LO-1 The Roman Empire

Hello,

Here is my paragraph on the Roman Empire that we learned today.


Today I will be talking about the Roman Public: The Senate and the People. At first, their city-state was rules on the Etruscan model by powerful kings. The king was advised by a council of elders called the Senate, whose members he appointed. Usually he chose among the patricians or-that is, with fathers who already belonged to this hereditary group of leading families. When a king died, his successor was chosen by the Senate from among its own members, subject to approval by an assembly of all male citizens. Besides the king, it was the Senate and the patricians who dominated the city-state. Around 500 B.C., Rome overthrew its Etruscan rulers, and the monarchy was also abolished. The government of Rome became officially the "people's business"-in Latin, res publica, from which the word republic is derived. Rome, like Greece went underwent a long and turbulent development under the influence of social struggles between aristocrat and commoners. The result was a Greek democracy and an oligarchy combined.

There were two major sides of the Republic which were the plebeians and the patricians. The plebeians were people like workers, small farmers, and sometimes quite wealthy citizens. The plebeians at first deferred to patrician rule, but as Rome grew and plebeians became wealthier, they were tired of being treated like second-class citizens. This led to the constant battle of the plebeians vs. the Roman Government.

Test Tomorrow

Hello,

Today we reviewed in class for our test tomorrow. We really just watched part of the Ancient Civilization about Greece.

Notes:

1.     She was a trusted associate of Pericles, and may have even written some of his speeches.

Aspasia

2.     He was a war hero who had many adventures while trying to return home after the Trojan Wars.

Odysseus

3.     In 508 BC, he and his Spartan allies were driven from power by the very first “people’s revolution”

Isagoras

4.     This goddess is the patron of Greece’s capital city.

Athena

5.     An open “place of assembly” where Greek citizens would gather to discuss matters of importance.

Agora

6.     A sporting competition where the common man could actually compete against aristocrats.

Olympics

7.     A notion of excellence and virtue; the act of living up to one’s full potential.

Arête

8.     He composed the amazing stories The Iliad and The Odyssey.

Homer

9.     When these less-advanced people dominated Greece, writing disappeared for 400 years and the economy collapsed.

Dorians

10.  He watched from a golden throne as his forces were defeated at the Straits of Salamis.

Xerxes

11.  This city-state was home of democracy and the head of the Delian League.

Athens

12.  He was recalled from exile and asked to build the world’s first government of the people – a system of government we now know as democracy.

Cleisthenes

13.  The most beautiful and magnificent building of its time, it was dedicated to a goddess whose 40-foot stature was found within it.

Parthenon

14.  In a Greek tragedy, he was the main character who fulfilled a prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother.

Oedipus

15.  This general rose from the ranks of the common people, and took steps to increase the naval power of Athens.

Themistocles

16.  An association of Greek city-states whose purpose was to remain strong and united against their enemies.

Delian League

17.  A fast, agile ship that was a feared weapon in the Greek navy.

Trieme

18.  This hero of ancient Greece is the central figure in a story which was the inspiration for a modern sporting even – the marathon.

Pheidippides

19.  He commanded the first Persian invasion of Greece, which ended with his defeat at Marathon.

Darrius

20.  Their kings dominated Greece from 1600 BC to 1200 BC.

Myceneans

21.  These legends describe Greek gods and goddesses and the nature of the world.

Myths

22.  The Greeks used trickery and clever naval strategy and to win this battle against the Persians.

Salamis

23.  He was a prominent and influential statesman, orator, and general of Athens during the city’s Golden Age, who was determined to glorify his city through the arts, literature, and culture.

Pericles

24.  These are long narrative poems celebrating heroic deeds.

Epics

25.  These people ruled an empire that stretched all the way from Egypt and Asia Minor to India and the Himalaya Mountains.

Persians

26.  Apollo was said to speak prophesies through this person; an ominous prophesy caused the Greeks much worry before the Persians’ second invasion.

Oracle of Delphi

27.  This prominent city-state had a fearsome infantry and was located in southeastern Peloponnese.

Sparta

28.  He was the leader of the gods, and the father of the goddess of wisdom.

Zeus

29.  Mr. Schick wants to go back in time to hang out with this philosopher.

Socrates

Test Day = Wednesday

Hello,

Today in West Civ we went over the 58 point Greek quiz. Today we listened to lots of different stories while we reviewed.  I think the material was covered very well and i understand it better. The Opdepius story was really weird and Mr. Schick actually found it quite funny and cool, probably because he is really weird. Other than that we really didn't do much. The main thing that I have been focused on today is that fact that we are apparently going to get snow tonight. The only 2 problems with that are that whenever there is snow I always hear that we are getting an inch and then I hear something else about how we are supposed to get 1/2 a foot. It seems like the snow total keeps going up and up throughout the day. The other bad thing is that there could be a cyber day. Having a cyber would suck so I hope that doesn't happen. 

