On Friday we had a little bit of spare time on our hands, since we recently finished up our study of the trail of tears, so we had some fun with poetry and history. I gave my students the assignment of coming up with Haiku’s about the Trail of Tears. Each period had some great entries that were both amusing and serious…much like the submission from Jack in the video above.

Of course once we finished with our real Haiku’s, we then had a little bit of fun by creating Haiku’s about non-sense topics. Check out Chase and Isabelle in the video above.

Mr. McClung

Students, today we will continue our conversations about early politics in Arkansas, Indian removal, and the road to statehood.

Mr. McClung

Today in class we continued our conversations about the early territorial period in Arkansas and we took a few notes…shocker. In an effort to switch up our normal routine of taking notes we changed up our style just a bit. Today we used a Kagan learning strategy called expert groups. Their guided reading notes were divided up into four sections and students were numbered off and placed into one of four groups. Once in their groups they would then be given a section of the notes to work on and become “experts” on that specific section.

Upon finishing the work with their expert groups, students were then placed into heterogeneous groups and asked to teach their newly found information to everyone else in the group. The idea is that students become an expert in one section then have to use listening skills to learn the sections that they do not have.

Mr. McClung

As we continue to move forward with our study of Arkansas history, we now begin to enter the portion of history that deals with Arkansas becoming a territory. For the past two days we have discussed the boundaries that were established by the Missouri Compromise in regards to slavery in the US. The Missouri compromise had three major components:

• Missouri would enter the Union as a slave state.
• Maine would enter as a free state, and any state entering the Union after this point as a slave state would have to enter with a free state in order to maintain balance.
• All the land that was included in the Louisiana Purchase would be a free states, expect for Missouri.

The Missouri Compromise not only had a major impact on state boundaries but it also prolonged slavery in the US as well by allowing southern states to continue to own slaves.

Mr. McClung

Yesterday in class we took some time to discuss the New Madrid Fault Line that is located in northeast Arkansas and southeast Missouri. This fault line is still active and it is thought that back in the early 1800′s the line produced an earthquake of an 8.0 magnitude. In order to show my students the seismic activity in this region I introduced them to the USGS site that measures such activity all over the world. The site is a great tool for anyone that is teaching science, but it also adequately fits the need for this lesson.

Mr. McClung

Today we will be discussing the art of writing a strongly worded letter. Today the topic of your letter will be in response to the journal entry of Schoolcraft and his response to Arkansans. For the sake of this activity, we will say that his journal entry was published in a local newspaper (1820ish) and you respond by writing a letter to the editor…bonus for style points.

Mr. McClung

Today we will be going back to the early days of the exploration of the Louisiana Purchase and we will be talking about explorers that visited Arkansas during that time period…more specifically, we will be discussing the journey of Henry Schoolcraft. Schoolcraft was a New Yorker who toured Arkansas in 1819 and wrote about his experience with early Arkansans:

Schools are…unknown, and no species of learning cultivated. Children are wholly ignorant of the knowledge of books, and have not learned even the rudiments of their own tongue. Thus situated, without moral restraint, brought up in the uncontrolled indulgence of every passion and without a regard of religion, the state of society among the rising generation in this region is truly deplorable. In their childish disputes, boys frequently stab each other with knives, two instances of which have occurred since our residence here. No correction was administered in either case, the act being rather looked upon as promising trait of character. They begin to assert their independence as soon as they can walk, and by the time they have reached the age of fourteen, have completely learned the use of rifle, the arts of trapping beaver and otter, killing the bear, deer, and buffalo, and dressing skins making mockasons and leather clothes.

Quite the glowing review…today in class we are going to take a look at this passage and dissect it in three questions (it is a Thursday after all).

1. What was Schoolcraft’s opinion of Arkansas during the territorial years?
2. What act did Schoolcraft describe as “a promising trait of character”? Did he agree with this practice and do you support his stance?
3. What does he say most 14 year old boys know how to do? Is this a good or bad thing in your opinion?

Mr. McClung

Today in class we took some time to debrief about our test from the previous day and analysis the data just a little bit. The image above is of a screen shot of the test data that I shared with my students today. We looked at the concept of a bell curve and how we fit into those confines. We discussed that by looking at the bell curve we can create further discussions about test scores and differences that may exist from class to class.

Mr. McClung

Students, today you will take your unit 1 test in Arkansas History. Don’t forget about your essay questions…one of them being how a bill is created.

Mr. McClung

Recently we finished our city projects using the Glogster website. Students were asked to pick a city in Arkansas and do a research project over that city and record it on an online poster board. Although this project gave us plenty of fits, overall I was very pleased with the final product…here are a couple of examples of the this project from my class.

Mr. McClung

Mr. McClung

Mr. McClung

Mr. McClung

Students, it’s time to start sharing our city projects that you made using Glogster…here’s how you do it. First of all you will need to open your Glogster in edit mode; once you are at this point you will need locate the save and share button at the top of the page.

Once there you will hit the save and share button one more time, then a dialog box will appear…like the one above. From here you will open you Glog by hitting the view this Glog button. From there, your Glog will open in a new window.

From there, you will locate the button in the top right corner that have an email, Twitter, and Facebook logo on it (image one)…you will click on this button and open a new dialog box. From there you will type my email address in (jkmcclung@gmail.com) and press the email share button. Finished. Don’t forget that these projects are due tomorrow.

Mr. McClung

Students, today we will be discussing the President’s State of the Union Address as well as talking about money and current tax rates…get pumped!

Mr. McClung

Due to the fact that we are currently engrossed in our Arkansas City Project, our normal Weekly Ten will be postponed for this week…which means 2nd period still holds the crown of champions for another week.

Mr. McClung

Above is a short screencast I made to show you how to register your Glogster account…click here to visit the Glogster EDU website.

Above is a quick example I put together for my science class to review protons, electrons, and neutrons. Feel free to explore the website and check out the wide variety of options available to you…click here for more examples (better than mine) of Glogster posters.

Mr. McClung

With all the excitement running around about the current republican nomination and the upcoming presidential election in November, we decided to get into the spirit ourselves. My students were asked to create a poster/pin/sticker for an ad campaign for a fictional or real person. They were asked to use symbols and slogans in their project that they might see in a real campaign.

The result of this project was really cool, my students came up with some phenomenal projects. Including ads that supported and discredited me as a candidate. Other persons of interest for this project included Justin Bieber, Drew Brees, George Clooney, and of course the real candidates that are running for president. In addition to creating the ads, students were asked to identify and explain the slogans and symbols that they used. Like I said before, this was a very worthwhile project to under take and I’m very proud of the finial product.

Mr. McClung

Feeling lucky? Not particularly…the image above is the view of Google’s homepage in response to the SOPA and PIPA acts.

The past week we have been talking quite a bit about the governmental process and how, theoretically, our voice as citizens is heard through a representative democracy…and today a perfect exercise of how this works fell into my lap.

As you may of heard, today websites like Wikipedia and Google are protesting the proposed SOPA and PIPA acts that are making their way through congress. In short, these acts are attempting to get rid of online piracy, but can ultimately have a negative effect on the well being of the internet in the process…in the opinion of some. In response, Google and Wikipedia have altered their website in protest…Wikipedia has blacked out for 24 hours, and Google has created an online petition in response to these two pieces of legislation.

Anyone can get involved with this process and exercise your duty in a representative democracy, you can visit the Google website and sign the petition, or visit Wikipedia and access a direct line of communication to your state’s representatives. You can also track the progress of these bills by visiting Trackgov. In my class we will be tracking both of these bills as well as discuss the positives and negatives of both of these bills.

Mr. McClung