Class #3 - 1/22/08

There seemed to be some moderate confusion over what is required in this class. The minimum homework requirements are to keep up with the reading and to complete the one page journal entry for each part of the book by the stated deadlines. Class time will be spent reviewing the reading and your journal entries, and include some of the other activities in the study guide. Meeting this minimum will earn you .25 credit in Social Studies. And please note that these assignments are due, on average, every other week.

IF you want to do additional work, I suggested you complete 2 of the 5 essay questions provided in the study guide for each chapter. Writing these essays is completely optional and therefore has no due date, although I encourage you to do this on pace with your reading. If you complete this work you will earn .25 credit in English.

Hopefully, that is clear now. :)

Regarding our discussion, I encourage you to learn even more about Anderson Sa. You may be interested in looking for the movie Favela Rising. I don't know much about it myself so if any of you take the time to get it and watch it, please let the rest of us know.

Summary of Homework Due on 2/5:
- Read the 4 chapters in Part Two of the book and complete the journal entry. This work must be done prior to the start of class.

Class #2 - 1/15/08

What is a peacemaker?

This question formed the basis of the first half of our in-class dialogue today. After reviewing the work you need to do to earn Social Studies and English credit, I posed this question. Your initial responses, I think, were what you think you were "supposed" to say, people like Gandhi, King, etc. When I pushed your definitions to include people you know, the conversation really took off. Gracie talked about her dad's morning meditation practice, Gabi mentioned her mom's work at Gabi's former school, and Eric talked about his dad and the work he does around issues of fairness and diversity.

We looked at the study guide questions specific to Henry David Thoreau, focusing most of our attention on what it means to live deliberately. I encourage you to consider this idea in more detail as you do your reading this week.

Before I sign off, let me tell you a little bit about a movie starring Robin Williams that came out in the late 80's called "The Dead Poet's Society." He plays an English teacher with an unconventional teaching style in a very traditional all-boys boarding school. He uses this quote from Thoreau to inspire his students:

I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately,
I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life,
To put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die
Discover that I had not lived.

I encourage you to see the movie during this term. As a teaser, enjoy this YouTube link.

Now it is time for you to think.

Summary of Homework Due on 1/22:
- Read the 4 chapters in Part One of the book and complete the journal entry. This work must be done prior to the start of class.

Class #1 - 1/8/08

In the first class I introduced you to the book "Great Peacemakers" by Ken Beller & Heather Chase. I told you that I had been introduced to Ken by Eric's dad, Bill, and that Ken had shared an advanced reading copy of the book and an accompanying study guide with me, interested in getting my feedback.

We then spent time talking about Ken & Heather, using what we learned from the "About the Authors" page. I went into detail explaining what "linking values with the bottom line" meant, and we talked some about environmentally-conscious personal care products, based on Heather's work in that area.

We spent considerable time reviewing the work you need to do in order to earn high school credit. For .25 credit in social studies you'll need to read the book and complete the journal-style entries of the study guide. I will encourage you to complete other activities from the study guide but these will not be a required part of the credit-earning component, although they could provide you additional credit. For .25 credit in English you will need to write essay-style responses to 2 of the 5 questions provided in the study guide for each of the 20 peacemakers featured in the book. These essays need not be long but they need to be of high quality, demonstrating your ability to compose decent sentences and paragraphs, and show that you understand basic writing conventions (spelling, grammar, etc).

Since class ended I have been in contact with Bill and Ken. Bill has generously offered to purchase the books for you. Ken has already shipped them so we should have them by next week's class. I will copy for you the relevant pages from the study guide and have those for you next week.

Anyone interested in learning more about this book should visit this link.