Essays for Exams Finished!

In class on Thursday we finished the written part of our West Civ exam. Let me tell you I have never written any paper faster than I wrote those three essays. I studied my outlines really hard the two nights before so I think I got everything in that I wanted to say. I wrote a pretty good amount for each of the essays especially essay C that took up two pages for me. I wrote them just like Mr Schick instructed with a introduction, body, and conclusion paragraph. Mr Schick will also be proctoring our actual exam for West Civ on Wednesday so I'm hoping that goes just as well as the essays did. Well I have to go study for the next few days for my up coming exams. Sleep is for the weak.

Essay Preparation

I did not write for my blog last night because I was so busy studying for the essay we have to write in class today. I'm very nervous considering we only have 48 minutes to write three topic three paragraph essays. I'm gonna get back to studying now but hopefully it goes all well today.

Essays and Makeups

I have been out of classes lately due to my upcoming surgery as soon as school ends so its a very busy time for me right now. As of now I'm trying to write my outline for the essay for west civ on Thursday so I'm prepared. Tomorrow I will be making up the test I missed today on ancient Rome. I think I'll be studying most of tonight and throughout the day tomorrow. I think I'll be pretty prepared.

Exams Exams and More Exams

Friday we talked a lot about what would be on the final exam for Mr Schick's class. He told us that he is traveling to "Chi Cago" the day after exams end so he doesn't want to have to grade our essays from our exams on his trip there. So in that case we are writing our exams essays in class on Thursday. I am nervous about it because I'm feeling like I won't be able to finish it in time but I will try to make a great outline at home. Hopefully everything goes alright for the exams even though I'm extremely nervous as always.

Our Presentation

We heard a presentation on pottery and gladiators until it go to our presentation! I think my group did great and our project turned out exactly as we wanted. The powerpoint was great then we had some people play the game and they all liked it. Everyone said it was a great review game for the test which has been postponed to Tuesday. I'm very happy about it and can't wait to be finished this year!

More and More Presentations

Today we saw three more presentations for the Ancient Rome projects. First up was Jayla who made really great authentic Roman Pottery. I thought it was really well made and it seemed like she knew a bunch about the project and really answered questions nicely. Then Arthur and Alex showed us all about Roman architecture through an amazing lego model! Then Kaitlin and Trish read us their awesome diaries from Ancient Rome. The storyline was absolutely and made it feel like it was really a true story in Rome. I'm excited to present tomorrow!

Projects to Present

Today we started presenting our creative Roman projects in our first mod hour! We had a lot of time so we had 3 groups present and to our luck we had Veronica, Zaire, Rosemary, and Megan serve us a real patrician style 4 course meal! The salad was very different but tasted very vibrant and the pasta was amazing (I had 4 servings). The desert was an old style cheesecake and had a very unique but good taste just like the cinnamon apple juice. Then we had one group show us a remake of a song called Fancy and made it about Rome and it was hilarious and very informational. Then we watched David's well prepared powerpoint and that was the end of class. I'm very excited to finish my project and see everyone else's tomorrow.

Blues and Homework

Today Mr Schick shared some of his Chi Cago past with some old blues music. He also showed us our schedule for our projects next week. My Group goes on Thursday which gives a couple days for us to finish it. That's all for today!

Julius Caesar

Today we continued taking notes on ancient Rome. We talked about how the rich were keeping the plebs quiet while they were poor because they took their land. They entertained them through circuses. Then it talked about how poor people worked in the military for money then we got on the topic of Julius Caesar. We didn't learn much abut him except he had friends in very high places like another great military general like himself and the richest man in the world. I will tell more about him tomorrow.

Rome Pop Quiz

We had a pop quiz on Rome today that I got a 90 on without even studying. I have to admit it was pretty easy but a lot of people got a lot of questions wrong. For now I will continue working on my group project for Rome. I still have to make the cards but I'm working on it and I think the whole thing is coming together great!

