MrGreiner.com

Annexation of Hawaii–Here are the arguments for and against America annexing Hawaii.

Here are the documents you might need for this Progressive Persuasive Essay:
Progressive Research Project–The “How to Fix America” worksheet
Exemplary 1 — Mr. Richter’s pro-workplace safety legislation essay

Exemplary 2 –Mr. Greiner’s highly convincing anti-workplace safety legislation essay

History of American Wheat

The Machine Age Handout

Segregation Unit Essay
Graphic Organizer

Civil Rights Timeline

If you need an extra copy of the Washington and DuBois homework, you will find it here:

Washington and DuBois

Reconstruction Overview Packet

Just in case you need another copy:
Truman Debate

For tonight, write a paragraph using three examples with your opinion on whether or not Harry Truman should have dropped the atomic bomb.

Great Depression Research Project
Letter to parents

Here are two recent documents that you might need.

MASS CULTURE grew into existence during the 1920s. People from all parts of the country and from all social classes (rich, middle class, and poor) began to experience the same forms of entertainment and music. People from different backgrounds began identifying with each other around movies, music, sports, or events.

It was also a time where different cultures (African-American, Jewish, Appalachian) began mixing and forming new types of music and entertainment that was distinctly AMERICAN.

New York was the center of this MASS MEDIA that helped to broadcast out the MASS CULTURE to the rest of America.

a. Using the internet, look up one of the following famous figures from the 1920s mass culture and describe why they were famous in 3-4 sentences.

–Babe Ruth

–Louis Armstrong

–Gertrude Ederle

–Jack Dempsey

–Rudolph Valentino

–Douglas Fairbanks

–Bessie Smith

–Al Jolson

–Charles Lindbergh

–George Gershwin

b. How did technology from the 1920s help them become famous?
(Radio, Phonograph, Airplane, Movies, Cars, Etc.)

c. Finally, compare them to a celebrity from today’s mass culture.

I’ll be back online to moderate comments around 10:30.  If you are having a problem posting or you are not seeing your comment, send me an email at jonathan_greiner@brookline.k12.ma.us and I will do my best to take care of it.

In case anyone is checking this, AQOTWF will not be due until Friday, and all the other HW assignments for this unit will be pushed back one day.

The open-note quiz will take place on Thursday.

I am including three assignments that you might need, the only ones for this marking period so far.  I am also including the History of American Wheat, although that cannot be made up for credit.

Both assignments have some drawings in them that I could not publish on PDF without a scanner.  I do not own a scanner.  Sorry.

Robber Baron v. Captain of Industry poster packet

Jay Gould and The Gold Cornering Scheme

The History of Wheat

Let me know if I am forgetting anything…

Rights Talk

Jigsaw questions (not readings)

Booker T. Washington

WEB DuBois

Marcus Garvey

Frederick Douglass

Segregation Essay

DuBois and McKay

THE WRITING GUIDE!

graphic organizer

Your homework, if you choose to accept it….

Answer in a paragraph, using evidence from the reading in your spiral-bound notebook:

1.  Read “The Power of Separation” on page 37 of the blue book and…

2.  Answer–”How did segregation influence the author’s view of African-Americans?”

Hey gang,

So far, no one should have been able to start the project.  We will work on it on Tuesday and continue it during Long Block, finishing it in class.  For information on the project:

New Deal Poster Project
Other homework has been postponed.

Well, we’ll see. I’ll post some stuff every time I think of it, which is to say probably not all that often but you can find documents when desperate. Part of the problem is that large documents cannot be uploaded, making it difficult to post items such as that 1920’s essay with all the pictures. But we may find some use for this website yet…

Hey everyone,

I am having some trouble with my website, so all posts are on the front page.
Here are the documents FOR THE 8th GRADERS that we have used so far:

Civil Rights Timeline
Booker T. Washington
Frederick Douglass Questions
DuBois

HERE ARE THE DOCUMENTS THAT YOU MIGHT NEED FOR THE 7TH GRADERS!:
Technology Project

Hey guys,

Good work in class today on the Amendments poster.  We’ll keep talking about them tomorrow.

