Course Calendar

Friday, August 06, 2010

Welcome Back!

Dear Parent/Guardians & Students,
We are now approximately one week away from the start of our 2010-2011 school year. What an exciting time: with the new construction at the school, the excitement of the teachers, and the anxious anticipation of students awaiting the start of a new school year. This year is sure to be both memorable and fun in the middle-level history courses. We will be participating in the National History Day Contest at the Minnesota Historical Society in mid-March, incorporating multiple historical novels, and will be studying some of the most interesting and controversial subjects and events in World and American History including the dropping of the atomic bomb and the Vietnam War.

Overall, my educational objective for my students is simple. Throughout the year I will strive to have students improve their critical thinking skills by refining their speaking, reading, and writing abilities. Other in-class concentrations are discussing, analyzing, and interpreting historical and current world events. My hope is for students to understand the subjectivity of history and in the end be able to confidently express their worldview after analyzing all of the information.

Below you will find a list books that your student will have the option of reading at each grade level. The titles listed in the following document were compiled by a well-respected group of middle school and high school Social Studies and English teachers that I had the pleasure of working with at my last school. I would like to provide this list to you as a resource as you continue to encourage your child(ren) to explore literature. Although these books are powerful and challenging, there are quite a few titles with mature content. I highly recommend you preview the book yourself before suggesting it to your child as we arrive to these units of study. Each student will be provided with book choice and/or alternative reading choices, however, if you know of other books you would like to suggest that surround each topic of study please feel free to contact me with other suggestions as these are simply a list of school, state, and national social studies content teen-literature suggested readings. And as I know and understand, you are the ultimate judge of what your child should be reading. As your students teacher I am excited to be sharing in the responsibility of helping your student to learn about World and American History. Together I am certain we can make this a successful, challenging, and fun school year. So please take the opportunity to look over the list, read the books, and determine what selections you would like to make with your child(ren).

5th Grade
Civil War (One Book):
*Soldier's Heart by Paulsen
Red Badge of Courage by Crane (Enriched Option)

6th Grade
Gilded Age & Progressive Era (One Book):
*Uprising by Haddix
The Jungle by Sinclair
How the Other Half Lives by Riis (Enriched Option)

7th Grade
WWI (One Book):
*Under the Blood Red Sun by Salisbury (Japanese Internment)
*The Last Mission by Mazer (WWII European Front)

Roaring 20's/Early 30's (One Book):
The Trial by Bryant (Lindbergh Baby)
Monkey Town: Summer of the Scopes Trial by Kidd (Monkey-Scopes Trial)

8th Grade
Vietnam Civilian Perspective (One Book)
*Sonny's War by Hobbs
*Summer's End by Couloumbis
*Lost in War by Antle

Vietnam Soldier/Military Perspective (One Book):
*The Things They Carried by O'Brien
Cracker! Best Dog in Vietnam by Kadohata
Fallen Angels by Myers

Italics Signifies the Topic of Study
* Signifies Teacher Preferred Novels


In addition, I have attached the course syllabus for my class for grades 5-7 and 8th grade. Please take the time to read over the syllabus and feel free to print off a copy for your records. The syllabus lists expectations, major course assignments, grading scales, and descriptions of RAMP points and middle-level teacher/school rules. I hope this information helps you to understand what to expect from the course and gets you as excited for the year ahead as I am.

Grades 5-7 Syllabus

Grade 8 Syllabus

Have a wonderful last week of summer, and I look forward to meeting you at the Open House.

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History Quotes

We can learn from history how past generations thought and acted, how they responded to the demands of their time and how they solved their problems. We can learn by analogy, not by example, for our circumstances will always be different than theirs were. The main thing history can teach us is that human actions have consequences and that certain choices, once made, cannot be undone. They foreclose the possibility of making other choices and thus they determine future events.
-Gerda Lerner

History, we can confidently assert, is useful in the sense that art and music, poetry and flowers, religion and philosophy are useful. Without it -- as with these -- life would be poorer and meaner; without it we should be denied some of those intellectual and moral experiences which give meaning and richness to life. Surely it is no accident that the study of history has been the solace of many of the noblest minds of every generation.
-Henry Steele Commager

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.
-Robert F. Kennedy