"We are..."

During Spring 2009, three U.S. History classes researched and prepared found art projects for the period 1970-90. The theme was "We are..." - the cultural impact on American history. Student worked in small groups to develop their projects. They collected items from their homes, museums, and neighbors to create the found art pieces. The completed projects were displayed in the school library.

Students were also required to do a self-evaluation of their projects and to give advice to next year's classes.

JP's Mom - New Blog Author

Greetings! I have invited JP's mom to join the D-period blog. She wants to view his work. As an author she will have access to all the class postings. She may also post things on this blog. Mrs. Blanchard wrote me a very nice message in which she thanked us for the sympathy cards and money for the animal shelter.

I hope that your summer is peaceful and fun. Get some rest and come back to us in August ready for senior year.

Best wishes to all,

Ms. Sanderson

Watergate Scandal

Watergate was caused by many things. Watergate picked close, loyal people for his inner circle. In their time in the administration, Nixon and his advisers slowly got the idea that they were above the law. These reasons led to the Watergate Scandal. Later, a group of people connected with Nixon attempted to burglarize the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate complex. As investigation continues, many member's of Nixon's staff were accused. Nixon then started to fire many of his staff. Nixon then began a very arduous task of trying to keep the taped Oval Office conversations under control. Finally, after many attempts to get the tapes, Nixon released an edited version of the tape. The house then wanted to impeach him on charges of obstruction of justice, contempt of Congress, and more. Near the end of the trails, Nixon resigned when it was too late. To represent the Watergate Scandal, my group had each side represent a different process of the Watergate Scandal. The break in side had flashlights, wires, locks, and other objects that were used to break in. Our next side related to the cover up, which included hush money, edited tapes, and other items. We had many photographs to show images in which normal everyday items would not have, such as pictures of Nixon's staff. The next side was dedicated to the fight for the tapes. This included a picture of the white house recording machine, as well as the stack of edited tapes that Nixon spent a good amount of time editing. Finally, we had our last side dedicated to the resignation of Nixon, including a printed copy of his letter of resignation as well as his farewell speech.

If I could repeat this project again, I would definitely spend more time assembling the box because the entire day was very rushed. I would advise incoming classes to make sure they know exactly what they will do the day of the assembly.

-Lawrece

Fast Food Nation

Group Members: Victor Zhu, Tiffany Chen, Jay Dubashi

For our final project, we researched the development and rise of the fast food industry in America.
We looked mostly at advertising, and their methods of giving out information about their products. We also looked at the spread of franchise locations over time. We chose to do fast food, because it is present in every American life. Advertising is everywhere, 'restaurants' are everywhere.
We used three main items:
- Timelines: We created timelines chronicling the development of three franchises, KFC, Wendy's, and McDonalds
- Slogans: We found the most used marketing slogans from the 1970's through 90's
- Maps: We created maps that show the spread of the franchise locations over 20 years.

We tried to make our project box look like a fastfood container, like the ones McDonald's uses. We organized the timelines into 'Hamburgers' The hamburgers have many sources of information on them. We included information on Menu's, food choices, advertising campaigns, and restaurant design. We discovered that fast food ads have changed from appealing to mostly adults, to trying to get children. We placed the slogans on the outside of the box, and the maps and timelines on the inside. Most of our visual aids were found on the internet, and we bought supplies.

I reccomend next years students do something they are passionate about. It will make the work much easier

- Jay Dubashi