The End of Tiberius

In class today, we finished the movie on Tiberius' rule in Rome. The government did not like the amount of power that he was getting especially because the people sided with him mostly because he wanted to give their land back. Once he got to position of Tribune and got laws voted in, the government got very angry and tried to plot against him. They told the people he wanted to be king and the people didn't like that. Tiberius tried to run for Tribune again which was against the law and this angered the government leaders greatly. They beat him to death at the voting and dumped his body in the river. Tiberius is still remembered as the hero who changed Roman government.

Mr Schick Absent

Mr Schick was absent Friday which really helped put a kick start on my group's board game project. Kendall and I have figured out the whole game board and the cards and Ellee is going to write the paper on it and help with design. Kendall and I are doing most of the work for the board game part of the project because Ellee can't meet a lot after school because she has work and driver's education. That's why she's writing the paper for it and helped out here and there on the board. We all think it's pretty equal work. We have the rest of this week to finish it up and I think it will come together pretty well. Another bonus is our class doesn't have Mr Schick on Monday's so the project isn't due for us until the day after. As of right now, we have 8 days so I'm sure we can get it together well enough for an A. Hopefully the rest of class is doing just as well. Summer's approaching very quickly as exams are so I will probably start making my flashcards for the second time around. Wish my group and I luck!

Video

We watched a video on Rome for about 10 minutes on the lesson we are learning in Rome. We didn't do anything else because we were having technical issues.

Roman Legion

The Roman Legion had 5,000 soldiers and they were not in it for the pay. The Roman's had an elite heavy infantry and they were recruited exclusively from Roman citizens. There were groups of eighty in century and the ones on horseback were the cavalry. Their armor consisted of a shield, sword, dagger, and regular armor and a tunic. The Punic Wars were from 264 to 146 BCE and it was Rome vs Carthage and there were three main parts of the war. The First Punic War lasted from 264 to 241 BCE and they were mostly naval battles for the control of the strategically located island of Sicily, which Rome won. The Second Punic War was from 218 to 201 BCE and 29 year old Carthaginian general Hannibal almost takes over Rome. He does the unthinkable and attacks Rome from the North after crossing Iberia and the Alps. He sieged to mucuh of the peninsula for 15 years but he never got to Rome. The Third Punic War was from 149 to 146 BCE and this was when Rome wanted to get rid of Carthage. Scipio, Tiberius Gracchus, and others attacked the city with no mercy. Carthage was burned for 17 days and they city was destroyed. The left over 50,000 survivors were enslaved to Rome. The rest of not destroyed Carthage territories were annexed, and made into the Roman province of Africa. This enslavement of 50,000 jumpstarted the Roman expansion. By the end of the 2nd century there was about a million slaves in Italy. Rome knocked this one out of the park!

Rule Of Kings No More

The Rule of Kings in Rome was replaced by the rule of two consuls. The consuls are elected officials elected by aristocrats. They had a term of one year in office and the leaders were always aristocrats. Patricians traced their descents from a famous ancestor. Their duties in office were dealing with justice, making laws, and commanding the army. One consul had the power to veto the other. In 5th century BCE, patrician dominance was challenged by the plebs because the plebs had to serve in the army but couldn't hold office, were threatened with debt slavery, and they also didn't have legal rights. Plebs were 98% of the population so they stood up because they were victims of discriminatory decisions in judicial trials. Rome didn't have actual laws written down so the patricians took advantage of this. The plebs refused to serve in the military until the laws were posted publicly which they were in The Law Of Twelve Tables. These laws were posted in 450 BC. SPQR means Senatus Populusque Romanum and designates any decree or decision made by the Roman Senate and people.Their new governments were democracy aristocracy and monarchy and the USA even modeled their government after ancient Rome. That's all we learned for today.

Jumping Ahead

My class happens to be very far ahead of the other classes Mr Schick teaches. We have covered all the notes that he currently has created and he will be putting up more notes as of Sunday. I think I will take the notes we already have and started to make up questions for Are You Smarter Than A Gladiator. But as of right now Mr Schick gave us his class time to finish any other homework we have to do so far today. This means that right now I have no homework because I finished it all in this class. I guess this gives me time to work on my project over the weekend so I don't have to cram it in last minute. I'll ask someone at the end of class if I missed anything yesterday. I'm very excited to start this weekend with absolutely no homework.