AHS * HUMANITIES 11
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Daily Blog

Wednesday, October 14th

10/14/2015

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Today's Goal:
  • Understand Jeremy Bentham's philosophy of Utilitarianism
  • Understand John Stuart Mill's philosophy of the Harm Principle and how it relates to Utilitarianism​
  • Understand Michael Sandel's framework for Justice

Starter
Take THIS SURVEY about whether or not you buy-in to studying moral/political philosophy

Class Biz
  • Essay conference schedule!
  • SLC's are next Wednesday. I'll introduce it today at the end of class. You'll have work time in advisory today and next week. 
  • School photos-- I'll dismiss you guys by study groups today

Agenda
1. Remember the "lifeboat" scenario from last night's reading? Yeah, sure you do. It's the one about the English sailors adrift at sea, at the brink of starvation?  
  • Why, according to a strict Utilitarian would killing Parker, the poor cabin boy, be morally justified?
  • ​What are two OBJECTIONS to killing Parker? One uses Utilitarian reasoning, the other does not (p. 33)
  • What is the MAIN idea of Utilitarianism?  
  • What does Bentham mean when he says, “We are all governed by the feelings of pain and pleasure.  They are our ‘sovereign masters’. They govern us in everything we do and also determine what we ought to do” (34).  How does this apply to the concept of utilitarianism
  • ​Watch this video of Utilitarianism in pop culture. Oh heeeeyyyyy!

2. Time to work on the study group discussion questions for Ch. 2
  • Review my feedback on Tuesday's discussion and make sure y'all understand my points
  • Work TOGETHER on the questions for today

3. Ashley to help clarify any questions remaining from your study group time!

4. Last 10 minutes of class: SLC guidelines
  • Rationale for SLC's
  • How we're changing them this year and why
  • Why your parents will hopefully value this format and why it's a better forum to empower you and your voice!
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Monday, 10/12

10/12/2015

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Picture
Picture
Navy Seal Marcus Luttrell with Afghan villager Mohammad Gulab
Today's Learning Goals:
Understand Michael Sandel's framework for justice (virtue, welfare, liberty)


This Week's BIG Question:
How should the government balance security (welfare), liberty, equality and virtue in order to create just laws?

Starter #24: Trolley Car Dilemma Case #1
Suppose you are the driver of a trolley car and your trolley car is hurtling down the track at 60 mph.  At the end of the track, you notice 5 workers working on the track. You try to stop but you can’t because your brakes don’t work.  You panic because you know, for sure, that if you crash into these workers, all 5 will die.  You feel helpless until you notice that off to the right is a side track and at the end of that track is just one worker working.  Your steering works so you know that if you turn right, you could avoid killing the five workers but certainly kill the one at the end of the track. What would you do?  Go straight ahead or turn right? These are the ONLY two choices.  Defend your reason.

*The trolley problem is a thought experiment in ethics, first introduced by Philippa Foot in 1967
*Additional Resources for the stater:
  • (Video reenactment of this dilemma)
  • (Link to this dilemma with an explanation of how your response might align with a specific moral philosophy)

Class Biz/Announcements
  • Honors: Historical Thinking Skills charts on 2 resources (one primary, one secondary) due 10/26
  • Real History of the Americas Day (see below)
  • Double space, double side your literary analysis essay! Due B.O.C today
  • Turn in your copy of TNTSJ (remove your annotations)

The Real History of the Americas at FLC takes a different look at the Western world
Until 10 p.m.,TONIGHT  at Fort Lewis College
LINK TO THE SCHEDULE

The Real History of the Americas takes a positive, but different look at the history of North and South America from the viewpoints of Hispanic, African-American, Asian, Native and LGBT peoples, among others. This year’s theme is “Telling our stories through dance.” Featured artists include Las Cafeteras, fusing traditional, hip-hop, folk, Afro-Mexican, and Latino music with their energetic multi-lingual performance and many more.
 
The all-day long event offers workshops, inspirational identity activities, a live National Anthem performance in English and in Navajo by FLC student Olivia Duncan, live dance performances by Ballet Folklorico de Durango, the Water Justice Project as well as presentations by Miss Hozhoni Nicole Lovato, First Attendant Charine Gonzales, and much more.


