Back to work, back to school....

With my changed teaching assignment (from world hist. to US History), I've been doing a little reading this summer to restir those US history bits floating around in the ever evolving soup of my brain. I'm currently reading bits of "Spain in the Southwest: A Narrative History of Colonial New Mexico, Mexico, Arizona, Texas and California," by John Kessell. I've recently completed, Kenneth C. Davis' "America' Hidden History," Jeffery Lent's fictional early republic novel "The Whiskey Rebels" (centered around the early National Bank, Hamilton and the Whiskey Rebellion, bits and pieces of David Colbert (editor), "Eyewitness to America," Ray Raphael's "A People's History of the American Revolution," Seymour Morris Jr.'s "American History Revised, Volume 4 of "A History of US: The New Nation," by Joy Hakim, Larry Schweikart and Michael Allan's "A Patriots History of the United States," and various bits of HISTORY Magazine, AMERICAN HERITAGE Magazine, and stuff I find online.

Goal for Today, to type out a "Colonial Spanish North America" timeline. I like timeline activities; I generally make these a tiered activity....minimum points for students to create a simple ten event/date timeline, more possible points for creating/finding illustrations for their events/dates and to earn maximum points, creating the illustrated timeline and researching and writing a short report about any one of the events they chose for their timeline.

Back to School puzzlement: Does your school allow students to have, at school, permanent markers? We don't at my school, due to graffiti problems. However, about every back to school sale I've browsed this summer, there are lots of permanent markers for sale. If students are found to have these markers at my school, they are usually confiscated (our local police have made it be known that the graffitistas of our community are not just tagging crews from the local gangs; they have also caught sk8ers, star athletes and honor students tagging the flat spaces of this community). Guess school policy and community cleanliness cannot get in the way of commerce? The local stores that sell paint already have to keep spray paints under lock and key; are permanent markers next? Anyhow.....

I've also bought, at Staples, about 50 bottles of white glue and 20 150-sheet packages of notebook paper for about 80 cents, (Yes, a penny apiece, plus tax). YES, less than a dollar for all that. Guess those are Staples Company "loss-leaders" to get teachers into their stores to buy more 'no longer being supplied by the schools" stuff for their students.

Time to get back to work. Thank you for reading this post. I welcome your comments and suggestions for teaching 8th graders US History !