Let's make a comic strip ... again.

My first comic strip wasn't, well, very good. At all. So it looked like I had to go back to the drawing board to make a new (read, better) one.

Civic Values Talk Show by hanbanan

Let's educate each other.

Two days have come and gone, and it's time for another one of my (enthralling) blog posts, this time dedicated to our first ever EdCafe!

We all split into groups Friday, making sure to be with all of our buddies, only to find that this was not in fact a group project - we all had the same topic, yes, but we would all be leading a completely different discussion. Maeve's discussion on petitioning probably was completely different (and much better) than mine.

We've never done something like this - like, ever - so when we all come into class on Wednesday with our findings we're almost completely lost. Did I do this right? What if this isn't enough to lead a discussion with? I, at least, doubted myself.

Once we got talking, however, it was pretty easy to just blab on about this right or that right, my freedom is more important then yours, not it's not, blah blah blah. I liked this EdCafe more than, say, if we were all in a discussion talking or just taking notes, mostly because with five of us more people got to talk.

And now we have another coming up? Bring it on.

Let's timeline it up.

For your viewing pleasure, I present, my timeline.

Let's convict Madonna.

What's like the most addicting iCivics game, Do I Have A Right, but, well, isn't the most addicting iCivics stated previously? What we did in History on Monday, that's what. Mr. Boyle handed out a hypothetical court case involving farmer Roger Will and a pop legend, and we had to find the Amendments that supported their case. If these people has us for lawyers, they would totally be able to assemble on a Sunday to jam out to Madonna.

After we clarified the meaning of the word hypothetical, it was almost a breeze to identify what Amendments were violated. It's getting easier and easier to remember which one is which, at least for me. First is the freedom of speech and religion, eighth would include cruel and unusual punishments like stocks or the pillory.

Moving on, today we established the differences between the Democratic-Republican and the Federalist parties. I had an excuse to use my favorite purple pen to highlight the important parts of the handout and draw arrows connecting ideas into some sort of lopsided flow chart. Apparently, drawing them is NOT my specialty, but I got the idea all the same.

Thankfully, if you got the Federalist ideas down, then eventually realized that the Democratic-Republican ideas were just ... the opposite. Which makes sense, since they're opposing sides. But, for example, the Federalists were "loose constitutionalists" while the Democratic-Republicans were "strict constitutionalists." Easy enough.

Let's have fun!

You'd be surprised how many different things we can do over the course of the week in history. Yesterday, we were partnered with someone who shared the same document as us, the Anti-federalists verses the Federalists, and from there we found their arguments for their cause. Even though I personally don't agree that our Constitution was a bad idea (where would we be without it? Anarchist nomads? The horror) it was still interesting to see all the cases the opposing side could find about it. That guy Brutus - the same name as the guy who killed Julius Caesar, coincidence? - really knows how to argue. And make really long quotes.

Once I had enlightened Maddie on my so-called anti-federalist views, we got to work making our own magazine cover, for a magazine with an elaborate name that I probably can't pronounce. Our lastest headline: Bill of Rights, Yay or Nay? Catchy, no?

Today, we all tromped over to lab for some computer time, where we ended up with another assignment - and EdCafe on protesting, at least for me. And three other people. The rest of the time, the majority of us were sucked into some addicting game that claimed to be educationally stimulating us on rights. Rights. Yeah. That's what it was about. Mhm. Not making little Antoine run around trying to stop people from storming angrily into the elevator. Now if I could just remember which right goes with which amendment, everything would be just peachy.

Let's listen to the sound of my voice.

Hey, you get three posts in one day! Lucky, lucky you. This one is solely dedicated to sharing my Spreaker podcast.

Let's learn about government branches.

Two days ago in History - how I feel I will start most of these blog posts - was dedicated to taking notes on the powers of the Executive Branch. We all recieved copies a copy of the plans regarding the presidency debate and a grid, left to interpret the strange blanks in the document using only our imagination and context. Even though the three plans only filled up one side of the sheet, it took a lot longer to unwravel what they were talking about. Did they already talk about impeachment, or did they not mention it at all? To this day, I still have absolutely no clue what "resd." stands for, nor what "aforesaid" means.

