w. 36

Friday, 9 September

ENGLISH

fun = enjoyable

funny = ha! ha!

CURRENT EVENT

North Korean underground nuclear test

“PROCESSES OF CHANGE” PROJECT

Introduction of 1^st phase of project

1.     Collect information

2.     Create a timeline

(See info post on Vklass)

At this point, everyone should have a topic. This topic is connected to something today that you would like to see change. With this assignment, you will learn how current issues are the result of various events and developments of the past.

You will gain a greater understanding of the significance of various events and developments of the past. You will also learn how different sorts of developments (e.g., economic, political, technological, religious, social, scientific . . .) have an impact on one another. So, for example, issues that we might at first think fit primarily into a religious category may have been highly influenced by economic factors.

I noted that for this first phase of the project, we will go back and forth between class lectures and independent research time.

ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS

We looked at the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. And we spoke about the Macedonian Alexander the Great.

Book

As we go through these different eras of European history, I would like for you to look at the various chapters. I don’t mean that you need to read everything. But do look at what information is presented — by looking at the various heading, images, tables & graphs. Knowing what you have in the book will help you when you’re trying to put together your own narrative.

When talking about the Roman Republic, we introduced three words that you need to learn:

executive
legislative
judicial

When discussing governments, these words refer to different powers and roles within the government. Understanding that there are these different parts of political systems will make it possible for you to understand changes in political power throughout history. 

legislative - refers to the part of the government that makes the laws. In Sweden this is the Riksdag, in Great Britain it's the Parliament, and in the United States it's the Congress.

judicial - refers to the court system, which has the function of interpreting the laws. The judges (and juries) have the role of trying to understand how specific cases brought before the courts should be decided using the laws of the land. Laws usually are not so specific that they describe every possible action or possible set of circumstances. The judicial system is there to make decsisions that are based in the law.

executive - refers to the all the organizations and institutions within society that are there to make sure laws are applied and enforced. The government (which at the top includes the prime minister (or president or other head honcho) and her/his ministers (or cabinet)). They oversee a variety of institutions (Skolverket, Skatteverket, Arbetsförmedling, the healthcare system, etc.) which are there to provide the services our laws say should be there. They also oversee the police, who are there to make sure that laws are followed properly.


(Note: In Sa2 there was a reference to the capitals in South Africa. I'll note that the words executive, legislative, and judicial are not a part of the names of these capitals. Rather, South Africa has chosen to place the people and institutions connected with these different powers/roles in different cities. So the presidend and the cabinet (executive or administrative branch) is located in Pretoria; the court system (judicial) is based in Bloemfontein; and the legislative body (Parliament) is based in Cape Town. 

There are a number of other countries with more than one capital. Often this occurs when a country is formed out of what was previously multiple kingdoms/states, and it's hard to take power away from a particular place. So rather than strip that city of the status and money that comes from being a capital, a country will choose to have multiple capitals. This helps spread the money and power around. It can also waste a lot of money, since people have to spend more time traveling between the various cities to get work done.)

Fun Map!
This map-video showing the "Imperial History of the Middle East" is one I like a lot. It only takes 90 seconds and is rather impressive.



*****
Are you still working with your maps? Can you name the countries that match up with these capitals?

-           Cairo

-       Ottawa

-       Kabul

-       Bogotá

-       New Delhi

-       Tehran

-            Bern

-       Ankara

-       Buenos Aires

-       Riyadh

-       Kuala Lumpur

-       Canberra

-       Taipei

-       Havana

-       Pyongyang

 

Monday, 5 September

If you missed class Monday, you should contact me about your topic.


ENGLISH

Many nouns are made from verbs, but when this happens, the words are pronounced differently. For the verbs where the stress was on the second syllable, such as suspect (as in I susPECT that the murderer was Colonel Mustard), the stress moves to the first syllable when it is a noun. So we say The main SUSpects are Colonel Mustard and Professor Plum.

This different stressing of words also helps us hear the different between accepted nouns such as whiteboard (which we call a WHITEboard) and something completely different but which uses the same words – say, a white BOARD (a piece of wood that’s white).

As you pay attention to this, you’ll hear how these rules are used in everyday English.

