Obviously, I will not be at school for at least a couple days - probably the rest of the week.  I will try to post things for you to work on on your class pages.  Please be nice to your sub :)

Let's have an awesome week leading up to an outstanding 4 DAY WEEKEND!

So, check back often and if I am ever absent, your directions for the day will be here...

Second priority is to answer the following questions in your journals.

1. Write a paragraph or two about your family's traditions over the winter break.  Do you celebrate Christmas?  Hanukkah?  Another event?  What do you do to celebrate them?  If you do not celebrate anything in particular (except a break from school), what else do you do during the break?

2. Are these holidays just a family tradition to you are do they carry a deeper meaning?  What beliefs do you have about this time of year?

3. What do you want for Christmas?

"'I don't like letting nobody…know I'm hungry,'" Lewis Roman. 13, says. He lives in Philadelphia, and "sleeps in one room with his mother, brothers, and sister while he goes to school and tries to have a normal teenage life," according to a CBS News report.

"Lewis told me about trying to fall asleep (and sometimes not being able to) as a way to deal with hunger. He told me how he'll get so hungry that he'll feel like throwing up."
(Seth Doane, "The Personal Side of Hunger in America," www.cbsnews.com, 6/5/09)

"49 Million Americans Report a Lack of Food" was a recent New York Times headline, here in the richest country on earth. "The number of Americans who lived in households that lacked consistent access to adequate food soared last year to 49 million, the highest since the government began tracking what it calls 'food insecurity' 14 years ago, the Department of Agriculture reported."

Many people lack food because they lack money, because they have no job. Though major banks and Wall Street have begun to recover from the deep recession, Main Street has not, and unemployment remains very high.

"Food insecurity" is a euphemism that in plain English means having to go without food. New York Times reporter Jason DeParle wrote about one family whose members had to "skip meals, cut portions or otherwise forgo food at some point during the year" because they were simply broke. (11/16/09)

In its recent report, the Department of Agriculture said that in 506,000 households children faced "very low food security," up almost 200,000 over the previous year. President Obama called this finding "particularly troubling." Nearly 17 million children lived in homes where food was scarce at times, and more than one million of them were sometimes just plain hungry. This is a 45% increase from 12 million in 2007.

An analyst at the conservative American Heritage Foundation, Robert Rector, said of the 49 million reporting a lack of food: "Very few of these people are hungry. When they lose jobs, they constrain the kind of food they buy. That is regrettable, but it's a far cry from a hunger crisis."

But James Weill, director of the Food Resource and Action Center, said, "Many people are outright hungry, skipping meals. Others say they have enough to eat but only because they're going to food pantries or using food stamps. We describe it as 'households struggling with hunger.'" (New York Times, 11/17/09) Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said, "These numbers are a wake-up call for the country."

A food bank in San Antonio, Texas, found that more than 40% of their clients "report having to choose between paying for utilities or heating fuel and food; 29% had to choose between paying for rent or a mortgage and food; 35% report having to choose between paying for medical bills or food." (www.safoodbank.org)

Lynn Brantley, president and CEO of a food bank in Washington DC, described what she sees every day: "It's a woman with children trying to make ends meet. It's a senior citizen who is living on a very minimum income. It's people who are losing their homes or losing their jobs. And it's being compounded now with the economy over and over again. High fuel prices, high food costs…inflation has been hitting. And that's where people are in need most, where it gets hit the hardest."(www.pbs.org/newshour, 11/17/09)

Economist Raj Patel, activist and author of Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World's Food System, said he found the U.S. hunger numbers appalling: "The reason that we have this huge increase in hunger in the United States, as around the world, isn't because there isn't enough food around. Actually, we produced a pretty reliable solid crop last year. ... The reason people go hungry is because of poverty." (www.democracynow.org, 11/18/09)

 About this article:

1. What questions do you have about the reading?

2. What kinds of choices are hungry people having to make?

3. Why does Robert Rector of the American Heritage Foundation think that "very few" Americans are hungry?

4. What evidence does the reading provide to counter Rector's claim?

5. What seems to be the major reason for "food insecurity"?

Solving the Problem:

1. There are two things to consider when tackling the problem.  First, for those people and families in crisis, what are some ideas for how to get them help?  What role should the government play?  What about churches?  What about community groups?  What could YOU do?

2. The second part of the problem is solving the root of the problem which is poverty.  Not only do we lack jobs, but many people are not properly trained for today's jobs - especially higher paying jobs.  What ideas can you think of to solve that issue?  What role should the government play?  What about churches?  What about community groups?  What could YOU do?

The topics are:

• Abortion
  
• Global Warming
  
• Capital Punishment
  
• Animal Testing
  
• Racial Profiling

If there is a different issue you would like to take on, check with me and I will let you know if it is okay...

1. Start by listing 5 commonly accepted facts about the first Thanksgiving. 
    
2. Then, you will research these "facts" by finding websites that support or discredit the items you listed. 
    
3. As you research, write down each website URL (www.whatever.com/somepage.html) that you use to study the issue.
    
4. Under each website address, summarize why you think that page is a credible source by applying the CARS method we learned about yesterday.
    
5. You should use at least two sources for each of the 5 facts.  Do not use the same source for more than 2 facts.
    
6. Once you have done the research, write a summary explaining what you have learned.  Were the initial facts correct?  Was it easy to find good sources?  Did the CARS method of evaluating web resources help?

Our history as presented in our history textbooks is most definitely presented from an American perspective.  what I want you to do is to think about the time period when we as a country declared our independence from England and answer the following questions:

1. What might the mood have been like in the colonies at that time?  What were they thinking about?  How did they feel about what was taking place?

2. How do you think the leaders of England felt?  What about the common folks in England?  What do you think the mood might have been in England as the US announced its independence?

3. Now put yourself in the mindset of the native American population.  How might they have viewed these events?  What was the mood of their people at this time?

4. What about other groups?  China?  Spain?  France?  Mexico?  What about people in African countires? 

5. Who had the right perspcetive?  Anyone?  Did each group have the right to feel as they did? 

6. Would the Native Americans have been justified to resist and kill the new Americans?  Would England have had a right to take back the land?  Would either the Native Americans or England have a right to take the land back today?  If you answer yes in the past, but not now, what is the difference between then and now?

7. Does thinking about an event like this from other people's perspectives change the way you feel about what happened at all?  Does it make you wonder how many things that you have learned through only one perspective?  Do you see the value in thinking about things through the eyes of others before making big decisions?

The numbers '172' can be found on the back of the U.S. $5 dollar bill in the bushes at the base of the Lincoln Memorial.

President Kennedy was the fastest random speaker in the world with upwards of 350 words per minute.

In the average lifetime, a person will walk the equivalent of 5 times around the equator.

Odontophobia is the fear of teeth.

The 57 on Heinz ketchup bottles represents the number of varieties of pickles the company once had.

In the early days of the telephone, operators would pick up a call and use the phrase, "Well, are you there?". It wasn't until 1895 that someone suggested answering the phone with the phrase "number please?"

The surface area of an average-sized brick is 79 cm squared.

Cats sleep 16 to 18 hours per day.

The most common name in the world is Mohammed.