For homework tonight, read the Reconstruction Review packet and answer the four questions at the end IN YOUR SPIRAL BOUND NOTEBOOK. I will collect your notebooks and grade them periodically.  It might be tomorrow.  It might be Friday.  Who knows?!

Hey group,

Welcome back.

Your homework for tomorrow is to:

1. Get the expectations sheet signed.–Opening Documents

2. Look up the origins of a town name (not Brookline) or your street name.

FOR MONDAY:

Purchase all the materials you need for class.

Hey gang,

Welcome back to MrGreiner.com. I think this new design is a little more functional.

Anyway, please ignore all previous posts, as they are from last school year. I don’t want to have to get rid of them. This way, Jenny M.’s and Million Z.’s hilarious back and forth banter at 2 a.m. won’t be lost.

8M-Read “The Night of the Pogrom” (p. 263) and “The Narrowing Circle” (p. 272) and answer the following question…
“What happened during Kristallnacht, and what was the long-term result?” You will need both readings to answer this question fully.

8D, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. AKA, no homework.

Here is your homework:

8D-Read “The Night of the Pogrom” (p. 263) and “The Narrowing Circle” (p. 272) and answer the following question…
“What happened during Kristallnacht, and what was the long-term result?” You will need both readings to answer this question fully.

8M–Read your assigned Jigsaw reading and write down a 3-4 sentence summary. The readings are:
1. A substitute for religion (215)
2. Propaganda and Sports (221)
3. Art and Propaganda (223)
4. Using film as propaganda (225)
5. School for barbarians (228)

Hi kids,

Hope you enjoyed “Triumph of the Will.” Well, actually, no I don’t, but I do hope you now have a solid image of what the Nazi’s were attempting to do.

Your homework is the six summaries. The directions is to write down one complete sentence that summarizes the reading, and then two examples that back this up.

The readings are:
1. Legalizing Racism (167)
2. Turning Neighbor against Neighbor (171)
3. Killing Ideas (179)
4. Whenever Two or Three are Gathered (182)
5. A refusal to compromise (192)
6. Defining a Jew (201)

This will give us an idea of how Hitler and the Nazi’s consolidated power in their first years.

Good luck!

BRING YOUR BOOK TOMORROW.

With that said, tonight it is your job to read the Overview on page 154 and The Democrat and the Dictator on pg. 155. The question is “How did the Nazi’s excite the public in the first few days of power?”

More tomorrow.

BRING YOUR BOOK TOMORROW.

Lessons so far:
1. Democracy is fragile–many people are willing to give it up for safety and prosperity, especially if it seems like the government cannot solve the problem.
2. Humans naturally identify themselves with labels, assign other people labels, group people into categories, and assign value to these groupings. (Such as: I am a Brookline teacher, Jamie Rinaldi is a Newton teacher, and they seem like they are lazy.)

Your homework for tonight:
1. Read “The In-Group” (pg. 29)–Why did Eve Shalen participate in mocking the unpopular girl if she herself was a victim of harassment?
2. Read “Power of Separation” (pg. 37)–How did the author overcome his racism?

Tonight’s homework is to read the following selections and answer the following questions:

1. Race and Science (pg. 13)–Do you think Susie Guillory Phipps’ anger at being considered “black” by the state of Louisiana was justified?

2. Stereotyping (pg. 16)–How can positive stereotypes have negative effects? (Positive stereotypes are ones in which positive values are attached to a group, i.e. “All kids with glasses are really smart!”)

Answer the questions in a short paragraph (four to five sentences) each.

You do NOT need to bring your book to class on Tuesday.

Now that we are done watching anti-communist pop-culture movies, we can get started on a more important unit.

Your homework is the three sources that I gave you in class today. Those need to be done by Friday.

You also received a book today, but you will not need it in class until at least next week. Keep posted here for “when you need your book” updates.

Today, we discussed Japanese Internment and watched an old movie presentation produced by the government.