CURRENT EVENT

With Ek2, we discussed that there was news from India regarding the rape of an 11-year-old girl. I noted, when we spoke about processes of change, that the fact that this event is news is gaining attention both in India as well as in the international community is a sign of changing attitudes against this type of violence. So we can see this news as evidence of a process of change regarding definitions of violence, the need to have laws and to enforce them, expectations of behavior that is not accepted, etc.

I have momentarily forgotten what was discussed with Sa2. (!)

 

COURSE PLAN

We looked at part of the course plan, noting that with this assignment, we will be focusing on 

 

-       learning the chronology of major historical European periods and understanding the significance of what happened during these periods

-       understanding processes of change, including long-term causes and consequences

-       and we’ll try to see these processes of change from different perspectives.

(The course plan is available on Vklass. If you would like a paper copy, let me know.)

We spent the rest of the period selecting a specific topic to use as the focus for the assignment.

On Friday we'll discuss the first part of the assignment.

w. 35

Friday, 2 September

ENGLISH

Ordinals

The numbers used to order or rank things are called ordinals. In English, we use -st, -nd, -rd, and -th behind the numbers to mark them as ordinals.

1^st – first

2^nd – second

3^rd – thirth

4^th–20^th  - fourth through twentieth

21^st – twenty-first

etc.

CURRENT EVENT

We discussed THE WALL! that Donald Trump reiterated last Wednesday in his immigration speech in Arizona that he would build. I connected this topic with the general topic of migration. As we noted on Monday, humans have been migrating for millions of years. We have not yet discussed the reasons for which humans migrate—only that they always have, and that history provides no model for suggesting that man-made barriers are successful for limiting the need, desire, or means for migrating. There are some models for totalitarian states limiting certain types of migration of their own people, but these have proved to be very detrimental to the states they sought to protect (think Soviet Union/Eastern Europe during the Cold War).

EARLY CIVILIZATIONS (Chapters 1 & 2 in your book)

Continuing with the look at the development of humans, we discussed the issue of “culture” (see p. 6). There are so many different norms that we have created throughout the millennia of human development. These are categorized in the graph on p. 6. And as I stressed in class, these things—how we dress, rituals we partake in, religious beliefs, roles we assign people, etc.—have all changed over time, and are today different according to where you are. I used the term social construct to refer to these elements of life, because they are things we as people create—constructs—and they agreed on in groups in society—social.

All of these social constructs are different from natural phenomena (such as gravity, thunder, lightning, the movement of the planets . . . ), which are not the result of decisions people make in groups. But many of our social constructs can be understood to be connected to natural phenomena (worship of nature gods, myths for explaining thunder and lightning, naming constellations of stars, etc.)

We also considered the role of domesticating plants and animals as a part of creating more complex societies and what can eventually be called civilizations.

(On the note of thunder, I’ll note that I’m not an expert in Nordic/Norse mythology, but I find this thunder thing rather confusing. It seems clear that lighting is created by Thor’s hammer, Mjölnir, but thunder is something most sources seem to gloss over without properly explaining. So perhaps it is always Thor’s chariot, pulled by Tooth-cracker and Tooth-gnasher (English translations I found and find quite delightful) creating the sounds of thunder, but that’s not clear to me. For I’m not certain if it’s meant for Thor to always “be on the move,” so to speak, when he’s wielding his hammer and causing the lightning.)

Monday, August 29

CENTURIES

Here's a little heads-up for one thing we'll be doing week 35: centuries!!!

In English we use centuries more often than we use hundreds. This is confusing for Swedes, because in Swedish only hundreds are used (e.g., 1900-talet). However, I still think most of you are familiar with hearing that we are currently living in the 21st century -- but 2016 does not start with 21, so you should have a clue that the centuries and the year do not completely jibe.

Here's a nice visual I found online that I will be using in class.

ENGLISH

All countries are capitalized all the time. So not south africa, but South Africa. (I confess that I treated Africa as a country when speaking with Ek2, and I started to do same with Sa2. This is, unfortunately, a boo-boo that I and other Westerners make fairly often.)

Also, all adjectives made from countries are capitalized. So:

South Africa à South African

Sweden à Swede (and Swedish)

As I noted, in English there are often differences between the capitalized and lower-case version of a word. So Swede and swede do not have the same meaning. Thus, I feel like such a Swede and I feel like such a swede could communicate very different things and conjure up very different pictures(!).

