It is the conclusion of our first full month here together in room 214, and we had yet another week packed with excitement and educational opportunities. I wanted to also take a moment to announce and properly hype up our upcoming field trip to Cantigny on October 10th, 2 weeks from today! Cantigny is a park and museum compound located in Wheaton, that was originally the site of Robert McCormick’s (former editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune) estate. The site features a museum dedicated to the US Army’s 1st Division, more famously known as “Big Red One”, in addition to a scenic garden, McCormick’s preserved mansion, and most notably their tank park, which features real examples of US Army tanks dating from World War One all the way through the conflicts of Iraq and Afghanistan. Best of all these tanks are accessible for all visitors to get up close and personal! Our trip will be all day on Friday the 10th, be on the lookout for some updates regarding more field trip information!

Monday we continued our cultural literacy study with Ms. Mary’s 6/7th grade class by looking into one of America’s greatest legends of music in the 20th century: Bob Dylan. We had a Socratic style discussion where students got the opportunity to listen to two of his most famous songs: “Like a Rolling Stone” and “The Times they are a Changin'”. After listening to each we discussed how music had evolved to become more serious as the events of the 20th century progressed, and how music could be used as a form of protest both in the 60s as well as today! We also moved on to phase two of our process of writing for the New York Times’ 100 word memoir contest by brainstorming and free writing some personal stories from our own lives. By doing this students were able to reflect on how to properly structure a story by thinking about memorable moments from their past, and how to use elements we usually associate with fiction (plot, characters, conflict, theme, setting) to tell a story that we experienced in real life.

On Tuesday, we played a game that quickly became a class favorite: “WWI Among Us”. In this activity our students got the opportunity to role play as soldiers in a trench. Most of the soldiers were just focused on completing their daily “tasks” – which were quick activities that helped our students learn more about the role of espionage and intelligence gathering in World War One. My favorite of the “tasks” highlighted the crucial role of Choctaw code talkers – who were sort of a precursor to the more famous Navajo code talkers of WWII. While the soldiers tried to complete their tasks we had 2 class “spies” that had the job of forwarding important information back to German HQ while sabotaging tasks (and completing many of the same tasks themselves). By competing in this game students learned about the value of spying in the war, and also learned about the psychological effects that espionage can have on a population, leaving everyone involved paranoid, worried, and ready to point the finger at even their closest friends and neighbors!

On Wednesday, we moved on to phase 3 of the 100 word memoir writing process: evaluating some great examples of personal life stories – and examining how each part of these stories contributes to the overall picture. By breaking the story into parts and answering questions about each part, the students gained a greater understanding of how the author uses theme, setting, plot, characters, and conflict, while also challenging the students to think about how to develop those essential narrative components in their own stories! We also took a look at a secondary source to help us understand the timeline of events around the sinking of the Lusitania, and how that played a role in the eventual joining of the allies in World War One by the United States. This will help them contextualize our content for next week as we examine how and why the US joined the war, as well as how the US contributed to an ultimate allied victory in World War One.

Thursday we tried out something new in our classroom that my readers may have already been exposed to if they have students in any other Plato classes: mindset mathematics! Mindset mathematics utilizes a more visual and tactile approach to help students understand mathematics at a deeper level while driving a higher level of student engagement by making activities more interactive and fun! To start out the process, we utilized some of the introductory lessons which saw our students identifying what the “do’s” and “don’ts” of group work are, and making some new posters to decorate our breakout rooms in the process. Now the students will have reminders while they work in groups of some of the expectations of what they need to bring to group work – and they’re reading their own words so they know they should be taking the advice! They also did an activity based around skepticism and proving geometrical concepts, by having to make shapes out of paper, and then argue how they know those shapes truly are what they appear to be!

Friday was jam-packed, as we had our first major Socratic-style discussion of some of the chapters of our book, “The War to End All Wars”, we had our third vocabulary quiz, we had a math quiz, and we had some brief conferences with most of the students to serve as a monthly check-in! In our discussion we talked about the early phases of the war, how and why trench warfare was fought, what kind of effects living in the trenches had on soldiers, what kind of effects the war had on the home front, and so much more! It was so cool getting to talk history with all the students, and they did an amazing job of preparing for the discussion, we had so many great contributions and were able to draw some incredible connections between the text and our studies of WWI. As you all know the Socratic method is heavily utilized and emphasized at Plato Academy, so it was a good start to the year trying out something in the same vein. I can’t wait to have even more great class discussions as our reading progresses in this book and beyond!

