March 13

IB 20 HOTA

I did a homework check on your study guide for the Declaration of Independence at the beginning of class today. Most of today's class was spent examining the Articles of Confederation. I split you into groups, and each group had to read a section or sections of the Articles of Confederation and try to summarize their assigned section for the class. Hopefully by the end of the exercise you have a good idea of the historical context for the creation of the Articles of Confederation, and some its key characteristics, such as the following:

• “firm league of friendship”
• no national executive
• no national judiciary
• unicameral congress (like Continental Congress)
• 2-7 delegates per state (one vote per delegation in Congress)
• Powers of Congress – foreign policy, coin money, Indian affairs, settle state disputes, requisition troops and taxes (based on state property value)
• legislators selected by state legislatures (3 year / 6 year term limit)
• routine votes required simple majority / critical decisions (declaring war)– unanimity 
• amendment of the Articles (unanimous consent of delegates to Congress and of state legislatures)

As we'll see, the Articles of Confederation led to some political problems for the United States, so it only lasts as the first constitution of the USA from 1781 to 1789. In 1789, a constitutional convention is called, and delegates from the 13 states all meet to draft a new U.S. Constitution. Tomorrow will be a busy day because I will lecture on the U.S. Constitution, I will assign you roles for the constitutional convention that we'll be doing on Monday and Tuesday next week, I will teach you some Model UN parliamentary procedure, and assign you a copy of the United States Constitution graphic novel.

Social 10-1

We had a very spirited debate on the following topic: "BIRT globalization is beneficial to the world's cultures". I found it interesting that many of you focused in language so much during the course of the debate. I then did a little exercise after concluded the debate on argumentation and evidence, in which you had to brainstorm arguments to convince a friend to attend Churchill. We'll talk more about essay writing tomorrow, and you will get the Unit 1 WRA II Essay question sheet tomorrow. Please remember that you're writing your Unit 1 WRA II Essay over the course of two days next week: on Monday, you will write your 1st paragraph, save it to your H-drive and print off a hard copy. We'll then come back to the class, do some peer editing of the essay. On Tuesday, you will have the entire period to finish off your Unit 1 WRA II Essay.

IB 30/35

We watched another video from the CNN Cold War series today called "Conclusions". I also showed you some photos from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and I put some notes up on the board of the overlapping Soviet and American leaders during the Cold War. Please remember that you have your Social 30-1 Cold War Exam on Tuesday, March 18th. Please see the study guide below.

Social 30-1 Cold War Unit Final Study Guide:

Make sure that you know all the Cold War concepts:

• deterrence
• disarmament
• isolationism
• appeasement
• collective security
• direct confrontation
• brinkmanship
• containment
• detente
• collective intervention

Be able to define the following key concepts:

• superpower
• sphere of influence
• arms race
• Suez Canal War 1956
• brinkmanship
• Korean War
• Cold War
• decolonization
• Cuban Missile Crisis
• detente
• NATO
• collective security
• know the chronology of events of the Cold War (study timelines. Please check under Social 30-1 Links on the blog for links to the Cold War timelines)
• know key events that we've emphasized in class (for example: Berlin Airlift, Korean War, Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam War, Afghanistan) plus other key events from the timeline
• know major arms reduction agreements (bilateral agreements and multilateral agreements), please study the notes that I gave you on this (detailed notes and the chart)
• know about the formation of alliances (NATO, Warsaw Pact, SEATO, etc.) and the formation of "spheres of influence"
• know examples of American intervention in their "backyard" (Western Hemisphere, notes package plus notes from the CNN video useful here)
• anything that I gave you as a handout/notes on the wiki is testable material and should be reviewed!!
• know how the Cold War ends and its results/consequences