spaced typed work is 500 words.)  Avoid generalizations; write something meaningful. Write for the audience of the class and anyone like you who might stumble across the pages. You should read your peers’ blog posts for ideas to react to.  (I’ll have blog posts due the last class of every week- you’ll need to write at least 10 of these blog posts. Over the weekend, I will create a blog for every one of you.  

You may be asking, “What should I write about?”,    Topics should typically include things like: 

1. reactions to the reading and reactions to class. 
2. questions you want your peers or me to answer, things you don’t understand.
3. address the writer of the document directly.  Tell them off, agree with them, ask questions you’d like them to answer.
4. Reflections on connections between the readings and issues you’ve encountered in other courses or in your life. 
5. Responses to questions posed by your classmates. 

Once in awhile, I’ll ask you specifically respond to a given prompt. If this is the case, you will have to write a blog post for this week. Most of your posts will be on topics of your choosing.

Here’s my blog. Once we get started, I’ll be making this the landing page in Canvas. 

     How I view school:   

    I treat the subject of history as a portal to teach important competencies like writing, critical thinking, reasoning, and technology skills (you’ll use more tech that you perhaps are used to.) This makes the content more relatable, useful, and engaging. I allow and encourage students to rewrite papers. I don’t penalize missed deadlines severely, though do not make a habit of it (more than twice in a semester) or you will lose the precious privilege of being able to rewrite. The end goal is mastery, and I’m not as concerned about when an individual masters a concept—just that it is in fact mastered.

      This class is a space of total experimentation in an atmosphere of mutual respect and trust.  This class is a kind of contract between us.  As a community of intellectuals, we will read, write, talk and think.  We will become readers and participants in each other’s work, coaching and supporting as we learn what real work is together.  I will be totally open to your questions and concerns.       In a nutshell, 

There are three things I basically ask from you:

1. To Really Try
2. To Participate in Class as best you can.
3. Be open minded to me, your classmates, and my class

 I look forward to helping you learn.

Mr. McDonnell

One More Item:

click the image below to see the most recent class recordings.

This bookplate illustrates the motto with an ant because ants are proverbially hard-working (like in Aesop’s fable of The Ant and the Grasshopper).

Here is a U.S. Postage stamp from 1956 in honor of the holiday: Labor is life.

Movie Journal 1

I want you to watch a movie for history class and write a page in your journal on it. 

Write your reactions to the things that happen in the movie. What did you learn? What did it make you think about? How did it make you feel?  Don’t write a movie review; though, you can say if you like it and write a paragraph talking about the quality of the film and the acting. But what I really want are your thoughts to the history show.. So, give your reactions to the things you learned from watching it.

One page

Movie Choices 

Lincoln-  Lincoln follows the story of the passage of the 13th amendment. Though it plays a bit loose with the facts, it is largely correct. Two things to notice. One: Lincoln famously had a “team of rivals” making up his cabinet of advisors. These were the most prominent men in the Republican Party before the war and their egos and brain power were both unmatched. It is to Lincoln’s credit that he brought in the very best as his advisors to lead the government. The other thing to pay attention to is how some Republicans didn’t think Lincoln was moving nearly quickly enough. The movie spends a lot of time following Thaddeus Stevens, a Congressman from Pennsylvania who was calling for full equality between the races.

Glory

Robert Gould Shaw commanded the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry into only one full-fledged battle at Fort Wagner before he died (and the 54th lost over half their men). But it was one famous charge memorialized for generations. It was basically a suicide mission for the 54th Massachusetts, the first African-American infantry organized by the U.S. military, and they performed their charge with bravery.  Glory, is a film about this heroically doomed charge. The film is led by Matthew Broderick as Shaw, but the real power comes from its cast of volunteers that includes Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, Andre Braugher, and Jihmi Kennedy. A multitude of experiences led to that fateful day outside of Fort Wagner, both for escaped slaves and free men, and all are explored here.

The 54th of Massachusetts changed the way the U.S. government viewed many of its citizens. 

Gettysburg- This movie tells the story of the 3 days of the Battle of Gettysburg, one of the biggest battles fought in the Civil War and the only major battle fought in the North. It was the turning point of the war. For the rest of the war, the South was on the defensive. 

American Revolution historiography

What caused the American Revolution – Appleby

What caused the American Revolution – Breen

What caused the American Revolution- Holton

What caused the American Revolution- Horne

What caused the American Revolution- Morgan and Bailyn

A young, earnest but headstrong George Washington may have started the French and Indian War says this historian. It’s a long article, but work your way through it.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-young-george-washington-started-war-180973076/

If that is too daunting, read this one which points out that there were no real victors of the French and Indian War.

Post a paragraph comment stating the article you read. Your reaction to it and a question you have about it.

When the people we call the Pilgrims- only about 22 of the 103 passengers on the Mayflower were actually Separatists Puritans. They called themselves the “Saints”. They called the other passengers, “The Strangers”. By the way, they weren’t called the Pilgrims until the 1800s. These “Saints” are held up as models to this day as evidenced by the video. Americans don’t celebrate our national founding at Thanksgiving with stories about Jamestown; instead Thanksgiving celebrates these “Saints”.