Friday we also continued with phase 3 of the 100 word memoir writing process by analyzing yet another fantastic example of a story from an authors life, by analyzing the narrative arc and the “somebody wants but so” that every story has – this was another way of having students think in depth about characters (somebody), their motivations (wants), the conflicts that arise and play out as a result of their motivations (but) and the events that take place as a result (so). While the students worked on this, I had one-on-one meetings with most of the students to check in on how they feel about how school is going after our first month, places where they are succeeding and places where they could look to improve and set some goals, and just to take care of some housekeeping like missing or unaccounted for assignments. It was great getting to check in and get some more perspectives as to how to improve the classroom atmosphere as well as the workload/vigor to see how to challenge everyone appropriately without overwhelming anyone. As I said to the students, I am a high school teacher by trade, so I know my approach is far from perfected; so as I ask the students to work hard and improve over the year, I would like the students to hold me accountable and expect me to improve as their teacher as well. The classroom is in so many ways a living breathing organism, and it needs all of its parts to be working hard if things are to improve, and the teacher is no exception! Monday we will finish our conferences with the students I did not get a chance to meet with today!

As our first month draws to a close, I would just like to reiterate how exciting it has been to watch all of my students grow and evolve already, and I know this is just the tip of the ice berg! Next week we will continue towards the conclusion of our WWI unit by examining how America intervened in the war and how that affected the outcome, as well as moving forward in our quest to write some amazing 100 word memoirs! I hope everyone has a great weekend, and that all of my students rest up to have another great week starting next Monday!

It is the end of our first month back for room 214, and while we say “goodbye” to summer this weekend, we had the opportunity to say “hello” to our class book “The War to End All Wars” by Russell Freedman. Starting out our new class book gave us the opportunity to work on more reading, writing, interpretation, and analysis skills while gaining a deeper understanding of the events of World War One. I would also like to take an opportunity to promote one of our class fundraisers: Wear Pink, Drink Pink! By participating in this fundraiser and buying pink drinks that our room 214 girls will be selling, you will have the opportunity to support our upcoming class trip while enjoying a delicious and healthy beverage and raising breast cancer awareness 🙂

On Monday we resumed our cultural literacy activity about “the day the music died” and listened to the music that died. This included the Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens, and Buddy Holly. Doing this gave our students a chance to enrich themselves by listening to some of the most influential artists of the 20th century, while also getting a better understanding of the era of “innocence” that Don McLean was mourning with his song “American Pie”. We concluded the activity with a group sing-along of American Pie, it was a pleasure to be serenaded by the sweet sounds of Mr. Joe and Ms. Mary’s classes! After our cultural literacy activity, we visited a virtual museum exhibition online and explored the living conditions in the trenches of the western front in World War One.

Tuesday room 214 continued our deep dive into life on the western front, by having a class discussion on what life was like in the trenches, and engaging with some more primary and secondary sources to eventually put ourselves in the shoes of a soldier on the western front, or journalists covering the western front, and writing letters home and newspaper articles from a first person perspective. This helped us gain even more perspective on the brutal living conditions of trenches, but also helped us to think about the psychological effects on soldiers, and how waiting for that next big attack or counterattack could inflict terrible fear upon the soldiers of the western front. Tuesday also saw room 214 having our first science test of the year in Ms. Pam’s classroom, where we tested ourselves on our scientific method fundamentals!

Wednesday we started out our day in class by having a full class review of the essential elements of narrative writing. We had a class discussion on what makes up a narrative, and what makes up elements of plot, characters, and conflict. We watched a video that highlighted how these fundamental elements of narrative are present in some of the most popular films this century, in the hopes that when we move further along in our quest to enter the 100 word memoir competition for the New York Times, we will have a sound understanding of what makes up an effective narrative, so we can write narratives as efficiently as possible. We also had a group read of the first chapter of “The War to End All Wars” to review how to closes read history effectively, and how to annotate as we go. By having a discussion on the chapter as we went along, students were able to share their thoughts on the causes of World War One, and the strategies they use while reading and annotating to understand the reading at the deepest level.