If you want to see the images we looked at more closely, they are here:

http://bss.sfsu.edu/internment/posters.html

Just copy and paste.

Your homework is to read Chapter 42, and list five of the most important ideas from the chapter. Not the first five, the most important five.

Also, you are to sign on to wikipedia and change as much stuff as you can. Just kidding about that one. (Or am I?)

FIRSTLY, your homework:

Book 9, Chapter 33 “Forgetting the Constitution”

Question, to be answered in one complete paragraph:
Why were the Japanese Americans interned during World War II, and what was the effect on the Japanese-Americans themselves?

SECONDLY:
Here is some old stuff I meant to put up…
Syllabus we are using
Textbook worksheet and rubric
First page of example chapter
Page 2-4 of example textbook chapter

Hope that helps.

Hey 8th graders,

Sorry about the crippling laziness on MrGreiner.com. Yesterday, you were asked to read chapter 29 of book 9, “War, Peace, and all that Jazz.” The questions were:

(Level One writing assignment…does not need to be complete sentences)
1. What was the “Blitzkrieg” and why was it so effective?
2. What happened at Dunkirk?
3. In what way was Pearl Harbor a disaster? In what way did it unite the country?
4. What do you think the Japanese military hoped to accomplish at Pearl Harbor? Did they succeed?

AND HERE ARE THE MAP TERMS YOU NEED FOR TUESDAY:

USA
Japan
Canada
Great Britain
India
China
Korea
Hawaii
Germany
Poland
Russia
France
Italy
Ethiopia
Australia
New Zealand
Greenland
Greece

Best of luck!

WRITE YOUR REP LETTER DUE ON MONDAY!

I have been bad at this MrGreiner.com thing. I promise to get better next week. For now, there is no homework unless you somehow DIDNT TURN IN YOUR ESSAY!

Also, if you haven’t finished your powerpoints, those need to be done on Monday.

For parents:

We’ve been studyign the Great Depression. Your kids did very well on the quiz they took on the causes, so feel free to pick their brains about it. Right now, they are making powerpoint projects on the New Deal legislation. We’re trying to figure out how the role of government changed under FDR.

So, my computer crashed…again. Therefore, I do not have the PDF’s to post any documents. Conveniently, though, there is no homework for either class except to leave your Write Your Rep post on the comments sectoin of the WYRP posts. G’Luck!

What’s more fun than the Great Depression? Arguing about whether or not the government holds responsibility to help the poor, that’s what! Hence, why we did this Do Now today:

Whose responsibility is it to help:
1. Victims of a natural disaster who lost everything?
2. Someone who gets heart disease from smoking too much and does not have health insurance.
3. An elderly person who worked their whole likfe but is still poor in retirement?
4. Someone without a high school education who lost their job?

The point is to drive at the idea of the “deserving poor,” a hotly contested definition since, well, ever. As you do your homework tonight, try to decide whether or not the songwriter would consider the people he is describing as deserving or undeserving poor. By the way, the Henry Ford quote was that the Depression was happening because “the average man won’t really do a day’s work unless he is caught and cannot get out of it. There is plenty of work to do if people would do it.” This from the man who fired 75,000 people.

Here are the handouts you might need:
Great Depression Syllabus
Brother, can you spare a dime?

Also, for that notebook check, be sure to have these three do now’s:
The Palmer Raids/Race Riots
What should be taught in school?
Schenck v. US quote

Hey gang,

The goal for the past two or three days is to get a flavor of the 1920’s and to provide the background to understanding how this decade of fun helped to spur on the Great Depression.

Yesterday, students did the Twenties Module in class, and turned it in today. As for homework, there is none. We’ll get some homework next week, no need to worry.

Hey gang,

Reminder that your WYR project idea is due on March 9th, and your Long-term essay is due on March 16th. Here is what we covered today:

For every research paper you do (or, heck, EVERY PAPER you do EVER), it is good practice to do this little excercise–

1. I want to know about _____________________,
2. because I want to know why/how/where/etc. _______________________________,
3. so that my audience, ______________, will know ________________________.

