I've Moved!

In order to use the same blog host as my students, I've moved to EduBlogs.

You can find new class information here.

Culture Blog Assignment

This week, you will be writing 2 blog posts about CULTURE.

First, you need to set up your new blog. Even if Blogger has been working for you, I still want you to set up a new account at www.edublogs.org. You can set up your Edublog account WITHOUT an email address. Please do not include your last name in your user name!

Once you have your blog set up, you will need to write 2 blog posts. Choose either option 1 OR option 2. EVERYBODY MUST DO OPTION 3!

1. What is culture?

• This post should give an readers an introduction to culture. Think about everything we've talked about related to culture in the past week, and tell readers about your understanding of culture.

2. My Culture

• We've talked about it already, but give readers some insight to your culture. Choose a minimum of 6 of the ABCs to discuss. Describe the aspects of your culture, which parts are most important to you and why!

3. Account of an American Activity

• Pick some activity/event/routine that happens frequently in America, observe what happens and describe the activity like and outsider might. Think about the acticle we read about the football game.

Remember the expectations we talked about in class on Friday. Blog posts will be assessed based on

• Content
• Detail
• Accuracy
• Creativity/Writing Style
• Correct Spelling, Grammar, Punctuation, Capitalization

Later this week, you will be reading your classmates' blogs, and people will be reading yours, so present your best work!

Week in Review

This week our focus was on culture.

Monday, October 4: Culture Iceberg

• We discussed how culture is like an iceberg; we can only observe a small part. Some big parts of culture are hard to see.

Tuesday, October 5: Communication & Your Culture

• We did an activity simulating intercultural communication, answered a few questions related to the activity and reflected on what's important in each of our cultures

Wednesday, October 6: ABCs of Culture

• We reviewed the ABC's of Culture, and made a small poster for one of the letters.

Thursday, October 7: American Ceremony

• We read the Account of an American Ceremony and answered some questions, comparing our understanding of the event with the author's, and taking lessons from the article.

Friday, October 8: Wrap Up & Blog Expectations

• We reviewed last week's quiz, checked grades, discussed expectations for student blogs and had time to check notebook (will be graded next week!) and work on missing assignments.

Have a great weekend!

Study!

Our first quiz is coming up tomorrow (Thursday, September 30th)! Make sue to review your notes!

Things to review:

• 5 Themes


• Absolute & Relative Location


• Map (7 continents, 4 oceans, 5 lines of latitude, Prime Meridian)

Here is a website with lots of map quizzes to help check what you know!

Location, Location, Location

We have been working with latitude and longitude for the past few days in class. Remember that lines of latitude run horizontally, parallel to the Equator, and are labeled north and south. Lines of longitude run vertically, parallel to the Prime Meridian and are labeled east and west.

Here are the worksheets for Absolute Location (Latitude and Longitude) and Relative Location.

5 Themes

This week we have been talking about the five themes of geography- location, place, regions, movement and human-environment interaction. For a quick review of the themes, check out this power point.

Welcome!

Welcome to 8th grade geography! I am really looking forward to a wonderful year! I hope this blog becomes a resource that you check in with frequently for class updates and information. Thank you for visiting!

You can access our class syllabus at any time here. You can also check out important dates (due dates, tests, etc.) for the class here.