Thursday saw a return of one of the class’s favorite activities: the vocabulary scavenger hunt game. By playing this game we were able to prepare to read chapters 3-5 of The War to End All Wars and enhance our vocabulary while having fun and building our community even further. We also learned more about the events of the Great War by viewing a video about the “stalemate” that would begin starting in late 1914 and would carry on throughout the war. By getting a better understanding of this stalemate we were able to draw a lot of connections to other parts of the war, such as the nature of trench Warfare and why such outdated tactics were being used against new emerging technologies. Understanding the stalemate also helps us to understand how this war would grow beyond just France and Germany and truly become a “world war”.

On Friday we put our knowledge of World War One so far to the test with a short-response quiz. I was very impressed to see our student’s test taking skills and etiquette, and we received plenty of amazing thoughts and perspectives from our students on the nature of trench Warfare, the new technologies that make WWI so deadly, and the intricate web of alliances that made WWI so inevitable and so unique. Later on in the day we had our second vocab quiz to further prepare for our reading. Finally we did an activity where students analyzed propaganda posters from the home front in World War One. After they analyzed the posters we had a class discussion about the different subjects these posters talked about, and how effective the different recruitment strategies were. We finished off with all the students creating their own WWI propaganda posters, and we got some really great examples!

Next week we will accelerate our efforts to prepare for the 100 word narrative competition, as well as beginning our preparation for Homerathon, an event focused on public performances of works by the legendary Greek writer Homer. As we continue our WWI unit we’ll continue to take a look at the homefront, and start to ask ourselves “where is America? when will they join the war? and why?”. I hope all of my readers have a great weekend, and all of room 214’s students have a great restful weekend to get prepared for another great week next week!

Another great week is in the books for room 214! We’ve been charging forward with our World War One unit, while continuing to grow our skills in English and even got a chance to develop our cultural literacy and learn a bit more about American music history!

Monday we started off with a very special activity that featured a collaboration with our neighbors in Ms. Mary’s 6/7th grade class from room 217 in which we took a look at Don McLean’s ‘American Pie’. First we contextualized the song by talking a bit about American prosperity in the 1950’s, early rock and roll, and “the day the music died”. Then we had our younger students team up with our older students to analyze the lyrics and see what Don McLean was really trying to say in his iconic tune. After this we finished up our investigations into the murder of Miss World peace, where we had students creating everything from timeline posters to reality show recreations of World War One geopolitics. Most of our groups were ready to point the finger at Germany, but we heard a very compelling argument for Serbia’s guilt as well!

Tuesday we looked at some political cartoons from the various countries involved in World War One. This helped us build our visual interpretation and analysis skills, while also helping us further understand the complicated alliances that allowed World War One to happen, and assisted us in understanding the process of how you convince whole countries to send away their sons to war. We also did some more geography practice to further familiarize ourselves with Europe in 1914 by making our own maps! In science we got more practice in measurements and conversions, in our lab we measured things ranging from the height of our classmates to the volume of small stones to build our skills in science!

Wednesday we looked at one of the more unique artistic products that came as a result of World War One: trench poetry. We read a variety of poems on a number of topics including the horrors of war, the “generation gap” of WWI era soldiers vs. the people who sent them to war, and the relationship between soldiers and society. This both helped us understand the early days of the war better, while also doing some more practice of poetry analysis just like we did on Monday and during week 2. By teaching our fellow students about poems in certain topics and sharing our analyses as well as some artwork to make a visual representation to go along with our poems, we gained some newfound perspective on the sacrifice of those who fought in the great war.

Thursday we did a deep dive into the early days of the war on the Western front. We watched a video produced by the MacArthur Memorial Foundation, which explained some of the alliances and motivations at the beginning of WWI, as well as looking at the way troops were mobilized, the way in which the war was fought in 1914, and how the infamous “Schlieffen plan” helped get Germany into an early advantageous position. After that we started to view some newspaper headlines of the early war to see how the people in charge and the people back home felt about the war in its early stages, and why they thought it would be “over by Christmas”. We had to take a quick pause to do our school photos as well, so keep an eye out for those!