Grading Others Projects

Hello,

Today in Western Civ we graded each others projects! We found out that Annie is on crack.  Besides that, Erica, Leah and I got a 90 for our project. I am happy with that grade because we came a long way from what we were going to show on that first Monday class. Quarter 3 ends today and grades have to be in by Tuesday morning. Mr. Schick said that he will grade all our blogs over the weekend. We are supposed to get snow again for about the 100^th time this year, so maybe a cyber-day? If we have a cyber-day I will shoot myself in the leg.. That is how much I like cyber-days. I literally hate them SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH! If we have to have one on Tuesday or whatever day the snow is I will not be a happy person.. 

Sick.... Again

Today I was sick again and wasn't in class. I'm pretty sure I'll be there tomorrow though.

Sick

Today I was sick and wasn't in school.

Off on St. Patrick's Day

Hello,

Here are the answers to the questions:

1. Mostly fertile land is not a characteristic of Greece.

2. About 2/3 of Greece is covered by mountains.

3. The term barbarian as it was originally used in the ancient world. The word came from the Greek “barbarous."

4. A megalithic structure are massive rough-cut stones used to construct monuments and tombs.

5. The term tribe refers to a social and political unit consisting of a group of communities held together by common interests, traditions, and real or mythical ties of kinship. 

6. Tribes were governed by warrior kings or queens, chieftains, and tribal leaders.

7. The first European barbarians to make contact with civilization were the Greeks.

8. The United States would not be considered a member of “Western civilization”

9. The name of the sea located west of the Greek mainland is the Ionian Sea.

10. The name of the sea located east of the Greek mainland is the Aegean Sea.

11. The major crops of the Aegean people were onions, wheat and beer.

12. The Minoan civilization arose on the island of Crete.

13. The Mycenaean civilization established settlements along the Greek mainland’s southern shore and on islands.

14. The Mycenaean civilization built massive walls to protect themselves from attacks.

15. The Dark Ages is a period of Greek history in which the population dropped, ships no longer sailed, and writing fell out of use.

16. Following this time period, the Greeks joined the Phoenicians as the leading commercial and seafaring nation of the Mediterranean?

17. In historical writing, the letter “c” might appear before a date, as in “c. 1500 BC.”  That means around, about and or circa.

18. By 600 BC, Greek city-states dotted the coastlines around the Mediterranean Sea.  These were called colonies.

19. Although they varied in size, ancient Greek city-states most closely resembled counties as a modern-day geographical feature.

20. Oligarchy, which in a small group of citizens dominated, and the power of the majority was limited in various ways.

21. In a democracy is where decisions were made by the majority of adult male citizens.

22. A self-proclaimed dictator held power.

23. Power is held by a single ruler, and is often passed along from father to son.

24. Spartans used this oligarchy for their government system.

25. At what age seven Spartan males begin their military training.

26. The wealthiest city-state in the ancient Greek world was Athens.

27. The high fortified citadel and religious center of an ancient Greek town was known as the Parthenon.

28. The southern peninsula where Sparta was located is called Peloponnesus.

29. Triremes were massive fighting ships with three banks of oars, used to ram or board enemy ships.

30. Hoplite was a heavily armed and armored citizen-soldier of ancient Greece.

  

Short answers.    

1.      The years the Dark Ages began and ended at about 1100 – 800 BC.

2.      The titles of Homer’s stories during the Dark Ages were “The Odyssey” and “The Iliad”

3.      The word “Mediterranean” originally meant middle earth.

4.      Aristocrats were prominent and long-established Athenian land owners.

Watching More Of The Video

Hello,

Today in West Civ class we started watching part 2 of the one boring video that Mr. Schick made us watch a couple of days ago. Anyway Mr. Schick wasn't here today which was weird because I saw him yesterday and Wednesday and he seemed fine. But he was also sick on Monday, so maybe it just came back to him. Anyway though I completely finished the worksheet that he gave us when we first started watching the video. So I don't really know if there is much else that I need to do for class today. I'm still kind of surprised that he wasn't here today. I hop that we do something completely different then watch the video like we did today. I hope that on Monday we do something that is actually fun, or just something that isn't this video. But anyway we shall see next class. We may even not have school Monday because of snow. I hop that it just passes us and we have school because I hate cyber days more than Al-Queda. But anyway I'll see what happens on Monday, hopefully no snow.