They were very brave people. No doubt about it. They knew that practicing their faith in England was putting their lives at risk. Eventually, as I said in class last week, they went to Holland which was far more tolerant of diverse religious beliefs. They were afraid their kids would lose their “Englishness” and so they set off to America. Which was almost akin to going to the moon with a one way ticket. They knew they’d never see home again. That’s brave.

In my musings below, I write nothing to purposely disparage these people.  The claims we make for them are not claims they make for themselves. The  most common/ silliest claim is that they came to establish religious freedom. (No! They came to establish a colony for their own religion. You couldn’t be anything else in Plymouth.) Instead, I want us to think about how we use history to make myths and heroes and what is left in and what is left out as we tell the story of America.

This textbook gets part of the story right and is similar to how basically all text books write about Plymouth. But it only tells  part of it. It acknowledges the Mayflower didn’t land in Virginia as intended. If anything, the argument that winter was coming as a reason to stay up North seems to prove the opposite point. If winter was coming, wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to go where there was food for them to eat?   Here’s the textbook’s account. 

“Are We There Yet?  “The Mayflower and Plymouth Colony [ushistory.org].” (http://www.ushistory.org/us/3a.asp. Accessed 15 Sep. 2019.)

One of the greatest twists of fate in human history occurred on that epochal voyage. The Pilgrims were originally bound for Virginia to live north of Jamestown under the same charter granted to citizens of Jamestown. Fate charted a different course. Lost at sea, they happened upon a piece of land that would become known as Cape Cod. After surveying the land, they set up camp not too far from PLYMOUTH ROCK. They feared venturing further south because winter was fast approaching. 

The Pilgrims had an important question to answer before they set ashore. Since they were not landing within the jurisdiction of the Virginia Company, they had no CHARTER to govern them. Who would rule their society?

In the landmark MAYFLOWER COMPACT OF 1620, the Pilgrims decided that they would rule themselves, based on majority rule of the townsmen. This independent attitude set up a tradition of self-rule that would later lead to TOWN MEETINGS and elected legislatures in New England.

Like the Virginia House of Burgesses established the previous year, Plymouth colony began to lay the foundation for democracy in the American colonies.”

Perhaps this Mayflower Compact was written to quell the uprising among the upset “Strangers”. It set up a the outline for just society by 17th century standards. Maybe this was enough to mollify the “Strangers” who were still hoping for Virginia. I’ve tried looking for the status of the passengers on the Mayflower to see if any were involuntary indentured servants. I’ve learned that there were 20 indentured servants. But I don’t know if they were voluntary or involuntary. I’d expect that involuntary servants would be less likely to want to go to Virginia. We know what that was like from Frethorne.

Anyway, the move to stay in Plymouth proved devastating because 45 of the 102 died before the end of the winter. Keep in mind that they were starving to death as you read further. Again, I am not trying to make these people out to be villains. Understand that they were starving. The following is from a diary written on November 30th, three weeks after landing. William Bradford wrote

They also found two of the Indian’s houses covered with mats, and some of their implements in them; but the people had run away and could not be seen. Without permission they took more corn, and beans of various colours. These they brought away, intending to give them full satisfaction (payment) when they should meet with any of them, – as about six months afterwards they did.

And it is to be noted as a special providence of God, and a great mercy to this poor people, that they thus got seed to plant corn the next year, or they might have starved; for they had none, nor any likelihood of getting any, till too late for the planting season.

Notice who gets the credit?  God! Not the Native Americans. Later, the Pilgrims grew even more desperate, and even though they admit quite openly to grave robbing, they can’t quite bring themselves to say it.

 

When we had marched five or six myles into the Woods, and could find no signes of any people, we returned againe another way, and as we came into the plaine ground, wee found a place like a graue, but it was much bigger and longer than any we had yet seene. It was also covered with boords, so as we mused what it should be, and resolved to digge it up, where we found, first a Matt, and under that a fayre Bow, and there another Matt, and under that a boord about three quarters long, finely carued and paynted, with three tynes, or broches on the top, like a Crowne; also betweene the Matts we found Boules, Trayes, Dishes, and such like Trinkets; at length we came to a faire new Matt, and vnder that two Bundles, the one bigger, the other lesse, we opened the greater and found in it a great quantitie of fine and perfect red Powder, and in it the bones and skull of a man. The skull had fine yellow haire still on it, and some of the flesh vnconsumed; there was bound vp with it a knife, a pack-needle, and two or three old iron things. . . . We opened the lesse bundle likewise, and found of the same Powder in it, and the bones and head of a little childe; about the leggs, and other parts of it was bound strings, and bracelets of fine white Beads; there was also by it a little Bow, about three quarters long, and some other odd knacks; we brought sundry of the pretiest things away with us, and covered the Corps

Finally, watch this.

Fi

We sometimes forget that colonial America, of the English variety, lasted for 170 years. During that time, many of the inhabitants and all of the rulers of these colonies considered themselves English.

Thus, the events of the 17th century in England directly affected what was going on in the English colonies in N. America. There were battles in Maryland,

https://youtu.be/-WwJrF68ahE

This video gives a terrific overview to the history in England.

Be able to write an intelligent paragraph about it.