Flash forward to today, when we take what we learned from the Executive branch and combined it with what we learned from the Legislative branch. Lots of cutting, glue, and coloring, which I was probably too happy about. In my defense, it actually helped me get a better understanding of how the different branches interconnect.

The next thing on the agenda was to make a infographic - which we had to do on good ole lined paper instead of Rachel's snazzy laptop. You can see it on the below post, can't you? The branches represent, well, the branches, and the leaves branch off from them, describing the powers that each branch has. In case you were confused.

Let's draw a picture.

Here's what we managed to generate in class today - coloring courtesy of Rachel, Chelsea, and Maeve.

Let's blog about the Constitution.

When I walk into class on Tuesday, I'm intercepted by Mr. Boyle handing me an important looking document and telling me to find people who share my group number. Little did I know then that this would lead to a two class discussion and some fake tweeting.

As a group of three we read through the article from the Constitutional Convention regarding proportional or equal representation. Many of the founding fathers of our constitution found a way to make their opinions clear, and had a lot to say on the matter. David Brearly and William Paterson spoke strongly for equal representation, while James Wilson and Madison advocated for proportional representation. What impressed me most about reading this article was how many arguments they could find against each other; and this was only a small portion of what really went on at the Constitutional Convention. Once we'd jotted down some notes summarizing each of the arguments presented, we had to get cracking making a fake tweet focused around their arguments. Turns out this is the hardest part of the class, even though at first glance it seemed to be quite simple. Converting eighteenth century debates into this day and age? Nobody's ever asked me to do that before.

The next class, we dropped the next actual day, we got to learn about everyone else's arguments for or against bicamaralism and legislatures voting in the members of the government. Once we were done with that, we compared the arguments for each one - and determined which was really used in our government today. It's interesting to think about what our country would be like if they came to a different verdict, isn't it?

And this concludes the history recap for tonight.

Let's hope my link works!

The link to my Rewindy essay is here!

Let's learn a little bit about me.

If someone - an archaeologist, a historian, anyone from the future - were to unearth three artifacts, which ones would say the most about me? Well, that's actually harder to answer than I first thought. Someone could dig up a stapler from the fossilized remains of my desk, and what would that tell them about me? I stapled things. I could be an office worker. Or a lawyer, a mathematician. Lots of people use staplers.

My first choice, the one thing I might actually want someone to find, would be my iPod. It would be extremely unlikely that any of our technology could work in an advanced, super electronic culture, but it's kind of nice to think that a complete stranger could look through every carefully selected song, the same way I do. Creepy to think about excessively, but still nice. I think that my music says the most about me, and its how I can bond with a lot of people. Some people I might never think about talking to - like this guy in the future whose digging up my old stuff - could love my favorite song. My iPod is like the documentation of that.

Next would have to be the pickle dish. The best pickle dish. A plate with more personality than something actually capable for having one. My brother painted it when he was just a toddler, completely new to the whole 'art' concept. He'd finished the whole thing in less than five minutes, but it remained in the heart of everyone forever. The only problem? I broke it. Nobody will ever let me forget the fact that I broke the beloved pickle dish, instead choosing to point it out everytime we say anything related to the topic. Since it was such a treasured possession, we couldn't just throw it away, so the cracked corners are just a monument to my eternal stupidity and klutziness. Just because it was me who did it, everyone tends to forget that the pickle dish meant just as much to me as everyone else. So, even though the infamous pickle dish belongs to my unsentimental brother, it describes me just as much.

The one place I spend more time than anywhere, the Newbury theater, holds another artifact they could dig up about me. I've been working backstage there since middle school, and one of my first assignments was to assemble to pieces into a shelving unit sturdy enough to hold part of our vast prop collection. Despite all the complaining of it being too tall, they haven't moved it since, maybe because they knew how fond I was of it. I've forgotten how many times I've tried to organize the individual drawers and shelves, always giving up halfway through. You can probably still find some of my masking tape labels stuck to the back, or my scripts wedged underneath a stack of a random set piece we'll never use again. Eventually, I just claimed one of the drawers for my own. Most people wouldn't find anything special about a shelving unit, specially one that wasn't put together very well in the first place. But, it does a very good job of connecting theater with everything and everyone else I love.