Primary Resources and Secondary Resources

Many students had trouble finding their primary sources. The main problem was that many of us did not know what primary sources meant. Mr. Armstrong realized this and we went over what primary and secondary resource were.

He first gave us a slideshow on what primary and secondary sources were. Primary resources are something that is created in the time unders study. They are created by people who actually saw or participated in an event and recorded it immediately after a short time. Secondary resources are created using information provided by someone else, they are often created with some distance form the event.

After viewing the slide and understanding the meaning of primary and secondary resources, Mr. Armstrong showed us the next slide. The next slide showed two picture of different things. One was a painting of Colombus and his arrival at the Caribbeans and another showed his report of the discovery. We were asked to decide which was the primary resource. After people volunteered their thoughts, Mr. Armstrong told us that the report was the primary resource.

When we finished viewing the slide show, we did a CIS activity in our groups. We were given pictures of resources and broke it down, trying to find out who, when, and why. We first did it as a class and later in our groups. After we finished, we were told the story of each resource. After this activity, we turned on our laptops and checked eachother's resources to see if they were primary resources or not.

I think that everyone learned a lot, and unlike last class, I'm sure everyone of us were clear with the term "primary resources." Everyone helped eachother with finding primary resources and Mr. Armstrong gave us all an excellent definition on both primary and secondary resources. Goodjob everyone!

Soyon J. 8B

Primary Resources

March 24, 2008

Today we were assigned to individual seats with our one-to-0ne laptops. We started of with an introduction of what had been done last week, and our goal for the up comming weeks until we finaly become high school students.

Nearing the end of the semester ment closer to putting our "I am..." projects together. We started out with what we would be doing in class: finding primary resources to answer our questions from the project with facts, not opinions. Mr. Armstrong gave us a list of resources on the wiki we were able to use, these included ABC-CLIO, History Channel, American Voices and more(http://armstrong-history.wikispaces.com/I+Am+Project).

Not many of us (I'm sure), were clear with the term "primary resources." Mr. Armstrong started to explain what it was; he asked questions that related to what primary resources might be. Sungmo Koo gave the exact answer Mr. A wanted: primary sources DO NOT have opinions. After Sungmo said that, I got a clear image of what primary sources exactly are. After an exapmle of a primary source which is a letter Thomas Edison wrote, I was confident in what type of resources I had to be looking for.

During the rest of the class time, we worked on making changes to our wikispaces and looking for primary resources while Mr. A called indivuduals up to discuss the big question we had about our I Am... persons. For homework tonight, we had to find primary resource links we found and hyper link it to our wiki pages.

By: Deborah Kim 8B

I Am Project

Today, we worked on our 'I Am' project. We first wrote down our 'I Am' person and then wrote down the things that we know about him/her. Then, we tried to connect the facts about that person to us or someone that we know. After discussing these facts, we had to create a question that interests you and makes you think. Mr. Armstrong gave us a handout called, "I am..." Project Phase 1.5. On that worksheet, we wrote down five questions that we thought of for our 'I Am' person. Then, we went to wikispaces and then we put a picture of our 'I Am' person and also wrote down what we already know about that person, the questions that came to our mind, and the primary historical question.
I think Dk helped some of the classmates about how to put pictures in the wikispaces. My partner was Billy all the time today when we shared what we wrote for what we know about our 'I Am' person, connections, and our historical question. Billy had some good connections to himself to his 'I Am' person.

-Michelle K.-

What is Historically Important?

Yesterday in social studies, we went over the question, "What is historically important?". We went over this to help us on our I Am projects so that we can do our timelines better. This helps us what events we can take out and which ones we should take out. We went over many things that could make something historically important, like events that changed mindsets or destroyed things. The only thing that was actually put on the desks in the first place were blank sheets of paper. We had to fold the paper, hotdog or hamburger style, and drew a timeline of five important events in our life on one side, and five important events in our project person's life on the other side. After looking over the points that makes something historically important a little more, we were introduced to a new website called Circavie. Circavie is this website where you make timelines for events or peoples' lives. We made open IDs so that we can have access to the site. We were expected to be able to take out the important events in our project person's life and put it on a timeline we are to make as part of the project.
Unfortunately, it was not really a day where someone could directly help the other. A lot of what we did just was state some points of what we thought could make something historically important. As usual, the person who said something thought provoking was Mr. Armstrong himself. When he asked us a question, we were simply dumbfound at the presence of his extremely hard question that we didn't speak, not that we always do anyway. Unfortunately, I couldn't actually write down his question fast enough before he went on, so I don't actually have the exact text. But the heroes among our shy and quiet class was mainly Soyon and Heejae. They were the ones who spoke up when none of the others could, which is not an easy thing to do. However, I would have thought that they were always good spoken people.

-Eric K. 8B

Going over the Question in Social Studies

Today, in Social Studies we check over the question that people mostly got wrong. I think that this was very helpful because this clarify our information on the war of 1812 and the presidents. This would make us understand and not make the same mistake if the same question appeared on a different test. Mr. Armstrong handed out some sheets such as the essay which were a 10 out of 10 and a parent teacher conference sheet.
Nobody could help a student because today we could of just listened and participated a little bit and support someones ideas, or thoughts. The people who supported and answer was Michelle, So Yeon, and Hee Jae.
We found some interesting facts in the discussion about the Federalist made an act benefit but it backfired and made their party unpopular and a lot more. We found how to write a proper essay for our test to get a better grade. Nobody said anything provoking or interesting because we had to mostly listen because Mr. Armstrong was explaining about the question and the answers.
Unlucky, I don't remember any of the exact quotes that the people said but some people said where to find the source and the exact page number to prove the thoughts.
I think most of the students were paricipating properly becaue everybody seemed like they were listening carefully and tried to answer the question but some people were just to shy to raise their voice.
Mr. Armstrong gave us some tough questions to answer and a lot of people were silent because they were to shy or scared that their answer was going to be wrong. I think that the classmates who deserved commendation was Sungmo, Eric, So Yeon, Deborah, and Hee Jae who tried to answer the questions. I think that they deserve commendation because they were trying to get an answer and was brave enought to state their point.
I think that Eric tried to do better because most of the times I think that he couldn't state his ideas and facts but today he participated answer some questions. Even though he might of known that his answer was wrong he still stated his point.

Sungmo K.