Week Three

Weekly Update

Today was a fun day of debating the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Throughout this week students have learned about different kinds of governments and how Iran transitioned from a constitutional monarchy to a representative democracy to a dictatorship and, finally, to a theocracy. Students were put into groups yesterday to argue for either a social democracy, a socialist government, or a theocracy in a role-playing activity, which took place today. The debates were a great learning experience as students put themselves in the shoes of people living during this time of rapid transition in 1979 Iranian society, and we had a lot of fun debating what Iran's future could have looked like. I was really impressed by the empathy that many of the students demonstrated by arguing these positions.

I also told all of the students about a fun opportunity to join a book club with Ms. Reid and I. Students had the option to check out a copy of Persepolis, which is a graphic novel about a girl living through the Iranian Revolution that we have assigned as mandatory reading in the past, but this year is an optional reading (due to time constraints). It's a great book and we hope to have this club meet on Tuesday, September 9th during study hall.

Check out Persepolis on amazon

Check the assignment tracker for an up-to-date listing of where we should be in our assignments right now.

Upcoming Next Week

Next week we will wrap up our study of Iranian society's transition and move on to looking at our second case study: the  Indian Independence movement. There, we will see how a former British colony utilized non-violent struggle to gain their independence and look at how Indian society changed as a result.

We will also be studying now for the South America quiz for next Friday, so make sure your son or daughter is practicing for these weekly quizzes.

I hope everyone has a great three-day weekend!

~Mr. Grieve

Week Two

Weekly Update

Students had a great week this week as we began building our "toolbox" for understanding the 20th Century. We read the Time Magazine article Astonishing 20th Century by Paul Gray, outlining some of the major developments of the 20th Century, talked about how to set up our notes this year to prepare for our end-of-year debates, learned about Max Weber's definition of "politics," and read a small portion of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "World House Essay," using this as a discussion topic for how to truly debate the year's essential question, "Was the 20th Century one of Progress or Decline?" Students also took their second Geo Quiz over Central America, which is the same one they will take again next week to ensure mastery of content.

We also had a lot of fun on Tuesday at the Westcott House in Springfield for Mr. Polk's class field trip. I managed to snap a couple shots of the trip as well.

Students taking photos of the Westcott House

Working on geometry sketches in the backyard

Students working on their geometry sketches

We have had a number of assignments entered into GradeBook already. Don't forget to set up alerts to let you know if your student has missed any assignments.

Mrs. Strickland and Mrs. Fisher went over expectations for 10th grade with students today in the "greenhouse" space

Upcoming next week

We move now into some case studies that help us understand how societies changed during the 20th Century, starting with Iran next week. We will study early Iranian (or Persian) history, look at the Iranian Revolution, and prepare for a role-playing activity on Friday whereby students will debate the "future of Iran" as if they were living in 1979 after the fall of the Shah of Iran. It promises to be a fun activity and I'm looking forward to the debates!

Additionally, Mr. Lydy and I will be holding an informational meeting for the STEM school's chapter of the Dayton Junior Council on World Affairs (or "JAWS COMET") on Monday (8/25/14) at 12:15pm in my room. If your son or daughter is interested please make sure they attend this meeting. Last year we had a group that was able to compete in Washington DC and we hope to go again! You can find a video about JCOWA produced by one of our former students here -

Tyler, Zach, Tess, me, Mr. Lydy, David and Olivia meet with Singaporean Ambassador Mirpuri at his official residence on April 25, 2014

As always, if you have any questions please feel free to reach out to me at arch.grieve@wright.edu.


Have a great weekend,

~Mr. Grieve

PS - Ms. Reid said to remind students that their "I Am" poems are due next Friday!

First Week - Done!

Weekly Update

Our first week is finished and we have organized our binders, taken our first geography quiz, and learned a little bit more about each other through the primary source documents students have turned in. This week we began getting into the groove of how classes will work each day as students have done their Geo Daily Preps of the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

Remember, you can start keeping track of assignments students have been given using the assignment tracker, and over the weekend I plan to have three grades in Gradebook: Interest Inventories, Primary Documents, and Geo Quiz #1.

Upcoming next week - 

• Begin reading Martin Luther King Jr's World House Essay
• Field Trip on Tuesday to Westcott House in Springfield in Math class
• Studying the concept of the Rule of Law
• Beginning to define and understand what is meant by "politics" to have a working definition that will help us as we move through the course

Have a great weekend!

An example of a primary source document submitted by Conor showing his family, his values, and his membership in Boy Scouts

Intro to the Course for Students and Parents

Now that the year is starting, I want to explain some things that are new to the Modern World History Course this year.

First things first, I strongly encourage students and parents to read the Course Syllabus. It is linked under the "Links" column on the right-hand side of this page and will be kept up-to-date with any changes as the year progresses. There you will find an overview for the course, our thematic units, and our 10 Themes for the year, which are aligned to the National Council for the Social Studies' 10 Themes.

Something new this year for all of us will be the four different learning targets. Each grade students receive will fall under one or more of the following types of learning targets: Knowledge, Skills, Reasoning, and Project/Products. I'm also no longer weighting my assignments, so students should find it easier to keep track of their own grade as the quarters progress, which you can do by checking out the "Assignments Tracker" for each unit, which I will keep up to date regarding when students receive these assignments. The vast majority of my assignments are due the day after they've been assigned (unless I've told students otherwise). It may take longer for assignments to get posted in the ProgressBook, but once they're there and marked "missing," students have a week to turn them in late before they turn into a '0,' after which they may no longer make them up. I encourage you to set up alerts in ProgressBook so you can receive notification via text or email as soon as an assignment appears missing. Directions to do this can be found here.

Thirdly, another new thing this year is the Geography Daily Preps. My goal is for students to have daily preps each day highlighting specific countries, which they should be writing about each day at the beginning of class. Students should pay attention to Pilot to know which days we went over each country. I'd also encourage your son or daughter to practice for our geography quizzes by playing the "Country Games," which are organized by continent on the "Geography Games" link to the right (or click on the big map on the top right of the blog). As of now, I plan to have students take these quizzes during class at the end of each week, so I will try to keep posted and up to date what quizzes we will do in the upcoming week.

As always, please reach out to me via email if you have any questions, which is the easiest and quickest way to get in touch with me. I'm very responsive to email and will do my best to get back to you in a timely manner regarding concerns about your student.