For my first blog post of the second semester, I am going to start off strong and talk about my workable peace framework essay that I recently completed. My stance on the thesis, “would the workable peace framework be useful in the Athens Melos conflict” was that it would be useful in that conflict, but not necessarily all other conflicts. I’m not going to summarize my essay here, because there is not really any point in doing that, but I will talk about the assignment itself, what I liked and disliked, and any feedback I have. If I am being honest, it wasn’t my favorite project we’ve done so far this year. I didn’t dislike it, and we did do a simulation that took up a week of class before writing this, so I understand that an essay had to happen. I think the reason I didn’t love it was because it was just writing, but that’s just how school is. I was and am actually pretty interested in the Athens vs. Melos conflict, and I would even look into it more outside of class. I think the workable peace framework was also an interesting topic to write about because of the many positions you can take on it. You can believe that it will never work for any conflicts, work for some conflicts but not others, and work for all conflicts. When applied to the Athens vs. Melos war, there are even more positions that you can take. To segway to talking about the simulation itself, I want to express how much fun it was. I have always liked doing mock things in school, whether it being a mock trial in 7th grade, or this. I feel like I learned a lot from this simulation, and it didn;t really feel like work. It felt like a fun debate. So far this year, I would say that this has definitely been my favorite assignment. If I had to change one thing, I would say that maybe you as a facilitator should be more strict about the no talking except the four that is up a speaking rule. I think this would force everyone to think about what they were going to say a bit more. Another suggestion could be giving a certain amount of “time-outs” of sorts. This could mean that each team has maybe one or two times when they can choose to have a meeting during the debate, so that way theres more structure to the team meetings instead f us just begging you to have a meeting whenever we have something to discuss. This would force us to prepare better notes so that nayone in the group would be have the resources and kniowledge to debate, instead of a few people feeding them information. These are just some suggestions I have, and hyoyu don’t have to feel any obligation to use them. I think thats all I have to say about these two topics, so I’ll end there.

Hey, Mr. McDonnell. For my final blog post, I am going to be talking about our simulation between Athens and Melos where we are trying to negotiate peace. As of right now, as you know, we are about two days into the simulation, and so far, I think that it is really fun and engaging. This is a great way for us to learn about this interaction between Melos and Greece while having fun doing it. Going into this with little knowledge about what actually happened in these historic events, I feel like I get to insert my own opinions and ideas in this negotiation without prior knowledge. It is also cool to have a debate like this. As I said, it is a lot more fun than something else such as a paper. I do have some questions about the simulation, though. First of all, is our end goal for both sides to negotiate a peaceful way to defuse the situation or just a way to solve the whole problem with the armada of ships in Melos’s backyard waiting to invade? I think I am just confused about what the goal of the simulation is. I’m also wondering if so far we’ve come to the same conclusions as the ancient Melotians and Athenians did? I assume we haven’t, because so far there have been some questionable agreements, but I am just not sure. I would look it up, but I don’t want to risk ruining the whole thing and getting too much info about the actual events. I think that’s all I have to say about the Melos vs. Athens war, so I’ll switch gears and talk a little bit about my finished This I Believe project. As you know, I turned it in and got feedback on it, and it felt like a weight off my shoulders after I finally got it in if I am being honest. If I had to redo the project, I would probably do my audio recording in multiple parts, not one long-running video so it would sound a little smoother and not have any pauses or stutters. The only reason I didn’t do it this time was that I miscalculated how long it would take me to record the audio, so I ended up not having that much time to actually get it done. I would also probably have some more visuals, like images, to go with the audio. I tried to get some this time, but it was harder than I expected. None of the images I picked out really went with certain parts of the audio if that makes sense, so I decided to play it safe and just not have corresponding images to parts of the audio. I think that’s all I have to say for my final blog post, so to close, If I had to rate the blog post project, I would rate it a 7 or 8. I found it not to be overwhelming if I just stayed on top of it each week. Thats it, thanks!

For my eleventh blog post, second to last, I want to talk a little bit about the Melos vs. Athens project we’re going to be doing, as well as the whole Melos vs. Athens unit we are doing. This unit still feels pretty new to me, as we’ve only done one reading and learned a bit about Socrates, but I’m very excited for the model where everyone becomes an ancient member of one of the societies. I’m excited because growing up, I was a huge mythology and ancient greek and roman nerd. I knew so much about ancient greek society, and although much of that knowledge has since left me, I’m still very interested in the subject. I also learned a lot I didn’t previously know in the reading already. For example, I had never heard of Melos before. I think I have a general outline of an idea of what the big grade-wide project is going to be like, but I don’t know specifics on it, and I’m also not sure when it is. Another thing I enjoyed doing was the Netflix project. I think the Netflix project was a fun way to learn about Socrates, and definitely, a better alternative than, say, just writing a paper on him. Socrates is a name that I’ve always heard, but never really known who he was, so that project was a cool little research project to learn about him. Overall, I think the Melos vs. Athens unit is one of my favorite units so far. Switching gears, I’m going to talk now about my progress in the This I believe project and how that’s going. As of right now, all I have to do is actually record my audio and put it over my slideshow, so I’m pretty close to being finished. That will be my goal, to finish it tonight. I went back and did some editing on my script, and all and all I’m satisfied with what I’ve written and how it came out. I have about 560 words, which is inside the range you recommended, so I’m basically all set and ready to start recording now. I’m not quite sure yet what I’m going to record it with. I may use loom, which I’ve seen teachers use in the past. If not loom, I’ll probably use Vimeo or garage band as you recommended. Finally, to finish off, I’ll end by talking about these blog posts. I feel like I’ve stayed on top of these and consistently done one a week all the way through, which I’m happy with. I don’t feel stressed as the semester comes to an end, and I plan on writing my last one early next week, to complete all twelve of them for full credit. As for the quality, I feel like I’ve been pretty casual in my blog posts, which I think I remember you saying was ok, and because of how casual they were, I guess It’s fair to say that I wasn’t showing my best writing in them, but I still always tried and took them seriously, so I think it’s ok. And with that, I’ll finish up this week’s blog post. Thanks!