When Will we School Again?

Winter weather day 5 of the past two weeks.  Tomorrow will be 6 and there's a good chance Thursday will be 7.  Today is the first day off that I don't have any essays to grade, I'm going to try and finish a Lewis and Clark book that I've been picking away at for months.  Did you know that the people on the Lewis and Clark expedition ate quite a bit of dog?  They actually found it quite tasty.  Gross.  Or maybe not, maybe dog is delicious.  When they could, they ate upwards of 10 pounds of meat a day, they were burning so many calories from the work they did everyday they needed a crazy amount of food.  So while they preferred deer, buffalo and other traditional sources of protein, they would definitely get down on horse and dog when they needed to.

So logistics for the week.  Whenever we have school next, that is the day I'm staying after for test make ups.  Even if it's on Friday.  We need to get all the Long Essays and Multiple Choice tests made up.  I need you to make it an after school priority.  I'll hand back the LEQ's next time I see you but I do want to take a look at them together, I want to dedicate a few minutes of class time (probably on Monday) to have you specifically look for a couple of things in your writing.  So I trust that everyone can have them with them on Monday, I don't want to hold them until then.  And it also is important that everyone has the multiple choice test done before we go over it, so that will likely be on Monday too.  So we need to get them all done this week.

Regarding content, Chapter 23 should be done already and Chapter 24 should be done by Friday.  Expect Type 2's and notebook checks.  As I've said before, maybe some of you will use this as an opportunity to dig into the reading in a way you haven't before.  When you hear about the students that are setting the curve for our multiple choice tests and they are getting back 'A' essays, I'm pretty confident part of their approach to the material is a thorough reading and engagement of these chapters.

Some things to pay attention to for Chapter 23.

• Much of the chapter is about the end of Reconstruction which we have talked about in class.  Those developments (including Sharecropping) continue to be important.
• Panic of 1873 - this is the first specific instance of serious economic instability we've come across this year.  This represents the boom and bust cycle the American economy has gone through, the most significant example will be the Great Depression.  We'll see other examples of economic instability and we'll want to keep an eye on the impact on American society.  The Panic of 1873 was something that really hurt support for Reconstruction.  It basically was a mini-depression that went on for most of the 1870s.
• Plessy v. Ferguson - this is a crucial Supreme Court decision.  It ruled that segregation did not violate the Constitution.  It was overturned by Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.  It shows us how two different Supreme Courts can rule differently on the same issue in different eras.
  
• Americans are getting frustrated and agitated - pay attention to the rise of the Populist movement as farmers increasingly bore the brunt of economic difficulties and felt like the two major parties weren't representing them.  And in the Homestead Strike we see labor starting to organize and push back against the low pay and difficult working conditions of the 19th century.  We will be keeping an eye on organized labor from here on out.
  

So that's it for me today.  Stay safe and warm and let me know if you have any questions.