Weekly Schedule January 22nd – January 25th

This is our schedule for the week ending January 25th, 2008. It is important to remember that these schedules are not etched in stone. Our firm belief in adjusting our curriculum to meet the needs of students sometimes causes slight changes. It is important to note that ample time is given in class to complete most assignments. There are occasional projects, spanning a week or more, that will require students to work outside of class. There will be no more than one of these per month. If you have any questions, please contact me at extension 38.

1st Year Social Studies (Period 1 & 3) – This week we will continue studying the Revolutionary War.

Monday: Martin Luther King Day – No School

Tuesday: Dark days have come to the revolutionary generation; we will study two examples of breaches in the traditional "treatment sanctioned by civilized warfare." One occurs when British Lieutenant Colonel Tarleton kills every one of American Colonel Buford's surrendering men instead of taking them prisoner. The other occurs when smaller bands of guerilla fighters called partisans attacked the British by sneaking up on them instead of confronting them on an open field. There will be a worksheet due Thursday.

Wednesday: Victory seems in the grasp of the Revolutionary Army as the south is regained. The war was decided in the South in 1781, where an American victory seemed unlikely just a year before. We will study the daring strategy of Nathanael Greene that turned the tide for good, and learn what happened to the major players after the final curtain fell.

Thursday: A harvest of victory brings great changes to the new nation. We will study the results and impact of the Revolutionary War. We will study how Lord Cornwallis, George Washington, and other prominent military leaders faced a “world turned upside down.”

2nd Year Social Studies (Period 2 & 4) – We will finish studying Ancient Greece and begin our study of Byzantium.

Monday: Martin Luther King Day – No School

Tuesday: The Western world is built on the wisdom and traditions of the ancient Greeks, who uncovered the fundamental principles that established the basics of modern technology. We will explore their contributions to geometry, astronomy, and physics and take a close-up look at how they applied their knowledge: Thales predicted an eclipse, Pythagoras discovered mathematical correlation between a musical instrument's string length and its tone, Archimedes developed laws of mechanics, and a group of 90 priests made well-informed educated guesses about many things.

Wednesday: Pompeii: Preserved in Time—Examines the final 24 hours for the people of this ancient Roman city before the catastrophic eruption of Vesuvius. Greece: One Out of Many (4 min.)—Traces how an assortment of city-states in the Aegean became one of the world’s most complex and influential cultures. The Rise of Rome’s Empire—Shows how Rome’s emperors swept away the old republic, created a vast empire, and came into conflict with a new religion, Christianity. Byzantium and Its Roman Ideals—Reviews the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and how its surviving Eastern empire kept alive its achievements and heritage. We will have a quiz.

Thursday: We will examine the historical era that lasted from 330 to 1453 A.D. and focus on the southern and eastern regions of the old Roman Empire. We will examine three main subjects: first is the rise and fall of the Byzantine Empire; second is the growth of the Islamic civilization; third are the Crusades, a series of conflicts involving Islam, Byzantium, and Catholic Western Europe that spanned three centuries. We will have a quiz

Health –

Friday: We will be viewing “Trust Me: Learning to Be Responsible.” Using scenarios typical of middle school experience, each followed by a series of thought-provoking discussion questions, demonstrates that behaving responsibly is an essential key to growing up.