Week 20 in Mr. Bruce's History

Parents and Students,

February is in and with it was the prognostication of America's favorite weather "man" that there will be an early Spring. The sunshine today makes this feel like it might be a possibility, even though I'm not sure we had a winter in the first place.

The ambitions of this week were met with the realization that we were, for the most part, not ready for a competition of Constitutional understanding. The Bar Exam that we held on Tuesday revealed that too many of us didn't take the opportunities given in the previous week to learn about the Constitution and the government it creates to the extent that was expected. This was a little disappointing, but not outside the ability to recover. To be clear the work they were asked to do last week in preparation for the Bar Exam and Law Firm Competition was not easy, but was intended to be more manageable by pairing up with a buddy to whom we could be accountable. In the end, this activity was a lesson in how we work together and what happens when we don't do that well.

To remedy the lack of readiness, we endeavored to recover what was missed in their first time through. For this, we used in class direct instruction and note-taking. This is not usually as effective as paired/small-group work, but this time around it provided a base coverage of the expected content required for us to proceed. These notes can be accessed here.

Monday we will assuredly begin our Law Firm Competition (see image at right). Teams have been created and the work is finished. Finally we can have some fun as we end this unit. Over the weekend, I encourage you to work through the flash cards that were created for the Bar Exam as well as use the outline/notes (link above) to prepare for the Competition. No one wants to be the weak link on a team.

This leads to "what's next?" One of the first things that Congress did (and the States approved) once they convened for the first time was to follow through with a promise of adding a Bill of Rights to the Constitution. We will end next week by discovering how the first ten Amendments were created and how they still protect us today.

Enjoy your weekend!

Until next week,
Mr. Bruce