Mrs. Slaviero's Blog

Students in my History classes are now studying the events that lead up to and contributed to the Civil War. One attempt to settle the issue of slavery in the newly acquired western land was the Compromise of 1850. Today students dissected an excerpt of this document and answered four questions to better understand Congress' point of view: What does the author assume to be true? What do I agree with? What do I want to argue with? What do I aspire to? History shows us that the Compromise of 1850 was an unsuccessful attempt to appease the North and the South but analyzing this document will allow students to better understand the efforts that went into keeping the country united. Link to the Compromise of 1850: http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=27

Music is a powerful way to generate student interest in the classroom. One of today's goals was to link the contributions of Reformers such as Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Dorothea Dix and Elizabeth Blackwell to the meaning of the song "Waiting on the World to Change" by John Mayer. Students were asked to relate these lyrics to the work of the people that tried to better American society in the early to mid 1800s. One interesting student insight was that the lyrics are actually calling on people to not wait, but rather look around and right injustices today. Here's the link to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l329U3S3i1U&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Today students started studying the Reform Movement. The time period from the 1820s to the 1860s brought about many changes in American society and one of these changes was the emphasis on higher education. We researched the creation of Michigan State University and the University of Michigan and determined that MSU was founded during the Reform Movement but U of M was founded right before. As an extra credit assignment, students can research another college or university tonight and tell us tomorrow whether it was part of the Reform Movement. I will post our findings here. (First hour, you will get this same opportunity tomorrow.) *****UPDATE***** Many students, including Jesse, researched schools and while some, like his example, were founded during the Reform Movment others were created later. Here's a list: Oakland University, 1957 Stanford  University, 1891 Central Michigan University, 1892 Harvard University, 1636 Princeton University, 1746