Tuesday, February 26, 2008

History Test Review

Today in Social Studies Class was basically a review day. With the upcoming test just a few days away, Mr. Armstrong really wanted us to get a clear understanding of what we should know. Today was kind of like the seminar's we did in the beginning of the year, however we weren't graded on participation. There were tons of questions that we had. However, the students in 8B all were able to answer whatever was asked.
We didn't really have homework, except just to study for the test. Today was just mainly focusing on getting a good grade on the exam.
A lot of people helped each other get a better understanding of things. Many questions were asked, and many were answered. I believe So Yun was very active, and asked many questions, and also answered many as well. A lot of things that were said were really helpful. Everyone was able to help each other in some way. Also, i was surprised to see a few people talking, that usually NEVER talk during class. I noticed that everyone was serious. No one was fooling around, and we all took today seriously because of the test.
I believed that class today was an extremely helpful time. It showed that everyone in our class can work together, and also, it benefited everyone. With the help of all the classmates, I think that everyone can do well on the test. Thank You Mr. Armstrong for a wonderful and helpful class.
-Brian Kwon 8B

Monday, February 25, 2008

History is Today

The thoughts and the knowledge that everyone had was very enormous and this was what had been shown today. Right from the start, all the students had been separated into different groups of tables, around four to five per table. Mr. Armstrong put up on the screen the main ideas, and each person in the group answered each question.Thoughts were brought up, and many of my classmates, argued sometimes on a point of what they had believed to be the right answer. My group kept arguing, until I had noticed that there had been no "true" answer. Every answer had been correct and was an opinion, that could have matched as the answer to why some events may have occurred and developed into the War of 1812.
Today was the day we learned and discussed in small groups as well as the class of why the War of 1812 had happened and how the Embargo Acts affected the United States as well as if it succeeded for what the people needed or not. In the powerpoint lecture that was told by Mr. Armstrong, we learned why the Congress had passed the Embargo Acts, as well as the Non-Intercourse Act. He later gave out sheets of paper that had showed articles of the battle of Tippecanoe and Tecumseh and his brother. Many people such as Heejae and Soyon participated in the discussions by giving solid answers and thoughts that they had to questions.
The main thought and topic of this class was one question that stumped everyone. It had mainly been if money put into the military should be stayed the same, or decreased. From his information and ideas, as the happening of Britain and France taking control of U.S. ships, countries should not decrease the amount of military power. Mr. Armstrong gave us and interesting question to think upon. It had been "Should South Korea send away United States troops." The majority of the class had said no, but in my mind, I thought, can Korea keep on relying on United States for the help of armies? As I have learned from Mr. Armstrong, I thought critically on the question, and thought, should Korea take the chance of maybe being weak and other countries maybe taking advantage of South Korea? I thought no for a second, but as I kept thinking, could South Korea be more economically stable and become a stronger country, without the military? The confusing questions later ended me to think that this was a too complicated of a situation and question, but I knew that I would be asked later in the future years of what I thought, so I knew I had to keep this in mind.
Today's class was one of the many classes that gave many of the classmates' answers to questions that they had for the test that would be on Friday for 8B class. The events that happened in the War of 1812 and the Britain's actions of impressment had been reviewed in class. Many of the questions had been answered by Mr. Armstrong as well as the students. Today was one of the amazing classes that students would carry out of the class in their minds of "History is once again repeated."

D.K. L 8B

Thursday, February 21, 2008

History is Hard.

Ok, so we went all through the usual rituals before going into class. However, as soon as my class sat down to start reviewing information we individually learned, students were raising their hands to ask Mr. Armstrong and the other kids about something they apparently did not understand. To be honest, I didn't fully get some things either. Fortunately after much intense discussion about the key terms and main ideas for this week, things started to clear up and everyone looked much more happier and less confused. Mr. Armstrong got us thinking by asking us connections between important events. People like Soyon and Deborah were responding enthusiastically and represented basically the whole class, but thanks to them, I learned some new information that were valuable. An example would be how the XYZ Affair was connected to the Alien and Sedition acts. As America was ticked off by the XYZ Affair, there were cries of war everywhere and the Alien and Sedition Acts prevented anyone from disagreeing with war. After this helpful debate, the class started working on our next immersion, and the we were called up individually to talk about our I Am character with Mr. Armstrong. The rest of the class was spent as nice, peaceful work time.