Agenda
1. Discuss Trolley Car Dilemma Case #1 and consider case #2

Trolley Car Case #2
This time you are not the driver, you are an onlooker standing on a bridge overlooking the track.  Down the track comes the trolley car, same situation is at hand.  Except, now, you’re not the driver and you REALLY feel helpless until you notice, standing next to you, leaning over the bridge, is a very large man.  And you could give him a slight shove and he would fall over the bridge, onto the track, right in the way of the trolley car, he would die, but he would spare the five.  Now.  How would you push the large man? Explain.

2.  Introduction to Moral Philosophy and our next book Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? by Michael Sandel
  • Michael Sandel's website and Harvard course
  • Introduction to Moral Philosophy power point
  • Read aloud the first page (real-world relevance here folks!!)

3. 
Begin reading and annotating "Doing the Right Thing"- Chapter 1 of Michael Sandel's book, Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?  Due Tuesday!

Required to only read these pages:
  • 1-10 (to "What Wounds Deserve the Purple Heart?")
  • 12-16 (starting at "Bailout Outrage")
  • 19-21 (ending at "Runaway Trolley")
  • 24-30 (starting at "The Afghan Goatherds")​


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Thursday, 10/8

10/8/2015

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Starter #23

Read this document:
  • Conclusion paragraphs: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
  • Summarize what should go in your conclusion

Class Biz
  • ​Exhibition roles and times
  • The director of La Plata County Public Health is speaking on the Health Departments response to the Gold King Mine Spill tomorrow evening at 7 pm at the Rec Center.  Could be valuable to let students know.

Agenda
1. Go over conclusions (plus what should go in an intro?)
2. Passive Voice corrections
3. Questions for whole class?

4. In-Class Essay work time
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Wednesday, 10/7

10/6/2015

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Starter #22 FREE WRITE!  
To get our creative juices flowing for outlining the essay, let's get back to those fun free-writes!



Class Biz

Sign up for roles for the exhibition tomorrow

Agenda

1. Mini-lesson #1 
  • Examples of Introducing Quotes and Block Indentation with prose and poems

2. PRACTICE in your starter google docs: Select a quote that is 4 lines or more long that you plan to use in your essay and properly introduce it and cite the page #. Check your partner's to make sure it's correct.

3. Minilesson #2: 
Passive Voice  v. Active Voice

4. PRACTICE by fixing the sentences on page 2 of this document


3. Work Time:
  • Conference with Ashley
  • Re-read the play, searching for quotes to support your topic
  • Outline your essay
  • Don't write it yet!

LITERARY ANALYSIS RESOURCES
  • Examples of Introducing Quotes and Block Indentation with prose and poems
  • TNTSJ Literary Analysis Essay prompt/student example/tips/rubric
  • Parenthetical Documentation and Works Cited Page
  • Setting up quotes 
  • Owl at Purdue's Writing Lab on Block Quotes (for quotes that are 4 lines or longer)
  • Titles: Quotes or Italics?
  • Example student essay #1
  • Example student essay #2
  • Conclusion paragraphs: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
  • Ashley's 12th grade English paper for Mr. London
  • Owl at Purdue on MLA Bibliographies
  • Passive Voice 
  • How to write concisely (AKA: Streamlining)
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Tuesday, October 6th

10/5/2015

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Link to your storycorps Interviews
Announcement:
To prepare better for exhibition and to support each other, I'd really encourage you all to listen to a few of your classmates podcasts this week. See the button link above.

Today's Goal:
  • Understand Thoreau's main arguments in Civil Disobedience about the role of the individual and the government in creating justice
  • Understand the basic premise of a literary analysis essay

Starter #21: Review Civil Disobedience
  • What was Thoreau's main argument in this essay and what is a quote that captures that? Please set it up like this:  Thoreau's main argument in Civil Disobedience is ______________.  He expresses this idea as he writes, "QUOTE" (4).  
  • What was a passage or line from Civil Disobedience that you do not understand or that confuses you? Please set it up like this:  I was quite confused when Thoreau writes, "QUOTE"(3). 

