O.k. students, this is your third blog for this class. Please be aware that midterm is coming up very quickly. If you are getting an A or B, keep up the good work. If you are getting a C through F, see what you can do personally to get that grade up. Updated grades will be given out next week. Please make sure you follow the directions for the blog, so there won't be mix ups or problems.
Thanks, Mr. Bradford
(WC) World Cultures
1. Set up an account on www.unitedstreaming.com.
2. Where you see the search box,type in "Africa Shaped by the Past".
3. You are to watch the video and write a one page summary (hand written or typed) of the major points in the video. Please be specific.
4. You can watch the video using Window's Media. If you don't have high speed internet, I will put the video in your email locker via the school. Due Tuesday
5. After the video, you will have to go to http://www.africanculturalcenter.org/ and answer the questions on the sheet that I passed out in class. The answers are throughout the article and not in specific order. Due Monday
(CT) Cultural Tapestry
1. Answer the following questions from the book "Freedom Writers". You may email me your reply or just print out and give to me in class on Tuesday morning. They are divided into sections. Hear are the questions.
Freshman Year—Spring 1995
How does Gruwell feel about the system?
How does she see her approach to the class?
What role does John Tu play for the class?
How do students react to the “Peanut Game”?
Describe the students’ comments on the Oklahoma City bombing.
What do the students learn from their trip to the Museum of Tolerance?
Gruwell introduces a ‘change’ ceremony. What influence does this have?
What lessons did Gruwell’s class learn in the Spring semester of 1995? What do we learn about them? About ourselves?
Sophomore Year--Fall 1995
How do the other teachers view Gruwell’s successes? What is her initial reaction? What changes her mind?
What influences Gruwell's reading choice for this next year?
As we encounter the various problems these students have (homelessness, illness, incarceration of self or family member, alcoholism, etc.), what role does Gruwell play for them? What roles do the classroom and other students play?
What is the class’s reaction to Twelve Angry Men?
Sophomore Year—Spring 1996
What does Tommy say in his letter to Zlata?
How are the lives of the Freedom Writers war-like in this particular semester?
What does Gruwell want to be the class motto? What does it mean to be the fire, the lightning, and the thunder? Are you the fire, the lightning, and the thunder? Why or why not?
Discuss the importance of Zlata’s visit.
Junior Year—Fall 1996
What did Gruwell learn over the summer?
Why do students switch into Gruwell’s class? What do they avoid? What do they gain?
The students read of Emerson’s “self-reliance.” What does it mean to them?
The students have clearly changed in their attitude toward a variety of things like violence. Why, then, does the student do nothing in Diary 56?
How do the students react to the Catcher in the Rye?
What effect does The Color Purple have on some students?
What are some of the things that have influenced these students’ lives?
Junior Year—Spring 1997
What issues does Gruwell discuss in her entry (139)?
Discuss the different reactions to silence in this semester.
How do the students react to the assignment to write about events that changed their lives? Why does this assignment make them react so strongly, especially given their experiences thus far?
At least two entries have addressed dyslexia (page 23 and 147). Are these entries by the same student? Why or why not? How has the student changed (if at all)?
What do the students discover from editing the entries of other students?
What does one student learn from his / her mother’s discussion of Rosa Parks?
What do the students learn from the Freedom Riders?