For this paper, here is an example–

1. I want to know about A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN,
2. because I want to know HOW IT CONNECTS TO AMERICAN HISTORY CLASS,
3. so that my audience, MR. GREINER, will know THAT I CAN CONNECT HISTORY AND LITERATURE WELL AND PULL RELEVANT EXAMPLES FROM THE TEXT.

Keep that in mind, and your paper will be GOLD! In fact, if I could do it all again, we would do that at the beginning of every paper we ever wrote. Eh, you live, you learn.

See you in class tomorrow.

Running out of time in class is too bad.

Anyway, your homework, due on Wednesday (I pushed it back so we can talk about it in class some more) is to answer the following question:

“Should the Espionage Act have been found unconstitutional?”

If you think yes, it is because it limits free speech. If no, then you should argue that the government needs to be able to limit freedoms to ensure safety, especially during war time.

Use the information from the packet! Cite the law! Pull in your vast knowledge of World War I. Its worth 10 points towards your test grade, and should be at least a page long.

If you need a packet: Schenck v. US Documents

ALSO: For Wednesday, you need to read the two poems handed to you today and do the response questions on the poets view of African-Americans in society and throughout history. Unfortunately, I do not have a PDF, but if you want to look them up, it is Langston Hughes’ “I too Sing America” and James Weldon Johnson’s “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing.”

Tomorrow, we will have our mock trial.

The trial asks whether or not the 1917 Espionage Act is constitutional or not. It was challenged by Charles Schenck after he was convicted for mailing 15000 pamphlets linking the draft with slavery.

Schenck v. US Documents–for anyone who would like to see the witness list, explanation, and procedures.

Be ready to mock some trials tomorrow!

So, the age of no homework is drawing to a close. My throat hurts from lecturing. And no one likes to listen to me talk anyway. I apologize that I cannot post the powerpoints on the website. I used to be able to on my old website, but I havent figured it out yet. Maybe some day.

Anyway, tomorrow we will finish learning about the race riots and move on to our MOCK TRIAL! YES!

(Its on Schenck v. US…get ready to argue for some limitations on civil rights during war time!!!) (Ok, so I dork out on this stuff.)

Today, as the sun reached its highest point in the sky, two competitors faced off on the most highly anticipated sporting event of the weekend.* The first competitor was the diabolical, highly trained, and ruthless Feldman, who had been attempting to scare her competitor all week by drawing unrealistic pictures of her burning a taller competitor with a flamethrower while he cried. The second competitor, Greiner, did not flinch from such verbal and mental abuse, but rather used it as a further proof that he weilded a more important weapon–the weapon of justice.

Greiner, the inexperienced but determined swordsman, met Feldman on the field of battle, and a hushed sense of fear and expectancy fell over the crowd.** Luckily, Greiner had one secret weapon other than the weapon of justice. He was able to switch fighting styles so that the ruthless tyrant Feldman would not have an advantage. This was due to the fact that he was too big to fit into any of the other equipment. Anyway, the eppee fight was on.

In Round One, Greiner displayed a combination of ignorance and aggressiveness the likes of which Feldman had never experienced. He was able to stab her foot, her leg, and her arm. Feldman struck back, stabbing Greiner’s front leg kinda hard. He might develop a bruise. And, at the end of Round One, GREINER PREVAILED!***

However, this only made Feldman angrier. At this point, she unleashed a wave of wild, boorish assaults, charging and screaming and stabbing. Greiner was stabbed in the heart, the stomach, and the neck. At one point, he got lucky and got the leg, but that was it for him. On the tie-breaking point, the pitiless Feldman slew the stout-hearted but doomed Greiner, ending his dreams of winning what has become known as “Swordmaggedon…the greatest sword battle, ever.”

PS No Homework this weekend.

*Except the Superbowl.
**Ok, the crowd was made of Jenny, Juli, Nat, and Lili, and there wasn’t so much of a hushed silence as a series of “You’re gonna lose, Greiner!” taunts.
***I’m pretty sure it was only because I am at least a foot taller.