CURRENT EVENT

We noted the recent suicide bombing in Yemen. I provided my little “trick” of YO for remembering which country south of Saudi Arabia is Yemen and which is Oman.

BIG-PICTURE HISTORY

We looked at timelines of the development of Earth and the development of humans. I have provided these slides from Monday on Vklass.

Welcome! w. 34

Welcome to History 1b!

This blog provides information about things we’ve done in class. I also often post other information that can be helpful for succeeding in the class. The most recent class is "highest up."

Friday, August 26

ENGLISH

I noted that I try to start class with a quick English tip. You should make note of these. The idea is that through repetition and different forms of presentation you will more easily be able to master the basics as well as the subtleties of English. Today's tip:

Days of the week are always capitalized:
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

CURRENT EVENTS

I would like to bring current events into the beginning of the lessons. One of the goals is to make connections between issues that we study in class and the events developing in the world. Through doing this regularly, the hope is that you will build up your skills in understanding the relevance of history in your world.

PROCESSES OF CHANGE

On Monday you were asked to think about issues that have changed over time. Today you were asked to think about what you would like to see change. The fact that so many things have changed in so many ways -- as you observed on Monday -- demonstrates that things not only can but do change.

The idea is that I can use your personal motivations to make the material we work with in history more relevant to your own lives. I haven't done exactly this before, so it remains to be seen how successful I'll be. But we'll try!

MAP QUIZ

As I noted in class, the quiz is primarily for your benefit. If you see that you are very unsure about where certain countries are, then you want to spend more time looking at some maps. Over time, you will be more and more certain. If it weren't possible to get better at this, then you wouldn't know where Norway and Finland and Denmark were -- nor the United States. Some places are easier than others because you see maps of them more often.

You want to have an idea of where countries are, in part, because it makes it easier to understand issues relevant to succeeding in many of your courses, and, in part, because it makes it easier to understand issues that voting citizens need to understand. Knowing what neighbors a country has, what natural resources it has (for exaample, access to water or land for farming) makes it easier to consider and understand many issues.

ROMAN NUMERALS

This is one of those basic things that educated people know: how to read roman numerals. They pop up in various contexts, including the numbering of monarchs: Louis XIV,  Elizabeth II, Henry VIII, Carl XVI Gustav.

I = 1
V = 5
X = 10
L = 50
C = 100 
D = 500
M = 1000

You can put three of the same numeral in a row to create larger numbers:
III = 3
XXX = 30
CCC = 300

But you never have more than three of the same numeral in a row.

so 4 is not IIII, but IV, that is 1 (I) less than 5 (V).

And 6 is 1 (I) more than 5 (V).


V, L, and D are not repeated. So you never see VV or LL.

BOOK

We looked briefly at the book. Please take time to look at the book to get an idea of how it's laid out. There are units, chapters, and sections. And there's material at the end of each chapter and section.

Note where you have general maps (at the beginning of the book). Also see that you have a glossary, and, of course, an index.

As I noted in class, it's not that often that I assign specific pages that you must read. BUT, I do expect that you take responsibility for working with and trying to understand issues we discuss in class. Taking responsibility might include any or all of the following:
- asking questions during or after class,
- writing me a note on Vklass
- reading in the book
- reading in one of the other books we have (we have some in Swedish, which I'll show you)
- searching online (BUT, I ask that you are wary of where you go for information online)


Monday, August 22

Intro things:

• I asked that everyone add the Dictionary app to their dock -- so that you can easily look up words and synonyms.

• I also asked that you save the file I gave you with history terms and other English info. Put it somewhere where you can easily access.
 

 

• In groups of three, you discussed what sorts of things have changed over time. Some of the things people came up with:

- political rule (going from monarchies to democratic rule in some countries)

- transportation

- industrialization in general -- going from making things by hand to making things with machines

- fashion

- how we view people - specifically how women are seen and what rights they have
- education
- commerce, how we trade, buy, sell
- ecosystems, climate patterns
- social divisions

I noted that we wil be focusing on processes of change throughout the course, always thinking about different causes and consequences.

• I handed out books to everyone as well. We will not use the book all the time, but it is a very good resource in many ways. Please look carefully at the different elements that it has. You'll note that the back cover has an outline of the chapters. And there’s an index to help you find specific events, people, issues. And there’s also a glossary.