Watching More Projects

Hello,

Today in West Civ class we just watched more presentations on Sparta and Athens. Some of them were quite good actually. I'm glad to see that many people worked really hard on this project, and I am sure that Mr. Schick is happy about that too. Other than that the class was really boring. Right before class ended, Mr. Schick told us a Martha story. He said that when she was around 7, he brought her into school for "Take Your Daughter to Work Day." But anyway she asked him if she could teach the class. After he said yes she walked into the class with a big book about dinosaurs and started reading. She told her dad that that's what she wanted to teach. She was starting to get frustrated with the class, because no one took her seriously and just said things about how cute she was. Martha was actually getting mad and resorted to asking people's names and writing them on the board like they were about to get in trouble or something. The story was quite funny actually, as most of Mr. Schick's stories are.

Presenting Our Presentation

Hello,

Today in class we finally got tot present our projects. My group ended up going right near the end of the class. I think that we did pretty well. Some of the people in the class really went with the whole idea. By this I mean they kind of went all out and did a video, storyboards, poster board. It seemed as if they didn't do anything else over the weekend besides their project. I guess a lot of people just wanted to get a ton of points on the project. I guess I would say that my group took the easy way out, but I really didn't have any time to work on it over the weekend. I think that we did pretty well nevertheless and I hope that Mr. Schick sees that we did work hard on it and gives us a good grade. We may not have had the best project, because we definitely didn't. But we worked very hard on what we had. I think that in the end that is really all that matters.

Working On Our Projects

Hello,

Today in class we didn't have Mr. Schick because he was sick. Since he wasn't here we got to work on our projects. When I got into class my group really didn't like the look of the poster that we had so we made it look a bit better and now I am glad that we got to work and that our project looks much better than it did. It was also good because during the weekend I didn't help out as much as I would have liked. So this way I got to help, because I did almost everything today so I am glad that I contributed a decent amount in today's class. I am very grateful that we got to work on our projects and I hope that everything goes well when we present our projects in class tomorrow, hopefully. At least as long as he is not still sick.

Watching More of The Movie and NOT Being Able to Work on Projects

Hello,

Today in class we, sadly, kept watching the movie. The movie is actually quite bad. It is very informative but I wish we could work on our projects. My group is every far behind and when you have lacrosse every day and so much stuff to do during the weekend its pretty hard to get together with your group, but I guess he just wants to make this project as hard as possible. It really isn't that hard but I have no time to get together with my group or to even get together during school and say what we should do. It is absolutely unfair that we have to somehow do this. But anyway, I have a concert to go to after school so that makes me in a better mood after just watching the video and not being able to work on our projects. I honestly have no idea how I am going to finish this project over the weekend. There really isn't a way I can communicate with my group members and I am too far into it to just break away and do it myself. It really wouldn't be fair to my group members and it would make my weekend extremely hard to deal with.

Some Movie

Hello,

Today in class we saw some random movie. It was about the ancient world. But before we started watching that extremely long video we talked about the projects. I think a lot of people in all of the classes were a bit confused about the project, as was I. But now I know what I am getting into and I'm still not positive what I am going to do, but we shall see. But anyway it is supposed to get really warm this weekend so that should be great!

Snow Day Yesterday

Hello,

Yesterday we had a snow day. Which normally I would have been excited about, but we had a Cyber Day. Cyber Day could be as good as a fit with the students as Europe and the Black Plague. There is NO WAY that we would ever do this much work in school. I ended up doing work from 12 to 8. It was absolutely horrible. I guess that eventually I will be glad that we didn't have to make up a day by taking one off at the beginning of the summer or take a day off of spring break. So I am sure that it will pay off in time. Well anyway we mostly just talked more about the project and a lot of people have already started. I guess that I should have because it was our cyber day assignment, but I had an unbelievable amount of things to do over the weekend and on Monday so there was no way I could have actually started unless I wanted to drive myself to the point of insanity. But anyway I will start soon, I'm still not positive what I will do with my project but I have lacrosse all this week so I wont have time to do a huge poster board or maybe not even a slide show or something. But we shall see.