Friday we started our journey to enter in New York Times’ ‘100 Word Memoir’ contest by analyzing some 100 word love stories. We learned a love story can be more than just romantic love, and can even be between a man and his Xbox, or a slice of pizza! By looking back at some of the contests’ winners in the past we were able to answer some questions about what makes up a narrative, and how different love stories are similar or different to one another. In doing this activity we also got more practice with narrative structure in general, and were able to review story arcs and how you can fit one into such a small space. Friday afternoon we watched some clips of the most critically lauded anti-war WWI films ever made: All Quiet on the Western Front (2022), All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), and 1917. By watching these movies we got a better grasp on the new technologies meeting the old tactics that made WWI such a deadly affair, while also finally getting to visualize the battlefields, trenches, and the home front during WWI in a more direct way. These films lead to plenty of spirited discussion on the technological development, poor tactics, and courageous sacrifice of WWI soldiers. The activity was also useful for introducing cinema as literature, as we examined some of the film making and storytelling techniques used by the brilliant directors responsible for the films.

Next week we will continue our World War One journey by learning about life in the trenches, the propaganda that helped drive so many to fight and die in the war, and the battles that would define the war. We’ll be starting our first class novel as well: The War to End All Wars by Russell Freedman, so keep an eye out for an informational email regarding those books! It’ll be another exciting week as we learn more about one of history’s most consequential conflicts, while building our skills in literature and writing along the way!

It is the conclusion of another exciting week here at Plato Academy, and as always we have plenty of updates for everything we learned together in room 214!

This week, we started our World War One unit by launching a special week-long investigation activity into: “Who killed Ms. World Peace?” Which saw students playing the role of detective teams as we looked over all the evidence we could get our hands on in order to see which of our four suspects (Russia, Serbia, Germany, Austria-Hungary) committed this most heinous crime! In addition to our investigation, we began to familiarize ourselves with World War One vocabulary as we prepare to begin our first class book next week entitled The War to End All Wars by Russel Freedman.

Tuesday we started our investigation by looking at the complex web of alliances that formed prior to WWI, including our main triumvirates of the Triple Alliance (Austria-Hungary, Germany and Italy) and the Triple Entente (Great Britain, France, Russia). This helped us understand the complicated world of early 20th century European diplomacy, and helped us see how so many countries could get drawn into such an awful conflict. We also began to familiarize ourselves with vocabulary (while practicing research skills) by filling out our vocabulary guides with the help of legitimate dictionary sources such as Oxford and Merriam-Webster. In Science we learned how to “think like a scientist” and started to refresh on the scientific method!

Wednesday we started to piece our puzzle together by reading about the long-term causes of World War One, including the European arms race of the early 20th century, the Moroccan Crises, and the Balkan Wars which included an opportunity to learn a bit about the Greek war for independence as well! While this information didn’t help us quite crack the case, it helped us practice pulling important information from text, and discussing about it with group members helped us understand how different perspectives can help us learn in new ways. We also started to practice making some study tools for our vocabulary, in anticipation for our first quiz of the year on Friday.

Thursday was a special day for us as we had our first field trip of the school year, but not before we examined the short term causes of WWI such as the Assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the “Blank Check” assurance of Germany to Austria-Hungary, and of course the Austrian invasion of Serbia. We also had a lot of fun playing our vocab review matching scavenger hunt game! On our field trip we got to check out some amazing new learning experiences, such as the traveling planetarium where we got to immerse ourselves and learn a bit about our universe. The highlights of our field trip were definitely getting to meet a real life sloth and three banded armadillo, before getting to witness a performance from Plato fan favorite the Rope Warrior – who I was honestly shocked to see as I had gotten to see him perform in elementary school circa 2003, and clearly his fitness routine works as he’s barely aged a day!

Friday we put all of our evidence together and made a final decision as to who we were going to accuse of the murder of Ms. World Peace. Our groups shared their investigative findings with each other and began to compile evidence against each suspect, and our groups eventually got to practice some formal writing by completing their investigative reports in the form of either an essay, short video, or info-graphic. We also got to put our studying and test taking skills to the test by having our first vocab quiz of the year.

Next week we will continue our quest to understand more about World War One, including a look into some of the events of the early part of the war, some of the technological advancements that made the war so deadly, and seeing what the home front was like during the war. We’ll also work on our analytical reading as we begin our class book, and start to practice and refresh our formal writing skills, such as the five paragraph essay, and examining what makes for an effective story structure. We’ve learned a lot, and we’re just getting started! I look forward to yet another great week in Room 214!