Humanities- Social Studies 11/17-11/21

Hello Parents,

The end of Trimester 1 is this Friday.  The mini-reports that were due this past Friday will be the last assessment used for this report card.  There are many students who did not meet the deadline.......please check with your son/daughter.  I will probably have grades for the report posted by early next week.

This week we will focus on immigration, but from the problems immigrants faced in the U.S., their contributions to society, and a look at the port of entry (Ellis Island) for many.  Below are the online links I am using Monday-Wednesday (students have the worksheets and it is also posted on Edmodo).  On Thursday and Friday, we will watch the movie "God Grew Tired of Us", which is a documentary on the Lost Boys of the Sudan.

Homework this week:  completed the worksheets that go with our online resources by end of class Wednesday.

1. Segment 5: Know-Nothing People http://www.pbs.org/wnet/historyofus/web08/segment5.html

2. Segment 7: The Promise Land http://www.pbs.org/wnet/historyofus/web08/segment7.html

3. The History of Ellis Island https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X4CypTaOQs

Have a great week!

Mr. Burton

Humanities-Social Studies 11/10-11/14

Hello Parents,

This week we will continue to work on our "mini-reports" focusing on why some people leave Central American countries to go to the U.S.  Deadlines for this week are as follows:

Due Tuesday - outline (students worked on it in Monday's class)
Due Wednesday - rough draft of written piece (students will work on this in Tuesday's class going from the outline)
Due at end of class Friday - final draft which will include two graphs, one map and edited written piece.

I posted the assignment in Edmodo (www.edmodo.com).  If you have not joined, remember to have your son/daughter sign in to their page.  On the left hand side is the "parent code".  Use this at the log in page signing in from the parent tab.  Let me know if you have any questions.

I handed back the vocabulary quiz today.  Awesome scores!  I will update PowerSchool this week with the grades.

Have a great week.

Mr. Burton

This week in Humanities - Social Studies (11/3-11/7)

Hello Parents,

I hope everyone had a good weekend.  I am looking forward to the student led conferences that begin this week (Weds, Thurs, and next Tuesday).  For me, students had to complete their final drafts of their "porfolio reflections" this past Friday.  Checking today, there were still several students who had not completed them.  Please check with your son or daughter or you can email me if you have questions.

We have a special treat to build on our immigration unit.  Joe Smith arranged to have guests speakers who will visit our classrooms tomorrow.  These speakers were refugees who have settled in the Burlington area.  Today we have been preparing with background information on their countries of origin and creating appropriate questions to ask.

We will continue with the immigration unit through the week.  Students have been investigating potential "push factors", or reasons why people leave their countries.  We are using CIA World Factbook for our data gathering.  The focus is on Mexico and other Central American countries.  This coincides with the book they are reading in Mr. Badeau's class, Crossing the Wire.

Homework this week:
Monday - finish the Data sheet for the Guest Speaker presentations
Tuesday - finish the Data Sheet "Exploring Potential Push Factors"
Friday - QUIZ Vocabulary from "Immigration, part II" worksheet

Lastly......I had one parent email me to say she could not see the grades with PowerSchool.  Are there other parents that cannot view them?  Let me know as we are trying to figure out why they are not showing.  Thanks.

Have a great week.

Mr. Burton