11/12/09 - Shoebox Archeology Essay First Final Draft is due on Monday 11/16/09
11/03/09 - Shoebox Essay rough draft is due on Monday, 11/09/09
10/22/09 - A reminder of some important upcoming dates: Deadline for resubmitting the FACETS essay is Tuesday, 10/27/09, and the archeology test will be on Thursday 10/29/09. The first two pages of the Yellow Archeology Packet are a study sheet for the test.
10/01/09 - PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING CHANGE IN DUE DATE - Shoebox, 12 artifacts and 3 bags of fill for the Shoebox Archeology Project are due on Tuesday, October 13, 2009 not Thursday, October 15, 2009 as previously posted. Sorry for the confusion. See "Shoebox Archeology Project" handout passed out in class on Thursday, October 1 for specific requirements and suggestions for this assignment.
09/30/09 - Culture collages came in today! What a wonderful job the students have done selecting and displaying the pictures that they found for each of the culture categories. Culture collages will be displayed in Room 131 over the next 6 weeks. Nice work Sigma Six!
09/23/09 - Students should be working steadily each night to gather pictures, make labels and assemble their culture collages. Try to gather 8 - 10 pictures (2 categories) each night. One week to go!
09/23/09 - Culture Collage Clipping party Day 2- after school 3:05 to 4:30. Send
your child in with magazines, newspapers and spare catalogs and I will
help them find and mount pictures for their culture collage. No
magazines, newspapers and spare catalogs? No problem, I'll bring some
of my own as well, though the more we have the better. Whatever you
send in will be cut up, so please don't send in any keepsake newspapers
or magazines.
09/22/09 - Culture Collage Clipping party Day 1- after school 3:05 to 4:30. Send your child in with magazines, newspapers and spare catalogs and I will help them find and mount pictures for their culture collage. No magazines, newspapers and spare catalogs? No problem, I'll bring some of my own as well, though the more we have the better. Whatever you send in will be cut up, so please don't send in any keepsake newspapers or magazines.
09/18/09 - Hello to parents, students and friends! Welcome to my web site. Look on this website for class announcements, updates, assignments and information about the course. I'm still learning how to use this website, so please be patient. In the future (when I figure out how to do it), I hope to scan worksheets, templates and relevant materials and place links to them on this site.
We have just finished learning to produce a basic, one paragraph factual essay. Our focus has been learning how an essay is structured, particularly the main body of the essay. It has been wonderful to watch the kids working hard to craft examples for their essay that are succinct and yet appropriately detailed. I look forward to reading about how the FACETS have played a part in each of their lives when they turn in their final drafts on Monday, September 21, 2009.
Writing factual essays are an important part of this course. Each unit contains a writing assignment and each assignment builds on the skills learned in the previous assignment. We do much of the drafting in class so that I can monitor the kids' progress. Each written assignment is approached in a very step by step fashion. It may seem that your child's writing appears very formulaic at first. Don't worry. I actually do this intentionally. I work to teach your kids the basic rules and components of factual essay writing. Later when they have mastered the rules, they are welcome to break them or stretch them.
We have also begun to study how archaeologists and historians learn about the past. This week we talked about the messages that ancient peoples send forward to us, often unwittingly, about how they lived. We learned what an artifact was, and we talked about what culture is and what the sub-categories are which, in combination, make up a culture.
Over the next week, the kids will be working to find pictures from books, magazines, newspapers and from the Internet which illustrate each of the 14 "components of culture". The final collage will be due on Wednesday, September 30. The children need to find five pictures for each component of culture. They will be mounting these on an 18"x24" piece of white construction paper which I have given them. I have encouraged them to start right away, as sixty-five to seventy pictures takes a while to collect. Please encourage your child to work steadily to gather seven to ten pictures a day.
To help students find pictures, I will be holding two after school "collage parties" on Tuesday and Wednesday from 3:05 to 4:30. I will bring catalogs, newspapers and magazines, and we will have the computer available as well. It might be a great way for your child to get some extra help on his or her collage.
Finally, I look forward to seeing you all on Back to School Night on Thursday, September 24.
Take care until next time,
Burry Gowen - Sigma Six Social Studies
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