Andy L.-8B

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

IC/OC SEMINAR

2008.02.18
Mr.Armstrong started greeting us when we were on our seats, getting ready for the IC/OC seminar. When the bell rang, we started right away. First, Mr.Armstrong explained about the handouts that were placed on the desks. There were three handouts. A stapled piece of paper, grade sheet, and notes sheet. We put our names on it and he gave us time to write our reflection on the other side of the grade sheet that had a place to write the reflection. After we finished writing the reflection, and getting ready for the seminar, we started.
The inner circle started first. The inner circle talked about some of the main ideas of The Early Presedencies. The inner circle did quite well on answering the basic main ideas of that section, but when DK asked a question to the group, the inner circle was kind of stuck. But with Mr.Armstrong's clarification, inner circle was able to get through the confusing part. When inner circle's discussion ended, outer circle had the time to ask or add on to the inner circle's information. Outer circle used this time really wisely to ask the inner circle what they are still confused on, and what they don't know. I think the outer circle also did very well on adding some extra informations, and clarifying some facts that the inner circle didn't really do well on. After the inner circle's discussion, we got up and changed. Inner circle people went to the outside, and the outer circle people went inside the circle.
Outer circle was a very active discussion. As always, Soyon, Sungmo, and Britney were very active and brought up a lot of facts that helped other people understand better in some things. There were some people in both inner circle and outer circle that didn't really talk alot, or at all. But, Mr.Armstrong gave most of them chances to talk and raise their grades. I think the people that talks a lot during the seminar should sometimes give the quite ones a chance to talk. Remember you quite people, 'Silence is Deadly'.

Mandy M.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

The Early Presidencies-Harry O.

Today in class, we went over our immersions we did. Mr. Armstrong did not check our notebooks since he did not give us a lot of time last class, but the next immersion will count twice. During the review, Mr. Armstrong woke us up by randomly asking questions. The review helped clear my mind up a bit. We reviewed informations such as privateers, how Halmilton put tax on wiskey to test the power of the new government, Jay's Treaty, Pinckney's Treaty, and the Battle of Fallen Timbers. Going over the immersions are really great becuase you can learn from Mr. Armstrong's explanation and your classmates' thoughts.
After going over the immersions, he gave us a lot of time to get started on Week 4 Immersion Part 2.
It was almost 45 or 40 minutes, plenty of time to finish or almost finish the immersion.
The only hand out that was given was the Week 4 Immersion Pt. 2, Early Presidencies: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, it was just a paper with the key terms and main ideas.
Well, thats mostly what we did in class.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

History class on Feb 13th.

During class today, we talked about a new section: The early Presidencies.
We talked about the first president, George Washington. To learn about the hardships George Washington went through as the first president of the united states, we did an activity.The activity was about one of the international problems George Washington had to face.The problem was : When France and Great Britain were at war, George Washington had to choose what he was going to do... ally with Great Britain due to trading/economic reasons? or ally with France due to the fact that they allied with America during the Revolutionary War.
With the groups we were assigned with, we had to decide what we would do if we were George Washington, and give reasons to why we would help the country we chose. ( at the end, we found out that George Washington didn't side with either countries, he decided to be neutral)
at the end of going through which country we would side with and through the power point, we had quite a lot of time left, almost 30 minutes to work on our immersions.

Billy Park.

Monday, February 11, 2008

History Class -.-

Febuary 2nd, 2008 after the week of Holiday everyone came back not really remembering what they learned for the past few weeks. Mr. Armstrong woke up the class by telling the class some important dates of I am projects and a Test.And also he also went over the test, which he said we did improve alot on. We reviewed on many things today ,but most of the question in the test were all over 80 percent and also went to the 90 percent. Some question which asked things like the Manga Carta one many got it wrong because it wasnt on the pdf but Mr. Armstrong said we could look it up on different cites but many people did not do that. So many got it wrong and the next question which was analyizing with the Magna Carta people got it wrong too because they did not even know the definition. When we were almost finishing the review about from questions 40 to 50 the scores were not that good. The scores were like 40 percent or 60 percent. So Mr. Armstrong was like we need to still be active until the end of the test because thats the part where we lose points. Many people helped to solve problems why people chose the other answers. Hee Jae, Britney and Andy used there knowledge to help solve problems. We had handouts that were on our essay questions and like the answers which we just went over. And lastly Mr. Armstrong gave us handouts for our I AM project and also told us who we were. And many guys wanted what they wanted but not all.

Jamie W.