Week 11 in Mr. Bruce's History

Parents and students,

Last winter's project - Olaf
melted in the rain the very
next day...

What a weekend that we have ahead of us! If you don't already know, winter storm Bella is bearing down on us. I'm just hoping the Winter Storm Watch doesn't fall flat. I'm a fan of snow, especially the kind that allows for snowmen.

As far as our week in class, we have devoted ourselves to understanding the reasons for why States sent delegates to Philadelphia in  May of 1787. History textbooks settle on the conclusion that it was to write a Constitution. But we can't do that without acknowledging the constitution that was already in place - The Articles of Confederation. For the purposes of summary and review, I have prepared a set of video lectures for you (parents and students) to use to cover the basics:

• Articles of Confederation Pt. 1
• Articles of Confederation Pt. 2
• Articles of Confederation Pt. 3

The question we have been pursuing through this week is "How was the government the states needed different than the government that they wanted?" What we closed in on today in class, was that Washington felt that the national government needed to be stronger and that the states needed to be weaker. 

Our work was difficult, but student leadership pulled us through as we dug into a letter from George Washington written on February 3, 1787 to Henry Knox. This letter was just days of after Shays' Rebellion and three months before the Philadelphia Convention would begin. Surely, this letter contains clues to the government the states wanted versus the government they needed - at least according to Washington. His letter contains nuggets for why and how it was going to be difficult to get the States to give up their "darling Sovereignties." I've included a few pics of students leading the class through a close read of this letter. It was great to see them engaged in a document as difficult as this one was.

As we head into next week, I will be honest in my intention to be kind to those going to Youth in Government. As a former advisor, I know they follow an extremely challenging schedule and have no time for school work while there. As it is a three day week, we will solidify what we have learned in one form or another, but I will not add anything for YIG students to do. Next Wednesday, when our YIG classmates return, we are going to make sure we are ready open the Philadelphia Convention, with our clear understanding of the challenge and purpose that the delegates were faced with.

If you are in YIG, please just be sure to complete the Washington to Knox Letter/Worksheet before Wednesday - work together on it.

Have a great weekend! Let the white stuff fall :)

Yours,
Mr. Bruce

6th Hour: Brody and Noah

2nd Hour: Keegan and Abby

3rd Hour: Kristina and Taylor

4th Hour: Luke and Makinzie

Week 8 in Mr. Bruce's History

Parents and Students,

Happy Halloween! I hope those of us who go Trick or Treating will have weather on our side - it's not looking too promising. Might be a trip to buy some candy and stay indoors... Hey! Did you know that I am archiving all weekly emails on my blog? A few weeks ago I shared with you my class website. Now you can visit mrbruceshistory.blogspot.com to see all of the posts/emails. You can also get to them at the class site and click "Blog".

As I mentioned last week, the first Marking Period is coming to a close. And we are set to complete our first major historical interpretation just in time. This week, we practiced using background information to get a useful evaluation from a piece of evidence. We read two short excerpts written by George Washington, written just a week apart as he was camped at Valley Forge.

In the first letter, he expressed his feelings about Patriotism and its inability to sustain a "long and bloody war." We used what we learned about the deplorable conditions his army had faced that winter -- the defeats by the British that led to the loss of Philadelphia, the cold and poorly equipped soldiers, and the death of 2500 soldiers to cold, starvation and disease -- and how these conditions affected Washington's perspective and overall outlook on the war. As of April of 1778, it wasn't good.

In contrast, the second letter a week later, was full of celebration, opportunity, and hope! We used what we learned about the French commitment to the American cause and realized up that the second letter was written right after Washington heard the news of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce between the United States and France, where they promised full support for the American cause. This news, indeed, was the promise that Washington's army needed to leave Valley Forge and face the British. These things are not just good to know, it allowed us to see the benefit of building an understanding and applying that to how we evaluate our evidence. Through it we can see a deeper connection between and among events along the timeline of the American Revolution.

We spent the remainder of the week in the computer lab employing the strategies we learned to evaluate evidence to answer our individual compelling questions. We'll cap their work off with poster presentations next week where students will display their question, the evidence they used and what it said, and how it pointed to the interpretation they developed. This poster will conclude this unit as well as the Marking Period for Mr. Bruce's History.

I encourage you to explore the American Revolution a little more deeply this weekend and into the next. Ask your student questions about their investigation. What did they find that the textbook couldn't provide? Finally, why does that they discovered, learned, and concluded matter? I also encourage you to take a look again at these events through some of my favorite resources:

• The Revolutionary War - George Washington's Mount Vernon: There are a few short video presentations on here as well as short articles about the War, particularly Washington's influence
• American Memory Timeline Not a timeline in the traditional sense, this is a collection of primary documents from our nation's premier library. The topics list at the right will guide you to the sources which are organized by year
• Gilder Lehrman - Presentations on the War for Independence: Another set of video presentations, lectures, of prominent historians sharing their research and findings about the greatest era of our history

Our next steps are to determine what was created by the Treaty of Paris: One country called the United States of America? Or was it thirteen independently sovereign countries that together called themselves the United States of America?

Stay tuned. We can't learn about the Constitution of the United States unless we break down the reasons it was needed.

Yours,
Mr. Bruce

Gilder Lehrman Presentation - Joseph Ellis

Ellis shares about writing a book on the man who stood out among the greatest men in our history. Pay attention to how he begins (I'll give you a hint: how do we begin?)