w. 36

 

This is a blog for Hi1b (for both Sa2 and Ek2). I will post here information about what we've done in class. Keep in mind that I will also use Vklass, especially for posting documents, assignments, results, and messages.

week 36

Thursday, 3 Sept.:

MAPS
We spent a fair amount of time doing map quizzes of Europe and Asia. In the future, we won't be able to devote this much time to map quizzes. But if you detected that you're having difficulty in with either of these continents, please work further on your own. I hope that you want to continue developing in many different ways, and by having a good comprehension of where countries are in relation to one another, this makes it easier for you to develop, to understand, to analyze . . .

ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS
We spent some time talking about various aspects of the Four River Valley Civilizations discussed in chapter 2: Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, the Indus Valley, and China. Spend some time looking through chapter 2 to see what sort of issues are focused on there.

SELECTING TOPICS FOR PROJECT
We ended the class selecting material to work with for the project we'll start next week. We'll be working with material in chapters 6, 13, 14, 17, 22. (Essentially, we'll be looking at Europe from 400BC to the mid-18th century.) You'll be in charge of different sections, and you'll have questions to answers. We'll have a Googledoc with a table where everyone will feed in their answers.

By doing this, you will each build up expertise about different areas. You will then later work in groups to put together different timelines that help you understand how change has developed in Europe in terms of political power, religion, trade, literacy.

If you have time left over after you have done your questions, and you are interested, you can work with a non-European culture during this time period. If you're intersted in this, come talk to me -- or write me.

English lesson:
We worked with the "th" sound. I wrote up examples of voiceless and voiced "th" words. Practice these at home:

voiceless (air it released with the "th" sound):
thing
three
thank you
cloth
math

voiced:
that
there
then
the
them
weather
breathe
mother

Monday, 31 August:
We spent most of the class talking about basic features of civilizations. We worked with material in the book on pp. 19-21. I discussed how this material can be of help in trying to understand and analyze material in the future. As a part of this, having a good comprehension of basic elements of a society can help in looking at the world today and comparing and analyzing societies, countries, situations.

One example of how we looked at information:
What qualities help people rise to positions of power? You provided different examples, and we discussed them:

wisdom - elders
physical power - military leaders
religious powers/ communication with gods - priests
money/economic power - nobility, wealth members of society

One "group" we didn't discuss was democratic/populous power. In the future we'll spend time thinking about how power changes in societies and processes that have brought about change.

English lesson:
When you include yourself in a list of people, put yourself last:
   Bob and I went to the concert.

It is incorrect to put yourself first:
  I and Bob went to the concert.

It is incorrect to use "me" as a subject:
  Me went to the concert.
 
Thus, it is incorrect to say, 
  Me and Bob went to the concert. or  Bob and me went to the concert.

It is correct to use "me" as a non-reflexive personal pronoun:
Susan told me that she was a nurse.

Susan told Bob and me (or us) that she was a nurse.

Susan told I that she was a nurse. 

 --> Do not use the phrase "Me and ______" or "_____ and me" as the subject of a sentence.
  
week 35:


Thursday, 27 August:
English lesson:
days of the week and months of the year are always capitalized:
(Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December)

-Pre-history - timeline from 4.6 billion years ago forward
- discussion of BC + BCE / AD + CE
- Centuries exercise
- roman numerals

Monday, 24 August:
Introduction material, map quiz, books handed out

At the end of the lesson, I tried to put together information about how the advantages Europeans and Asians had in terms of plants and animals and iron production were relevant to the eventual domination of Europeans over the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa, southern Asia, Australia and New Zealand over the past 500 years.