Last Week Review (end Sept 25)

This week was a bit of a light week (especially for me as a teacher).  We finished watching Battle in Seattle, which seeing it the second time seemed very "Hollywood-ized"; the dialogue seemed "staged" and unnatural, the events and how they were shot seemed likwise staged (how many shots were there of thoughtful, remorseful actors looking off screen for some sort of answer??).  But the overall message and who is say it (which point of view is being portrayed) is always obvious and clear. 

We also started the presentations- these have been good, at least good for me to get to know what your strengths and weaknesses are.  Audiences have been respectful and listening (for the most part).  As for the presenters- we need to work on "remembering the information"- because when you are comfortable with the information you can get away from looking at the paper.

The content of the presentations has been more informative rather than opinionated.

The way I use this mark is for me to get to know you and build on it for the next presentation.  I will of course give you these back and then you'll know how I saw you in presentation.

Coming up:  Finishing the presentations will happen early in the week.  After this we will be looking at protest poetry in the form of songs. We will take the work you did on these last presentations a bit further, so look forward to presenting again in about 2 weeks.
 
Your LES, final term exam, will start Wednesday Oct 28th (Day 9).

Homework: presentation preparation

Last Week Review (end Sept 17th)

This week we looked at the OKA Crisis and one of the most (in)famous protests there was in the last ten years (it is actually celebrating its 10 year anniversary!) -the WTO protests in Seattle in Dec. 1999.  No matter what you think of the WTO, one has to look at:

1. the protest techniques (the carnival atmosphere, the lock-down of the intersections, etc.), 
2. how the "Corporate" Media vs. "Independent" Media reported the events, 
3. the policing techniques (it should be remembered that the police were working long hours- 36-48hour shifts) etc.

To get our information we looked at two different sources:

1. Deep Dish TV : a source for independent news that put together footage of the WTO protest.
2. Battle in Seattle: A "Hollywood" treatment of the events that took place in 1999... 

Further sources that you can look at are:

1. The Real BAttle in Seattle with a long list of different organizations that you should check-out
   
2. Adbusters

Presentation

Remember the presentations start Tuesday, Day 4, third period.

You need to give a printed copy of your information, and it should be more than just sheets of information- there should be a logic in how you are presenting it.  NO POSTERS!

These were the things that you came up with that I should look for in your presentations:

Homework- Response

Could you please write a response (one page, typed, double spaced, 12pt ariel or new times roman font) to the web broadcast that you saw yesterday in class (Deep dish TV- part 3 is what you saw, but all parts are good).  You should be looking at the ideas of protest, the effectiveness of protest, and when is it OK for a government to use the police/army on the people that it governs?  Is there a voice of the people and should it be heard, or is it best to have a few people (like the WTO) make desicions for the many?

I know I said no homework, but this is to see what your writing capabilities are like.

Protest and Causes

Today we looked at the Oka protest- (click on these words to go to the CBC link) to see what a protest can be from beginning to end- this is interesting especially when you look at this compared to Tank Man.  Both groups are standing their ground but with drastically different results.  To save a people and their dignity- to what lengths would you go?

Coming up

This week we will be working in part on your presentations (1 class working out the research/requirements of your particular presentation- the idea of a rubric):  Presentations will start Tuesday 22nd, period 3.

We will also continue to look at the different protests that there are- inparticular the "Oka Crisis", and "The Battle in Seattle".

This is all gearing up fpr a look at how to create a convincing argument one way or another.  We will be looking more closely at poetry and song as a form of protest (Sept 21-25).

Last Week Review (end Sept 11th)

We continued to look at those words connected with protest and types of protest. We looked at the beginning of the Documentary Tank Man (search: Youtube- Tank Man).  We also looked at the work of Greg Mortenson, and his Pennies for Peace initiative and the work that he does in Pakistan and Afghanistan building schools for kids in need (search: Greg Mortenson, Pennies for Peace, and Three Cups of Tea).

In the coming week

Coming up we are going to continue to look at protest- looking at the types of protest, causes that have been protested in the past and what you find worth protesting now in our world.

What is worth protesting? Check out the following link and see what you think... a friend of mine sent me this via facebook

Last Week Review (end Sept 4th)

Last week we started looking at the idea of protest and looking at what we knew about protest- coming up with a list of words that link to protest and forms of protest (link to Wikipedia for other types: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protest )

That list is:

Fighting for something you think is right, Argue, Disagreement, Rebel, Standing up for yourself Standing up for something you care about, Strike Petitions, Changing a system, Two sides to the story, War, Justice, Defend, Group, Peace, Vs., Debate , Against society, Win or lose, Conflict, Double sided, Courage, Determination, Freedom, Fair, Fair vs. Equal

We also looked at the words Objective and Subjective; the first being a Fact the second being interpretation of facts and information.

link to protest/war

WARNING THIS LINK HAS "GRAPHIC" MATERIAL but...

Check out this post. This is a war/news photographer and looks at the idea of how protest and war impact the world and the people in it. Though he is a little "dry", his pictures are stunning and speak directly to the human spirit of us all.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/james_nachtwey_s_searing_pictures_of_war.html

This link straddles (use your dictionary if you don't know what that means) both the protest and war- the two themes we are going to be looking.