Thursday, May 23, 2013

Let's read the news.

How have the Haitians responded to the presence of U.S. Marines in their country? Well, I dunno ... guess I have to ... you know, write about it.

Breaking news! We're reporting live from Haiti with the findings that they are unhappy with the U.S. presence in their country for the past four years. The U.S. first entered Haiti when they found them "unfit to rule," but the Haitians soon found that they preferred any ruler to the U.S. forces in their country. New sources confirm that when the Haitians tried to strike their American oppressors, the marines retaliated with unmistakable violence. Villages where destroyed, and thousands of natives were killed or mutilated in the violence that followed. The NAACP went into Haiti and confirmed that they were being mistreated, reporting that racism and imperialism were in play.

How did we not know this earlier? The U.S. tried to cover up the fact that they were blatantly taking over every aspect of Haitian society and destorying lives in their wake. While they made it seem like they were unfit to rule themselves after the "coup d'etat," in actuality they just wanted to have Haiti under their control.Will the U.S. hear the cries of injustice, or will they let Haiti fall under the sweltering heat of injustice? Tune in tomorrow for the next update.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Let's create some pana-monium.

You totally see what I did there. Pandamonium, pana-mon ... okay, it's not that funny.

Yesterday, after we watched a tutorial on the Panama Canal, we looked at political cartoons depicting the building of the Canal and the Monroe Doctrine. We answered questions and discussed this as a class.

Today - after our mini-rant thing - Mr. Boyle divided us into groups of four and gave us snippets from a speech or something about the Monroe Doctrine. We had to find key words, summarize it, and write it in our own words, then present it to the class.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Let's read Jack London.

Yesterday in History, we, uh, well, we were supposed to be working on our 16% Projects, but with MCAS ending halway through the period we were exhausted and a little loopy. Mr. Boyle instead gave us a quick rundown of what was due soon and the Sophia for that night.

Today we read a Jack London story, "To Build A Fire." It took place in Alaska, where, you guessed it, our Sophia was on. We learned about what it was like living in Alaska at that time, and Mr. Boyle had us discuss knowledge verses instinct.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Let's put the 'sass' in assassination.

Yesterday we had our first 'fishbowl' (glub, glub) where we were each assigned a side of a debate to defend and read up on. One member from our group went into the center to voice our opinions on the problem: should the Cherokee Indians be forced to move West? As the Judicial Branch, we said no, as did the Cherokees (duh) and the Missionaries. Even though Andrew Jackson was the only one for yes, the Cherokees were forced to move West along the trail of Tears. If only we could stop him with impeachment ... or assassination.

Today we worked on our Smithsonian Quests in the Library.