Week Twenty-Two: Letters and Posters

This Week

Communication was this week's theme. Students focused this week on crafting their arguments for their letters and beginning to use visual metaphors to represent their views on the conflicts and genocides they are studying through their artwork.

In class today students were given an opportunity to work on their posters while I met with students individually to go over their thesis statements and check their evidence to see whether or not they are on the right path. With 90 students, getting this done in two days has proved impossible, so I'm asking any students who did not get a chance to meet with me one on one today or yesterday to email me their thesis statements and their evidence so I can provide them with feedback via email or in person next week.  If students do not take advantage of this opportunity, their final grade on the letter project will be jeopardized!

Additionally, students worked on crafting visual metaphors for their posters. Below are some of the drafts. One of the reasons why I'm excited about this blog is that it gives parents (for the first time) a chance to see how these posters go from early ideas and evolve into their final drafts. If you'd like to see some posters from previous years, please check out the Conflict and Genocide Poster Project page on the DRSS website. It's hard to believe, but eventually their posters will go from the ideas, below, to awesome works of art!

Can you guess what this poster will be about?

Or this one?

What's the metaphor here? Or how can it be made into a better metaphor?

Upcoming Week

Next week we will continue working on letters and posters, so there will be little new content. One thing I did want to encourage students to consider (and perhaps have parents "push") is thinking about trying to enter the posters into one of two contests. For those students whose topics are the Holocaust or the Bosnian Genocide, I'd like to make you aware of two very cool opportunities:

If you're doing a poster on the Holocaust, consider entering the Max May Memorial art competition. The theme this year is "Seventy years after the end of the Holocaust and World War II - still learning about prejudice and racism." Click here for more information.

If you're doing the Bosnian Genocide, consider the competition below celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Dayton Peace Accords. This is kind of a big deal, so would be cool if someone from my class entered! Contest information can be found here.

Last year, Shari Gordnier won the Max May Memorial Art Competition, so this is something that I definitely want to have students enter again this year!

Shari Gordnier received her award for placing first in the Max May Memorial Art Contest at Beth Jacob Synagogue. She was recognized during the Yom Hashoah ceremony, which occurs each year in remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust.

One last thing - I've told students that if they can figure out a way to raise money through our posters then I will let them shave my beard. It's gotten a lot longer than it was in the photo above....

How much is my beard worth? I think at least $1,000!

Here's my challenge ~
If students can use their posters to raise $1,000 for an international aid organization that helps people in conflict zones, I will let them trim my beard however they want during lunch one day this year and keep it like that for the rest of the school day. 

If they raise $1,500 I'll keep it like that for the remainder of the school day the following day (1.5 days). 

If they raise $2,000 I'll keep it like that for 2.5 school days (and so on for every $500 increment).

***Challenges must be approved by Mr. Grieve and the efforts must meaningfully integrate the posters that students will create so we can draw attention to past and ongoing conflicts and genocides around the world.

#TimeToShaveTheBeard

~Mr. Grieve