WOW! This looks great! Can't wait to use it with my middle school girls. One change though... Uh... the page that talks about the date that people were falling out of a building on fire after a plane hit it... it wasn't 2011... it was 2001. Just a heads up, you might wanna change that.This presentation looks well put together though! AWESOME!I'm planning to use a series of your ppts for my 'special' class each fortnight. They look well put together. Thanks!
Thanks NZE! I plan on uploading a slightly updated version tonight (when the servers aren't as busy). What is this special class? An advanced class? Let me know how it goes? I've had mixed reactions so far. Some classes were extremely engaged (even in the lower levels) and some classes were very disrespectful towards the material. You might be surprised about the reactions you'll get from the students. In many cases, they answered in ways I would not have expected.
Great lesson again Leo !However, in the ppt the moving pictures of 'tank man' and the video of steve jobs speech will not play and i just have a black box/square. This has been happening all week with my ppt's with videos and links in. Any ideas? I only ask as you seem to be a bit of a wizz with ppt!Thanks!
I teach at a boy's middle-school, and there's no way that my students are mature enough to handle this lesson - many of the pictures are disturbing, and I think that many NETS might be quite upset at the student's reaction to some of them.This is geared more to upper high-school students, I would think?That said, this is an awesome powerpoint that's really effective in presenting (western) culturally significant moments, and I'm definitely going to use this for one of my Teacher Training Lessons.Some pictures that I feel could be added to the list:- The 1986 Challenger shuttle disaster that basically set NASA back a few decades.- The pictures of the burnt, running children that were collateral damage of napalm bombing during the Vietnam war that effectively turned American sentiment against the war.- The photos of the British and German soldiers playing football (soccer) together during Christmas -- only days after and days before returning to year long trench warfare. (WWI)- Ghandi leading one of the world's only peaceful revolutions.- The pic of Alexander Flemming holding a vial of "mould juice" that would later be solely responsible for the exponential increase in world population and its accompanying horrors. cheers!
I used one of your other powerpoints today - Konglish. The Students and co-teacher loved the content until we got to the jokes... they didn't get those at all... sadly. They were pretty good for the most part, the lowest of my students, as always slept through the class, but at least most of them participated and enjoyed it. The special class is a class that they've put in my time-table once a fortnight for my 2nd grade middle-schoolers. It's their home room classes... and they're of mixed abilities. I'm thinking to use one of my own lessons in a fortnight, and then this lesson next month. It should be very interesting to use.
There is no way my students could handle this lesson. Not only the language needed to discuss topics as serious as these but also their level of maturity is simply not adequate. Don't get me wrong, I personally love deep, controversial, cultural/political topics. But I am shocked anyone would be able to present this to middle-school esl students. High school, even university level students surely would be much better suited. I can barely stand to look at some of these photos. However, I do admire the amount of work that goes into all of your lesson plans, Leo. Many of them are simply fantastic!
Great lesson. I applaud the amount of work that was put into it as it appears to be significant. A quick comment on the "tank man" picture and video. Yes, it is widely known worldwide, and deservedly so. In western countries, the narrative given is that of a single man defying a column of tanks. However, as I understand it, in China the government (when it does show this video) the narrative is completely different. You can see that the tanks do not want to crush the man; trying to change its direction several times. This is used to show the restraint on the part of the tank operators.
Yikes. Didn't really want to get into this as it is a heavy topic but here goes. The usual narrative espoused by the traditional media sources (NY Times, CNN, CBC, BBC etc) is a rather more simplistic "students vs. the communist government" in a fight over democracy. The reality is a whole lot more complex. First, the students themselves weren't seeking "democracy" in the strictest sense of the word i.e. voting for their leaders and such, but rather they wanted an end to corruption. At the time, these students weren't able to find employment even though they had graduated from or were still in university. The best jobs went to those with ties to the communist government. This corrupt system was what angered them. The government was aware of this and let them vent their frustration. This went on for SEVEN weeks. As a thought exercise, imagine what would happen if there was a march on the White House with daily protests for seven weeks. Additionally, there were protests in big cities, all over China. Secondly, the protests themselves weren't always peaceful, especially towards the end. The students threw molotov cocktails and many soldiers were attacked, killed, and burned as well. The students were angry, and they have absolutely every right to be angry. But I think we can all agree that those innocent soldiers didn't deserve to be viciously murdered.Finally, the massacre itself. There was indeed a massacre that night, but it wasn't the students that were gunned down and it didn't happen in Tiananmen Square itself. On the Avenue of Eternal Peace nearby, hundreds of workers and innocent passerbys were indeed massacred. These faceless, nameless people are conveniently ignored by the majority of the Western press to this day because the narrative is just not as exciting. The CCP were willing to tolerate the students protests to an extent because these students were the future. As they got older, these students will join the communist party and become leaders, helping to craft policy. The uprisings by the workers on the other hand, were not tolerated. Sources:http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_myth_of_tiananmen.php?page=1http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/08/china.olympics2008http://gregoryclark.net/page15/page15.html EDIT: Aaaand one more for good measure. This one courtesy of Wikileaks: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8555142/Wikileaks-no-bloodshed-inside-Tiananmen-Square-cables-claim.html