Scholar Current Events Class #4

Assignment Summary:

1. Research a presidential candidate's positions and opinions on important issues and report back about them next class.  (The candidate you chose is listed below.)

2. Follow the news as usual this week.  Find something interesting, and post a short opinion about it on the Current Events blog at http://sscurve.blogspot.com/.

3.  Tead Thousand Year War, chapters 9-17.  Don't skip chapters 1-8 if you haven't read them yet.

Even though some people thought it was a boring week for news, there were some interesting events in Europe.  Greece's economic crisis has been so chaotic that I'm having a hard time following what they are trying to do about it each day, or even who is leading the country.  And then Italy, with a much bigger economy, had its own debt crisis heat up, and Prime Minister Berlusconi is resigning.  Since there is a lot of economics in the news, we discussed the laws of supply and demand, and how government bonds work.

Because we have extra time before next class due to the holiday, I thought this would be a good time to do our presidential candidate activity.  Each student will research the candidate's positions and opinions on important issues and report back about them next class.  Then we can have the class vote for president.  Here are the candidates each person selected:

Casey: Newt Gingrich
Zack: Jon Huntsman
Mitch: Barach Obama
Preston: Mitt Romney
Alyssa: Ron Paul
Sierra: Rick Santorum
Summer: Rick Perry
Carmen: Herman Cain
Miah: Michele Bachmann

Some of the issues you may want to research are: Taxes, Debt (deficit, budget), Aghanistan, Iraq, other wars and military issues, Entitlements such as Healthcare and Social Security, gay rights, abortion, Trade (free trade agreements and other foreign relations issues).  You should also check into their background to see what sorts of affiliations and biases will be revealed by their past activities. 

Good places to look for information are their own websites, searching news stories, and political sites such as http://ballotpedia.org/.

As we keep up with news this week, I want you to write another short opinion about something interesting you find, but this time, I want you to post it on the Scholar School Current Events blog at http://sscurve.blogspot.com/.  You will receive an email shortly with an invitation to be a author on the blog.  After you click the link in the email you will be able to post stories on the blog.

Here are a couple things to remember when writing a blog post:

*  Remember to link to your source, so readers can read the full story and find out more.
*  Try to add something to the facts, such as: your opinion on whether it is good or bad, right or wrong; point out the important bit in the article; check on the facts on link to something which confirms or refutes them; link to another site which gives a supporting or different opinion; etc.

I have added links to three blogs on the right side of the site.  Connor's Conundrums is my favorite blog, but his quality and length is way above what I expect of you or even of myself.  Oliver DeMille's daily posts, and my own blog "maxilla asini" are good examples of the kind of short and informative posts I am expecting from you.  If you have you own blog or other favorite blogs to add to the list, go ahead and add them or send the links to me and I can add them.

Our reading assignment is to read Thousand Year War, chapters 9-17.  But don't skip chapters 1-8 if you haven't read them yet.  We will discuss whatever actually gets read next time.