Calendar Updates and Long Essay 1

Please note a couple of minor updates to the calendar (particularly on the days before Thanksgiving break).  Also, please note the 'special project' on those days in class.  Don't stress!  It's not only an optional project, but it's meant to be fun - just the continuation of a tradition we established in LASA APUSH last year.

Also, remember, 1920s society and culture for your first long essay, plus a 'wild card' topic from the period for each class.  You get to choose, and you only have to write one.  Make sure you're studying!

Calendar Update

The calendar has been updated with essay and exam dates for the third six weeks.

Essay topics

A Day students - you will have three essay prompts to choose from, ALL of which will deal in some way with industrialization and organized labor in the late nineteenth century.

B Day students - you will also have three prompts from which to choose, with at least one focused on organized labor and industrialization.  The other prompt(s) will be comprehensive in nature, and may be focused on either industrialization or urbanization (including immigration) or some mixture of those topics.

Hope that helps.

Changes to grade distribution

As I mentioned to the B day classes (and will to the A day classes tomorrow), we will be slightly changing the grade distribution for the course for the remainder of the year.  The new formula will be as follows -

Daily (terms lists, etc.) - 20%
Essays - 40%
Examination - 40%

If you have any questions about this change, please feel free to speak to me before or after school, or send me an email.

Second Six Weeks Calendar

The Second Six Weeks calendar is now online.  Please take note of the following dates -

Friday, Oct. 17 - Long Essay 1 (A day)
Tuesday, Oct. 21 - Long Essay 1 (B day)
Tuesday, Oct. 28 - Second Six Weeks Examination / Short Answer Questions (B day)
Wednesday, Oct. 29 - Second Six Weeks Examination / Short Answer Questions (A day)
Wednesday, Nov. 5 - Long Essay 2 (A day)
Thursday, Nov. 6 - Long Essay 2 (B day)

Changes to the calendar, essay grading progress, update on essay topics for second long essay

Hope everyone is having a pleasant weekend.  Three things of note as we head into the penultimate week of the first six weeks - 

1. As of this writing, I'm about 55% done grading the first set of essays.  I'll be grading until I finish today, so please look for your graded essay either Monday or Tuesday in class.  Or, if you have access to Teams, you will find your grade there as soon as it's entered.

2. The calendar has changed slightly, particularly for B-day students.  Essay 2 has been moved back one block - to Thursday, September 25.  This is a late-start day, so this means you'll have less time to study in class before you write, but I figured you all would be OK with that given the extra 48 hours you'll have to prepare otherwise.  Also, this means that pretty much everything for B days has moved back one block for the rest of the six weeks (including your exam, now on Thursday, October 1).  

3. I am adding the element of choice to this long essay - just like on the AP exam, there will be two essay topics of the same type (CCoT, Comparative, etc.) on two different time periods, and you will choose ONE to write.  For each class, the topics will be industrialization and imperialism.  This isn't really a huge change from what I talked about in class last week, it's just that now there will be an extra essay prompt that you may choose to write on if you wish.

So, that's pretty much all.  On Monday and Tuesday, each class will have a little bit of instruction on essay writing, and will do a partner exercise on thesis writing and evidence.  Then, once that's done, we'll have our oil company simulation (B-day students, this is something we'd planned to do later in the week, but we're moving it up to Tuesday).  Remember, the inducement for winning the simulation is one extra point (on the six-point scale) on Essay 1, along with snacks of some sort, so it should be a lively competition!

Please let me know via email if you have any questions.  

Slight change to the calendar...

I made one slight change to the activity / assignment calendar today - we're going to push our first 'Mystery Document' activity to next week so we can focus next class on essay writing.  All due dates currently in the calendar remain the same.