Agenda 
1. Small group discussion on Civil Disobedience
  • Share your BOTH of your starter responses and try to help each other break down the passages you didn't understand 

2. Whole class discussion on Civil Disobedience by Thoreau
  • What strategies can you use to improve your reading comprehension for dense texts like this?
  • What questions weren't you able to answer in your small group?
  • What does he mean when he writes, "The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines"(page 2, paragraph 5)
  • What is Thoreau's critique of voting? Why would he say that we become slaves ourselves when we wait to make something change by casting our vote and accepting majority rule (paragraph 8, page 3)
  • On page 2, paragraph 6, Thoreau criticizes our government as being hypocritcal.  How does he do this and why would he believe that to be so? Do you agree?
  • Overall, What does Thoreau want us to do as individuals?
  • What does he want from the government?

3. Go over the Literary Analysis In-Class Essay assignment (DOWNLOAD THIS TO YOUR DESKTOP)
  • Read through the assignment and take a glance at the resources
  • Read the example student essay (intro, body paragraph #1 and conclusion) and in groups, grade it using the rubric.
  • What changes would you like to pose to the rubric?

4. What do you notice in the example essay about....
  • How to introduce quotes
  • How to cite the page number
  • What type of information the intro has

5. Thesis Statement, Literary Present and Third Person Mini-Lessons 
  • See the essay assignment packet for summaries

Literary Analysis Essay Resources
  • Examples of Introducing Quotes and Block Indentation with prose and poems
  • TNTSJ Literary Analysis Essay prompt/student example/tips/rubric
  • Parenthetical Documentation and Works Cited Page
  • Setting up quotes 
  • Owl at Purdue's Writing Lab on Block Quotes (for quotes that are 4 lines or longer)
  • Titles: Quotes or Italics?
  • Example student essay #1
  • Example student essay #2
  • Conclusion paragraphs: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
  • Ashley's 12th grade English paper for Mr. London
  • Owl at Purdue on MLA Bibliographies)
  • Passive Voice 
  • How to write concisely (AKA: Streamlining)

6. If time: Select a topic for your essay from one of the prompt options
  • Conference with Ashley
  • Talk to at least 3 other classmates about which topic they are doing
  • Re-read TNTSJ with an eye toward your topic and begin selecting quotes you think go with that topic (be sure to track page #s)
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Friday, October 2nd

10/1/2015

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Our Class Definition of Transcendentalism
An early 19th century philosophical movement that spearheaded by Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson that stipulates individuals have the ability to think beyond their body, and prioritizes self-reliance, nonconformity, spiritual connection through nature, and not believing in God as the traditional religious figure, but finds a God in nature, and believing that everything is connected (we are all a part of a universal soul).

Starter #19: Watch Obama's Address of the Umpqua Community College mass shooting in Roseberg, OR and respond:
  • What methods did he use to affect his audience and make his point?
  • Do you agree with Obama that we need to tighten gun control in this country? Why or why not?

Agenda
1. Discuss our starter
​Ethos, Pathos, Logos
  • Vox.com: Article about Obama's speech and cross-cultural comparison of homicide rates 
  • Fox News: Article describing the shooting

2. Go over the homework: 
  • Finish TNTSJ by Monday
  • By Tuesday: Read (and I'd encourage some form of annotations) these excerpts from the essay, Civil Disobedience by Thoreau. 

3. To the Twin Buttes Amphitheater Batman! Bring things to annotate with.
  • Act out pp. 80-88
  • Quiet reading time (either TNTSJ or "Civil Disobedience)

Discussion Questions (Use evidence to back up your ideas yo!)
  • What does huckleberrying symbolize? (re-read pages 72-74)
  • How do you achieve individual liberty AND equality?
  • How does Thoreau define "freedom"  Do you agree?
  • What are other ways we can define freedom?
  • Does Thoreau's philosophy free us of helping the less fortunate? 
  • What does Walden represent?
  • What is the best way to bring about justice and change? Revolution? Slow, incremental steps? Other ways?
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    Ashley Carruth

    Humanities 11 Teacher at Animas High School

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  • Daily Blog
  • Syllabus
    • Meet the Teacher
  • Documents
  • Homework
  • Honors
  • Writing Resources
    • Writing Growth Example Page
  • Glamour Shots
  • Advisory