Students continue to work on their WebQuests in the computer lab.  Tomorrow we will be up in the classroom to discuss new concepts and information students have been researching.

We also continued to Skype with Beachwood today (time permitting).  Students have been asking questions and discussing different aspects of feudalism.  Great educational experiencing for students and a new way to collaborate in learning!

Keep adding information, links, images and questions to the GoogleDocs.  Students are having some great academic conversations!!

Today all but one class had the opportunity to Skype with students from Beachwood Middle School.  Mr. Holman's and my students are learning about the Middle Ages using the same WebQuest.  Today students had the opportunity to meet the students at Beachwood and learn what social class they had received for the Middle Ages WebQuest.

Students have also been collaborating and engaging in GREAT! conversation via several GoogleDocs embedded in the WebQuest.  A GoogleDoc is like a "live" word document stored online.  Students can ask questions, share images and websites and create real-world Learning Communities with fellow students at Chardon and at Beachwood.  This is an amazing learning experience that isn't taking place anywhere else in the country (to my knowledge).  Your students are using GoggleDocs as social media to learn in a responsible and safe manner.  Mr. Holman and myself are very proud of the work our students are completing.

Today I introduced the WebQuest students at Chardon and Beachwood will be using to experience the Middle Ages.  Mr. Holman and I just got done talking and we both agree that this unit is about creating an exciting, engaging and FUN way of learning.  We want students to create feudal characters and experience the Middle Ages through those characters.  Use your creativity and curiosity to get a true sense of what life was like during the Dark Ages.  We will skype with Beachwood and allow people from social classes at both schools to interact and learn from each other.  Mr. Holman and myself want you to focus on exploring and learning this information.  Do not just think about tests and homework.   It's not about grades!  it's about learning.  Free yourself from how you are use to "doing" school and allow yourself to get wrapped up in this webquest.  Enjoy yourself and learn something at the same time.

This week we will begin our unit on the Middle Ages.  Definitely one of my favorite (but not most favorite) moments in history.  Students will be completely a webquest as one of the social classes from the Feudal System.  Students at Beachwood will complete the same webquest at the same time.  Hopefully we will be able to interact via Skype and GoggleDocs.  Stay warm tonight everybody!!!

August 28, 1963

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

 Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

Martin Luther King, Jr., delivering his 'I Have a Dream' speech from the steps of Lincoln Memorial. (photo: National Park Service)

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "For Whites Only". We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

 I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

For those student who finish their project, Please read the song lyrics below and explore the web links.  We will talk about the American Civil Rights Movement next week.  The links below give some very strong examples of the hatred and intolerance that sparked the American Civil Rights Movement.







The Death Of Emmett Till
(Bob Dylan singing this song is attached below..WARNING graphic images)
"Twas down in Mississippi no so long ago,
When a young boy from Chicago town stepped through a Southern door.
This boy's dreadful tragedy I can still remember well,
The color of his skin was black and his name was Emmett Till.

Some men they dragged him to a barn and there they beat him up.
They said they had a reason, but I can't remember what.
They tortured him and did some evil things too evil to repeat.
There was screaming sounds inside the barn, there was laughing sounds out on the street.

Then they rolled his body down a gulf amidst a bloody red rain
And they threw him in the waters wide to cease his screaming pain.
The reason that they killed him there, and I'm sure it ain't no lie,
Was just for the fun of killin' him and to watch him slowly die.

And then to stop the United States of yelling for a trial,
Two brothers they confessed that they had killed poor Emmett Till.
But on the jury there were men who helped the brothers commit this awful crime,
And so this trial was a mockery, but nobody seemed to mind.

I saw the morning papers but I could not bear to see
The smiling brothers walkin' down the courthouse stairs.
For the jury found them innocent and the brothers they went free,
While Emmett's body floats the foam of a Jim Crow southern sea.

If you can't speak out against this kind of thing, a crime that's so unjust,
Your eyes are filled with dead men's dirt, your mind is filled with dust.
Your arms and legs they must be in shackles and chains, and your blood it must refuse to flow,
For you let this human race fall down so God-awful low!

This song is just a reminder to remind your fellow man
That this kind of thing still lives today in that ghost-robed Ku Klux Klan.
But if all of us folks that thinks alike, if we gave all we could give,
We could make this great land of ours a greater place to live.

Copyright ©1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music

LINKS:
Emmett Till
     -Great source of information about Emmett Till.  CAUTION, as you follow 
       the link on the page there is an image of Emmett from his funeral.  The
       image is graphic in nature, but was used in news papers to help show the
       severity of hatred and racism in the South during the early 20th century.

Jim Crow
     -Read about who Jim Crow was and how "he" effected the nation.

Segregation Laws
     -Specific examples of segregation in the United States.

American Civil Rights Movement
    -Nice source of information about specific events of the Civil Rights
     Movement.

Mr. Corfman is teaching a fun new program to his technology classes, so I thought I would give it a try!  xtranormal.com allows you to make short animations based on a script you type.  It is free and a great way to add a visual element to your written work.

This week students will be in the computer lab working on a variety of projects to show their understanding of enduring impacts.  Students will be building models, web pages, prezi presentations, etc to "show what they know".  Students must show understanding of at least one specific enduing impact AND understanding of how the modern world is impacted/influenced by enduring impacts, in general.

Welcome back and I hope everybody had a great Winter Break.  Today I introduced the project options for next week.  Because of computer lab time and snow days I will give students next week to work in the computer lab on their enduring impacts projects.  The very best student work will be uploaded to the Chardon/Beachwood online textbook.

Tomorrow we will start into the Middle Ages by examining the State Standard for this unit and a pre-read of the important chapters from the textbook.

Homework tonight is to decide on what you want to complete next week for your enduring impacts project.

I hope everybody enjoys their Winter Break.  This is a great time to think about family, friends and the kind of enduring impact you are creating in the world.  Be kind to each other, be empathetic and be happy!
Several students have some worries about their grades after the last test.  Don't worry so much:)  We still have several weeks left in the grading period when we come back from Break.  Remember school shouldn't be about points and grades.  School is about thinking, creatively approaching problems and being proud of all you know; not worrying about what you don't know.  None of us are perfect and none of us know everything.  Have faith in your abilities and each other.  See ya in 2011