Students received a lesson on Bletchley Park, British Intelligence in World War II. It focused on the Enigma Codebreaking and Alan Turing, including his heartbreaking tragedy – the world thanking him by telling him he did not belong in it. To all of those who have ever felt like Alan – you are so loved, you belong here, you are exactly who you are supposed to be and we are so glad you are here. <3
Readings (hard copy, or Teams in WWII folder):
Overlooked No More: Alan Turing, Condemned Code Breaker and Computer Visionary (from The New York Times).
What the Imitation Game Didn’t Tell you About Alan Turing’s Greatest Triumph.
In Canada, in 2022, Conversion Therapy was criminalized in a unanimous vote in Parliament: Article: Canada Bans Conversion Therapy. The torture that they put Turing through is something that is used in Conversion Therapy, which is now considered a crime in Canada.
Requirement: Pre-Planning
All of you received personalized instructions in your Grading Conference on pre-planning and pre-writing strategies you are to be using for all assignments. Given that this is significantly longer than typically given for this assignment, multiple stages of planning are expected by all students. Ms. Morden will be collecting your pre-planning and it will be reviewed as part of your assessment.
Your assignment will be to write a reflection based off of something related to Alan Turing and the Computing Machine. We are working on inferring, perspectives, significance, and you using information to build off and explore your own ideas, thinking, and questions. Remember reflections require quotations, but you may ask questions and must use “I” statements.
Please remember to approach this topic with kindness, empathy, and respect.
Reflection due to Teams by the end of class on Tuesday, 30 April 2024.
Simulation activity of students moving from one beach to another with various obstacles.
Proof that the smallest action can change the world.
Lesson on the Evacuation of Dunkirk: an example of where people saw they could make a difference and did. Even if it was one person, one boat – they went and saved nearly 400,000 soldiers trapped on the beaches surrounded by the German military.
Introduced Battle Walkthrough Assignment. If you were absent, you were added to a group so please speak with your classmates. A post to follow about readings and further instructions will come soon.
You will also need two (2) additional reliable sources (e.g. not Wikipedia) that you must show Ms. Hopkin by the end of class on Wednesday, 24 April 2024. You will upload this in the collaborative channel you have in Teams as a Word Document. Tag Ms. Hopkin. Direct links must be included if digital. If a book, ask Ms. Hopkin and she can show you (you should already know how to cite the textbooks!).
You are encouraged to consider one of these sources being a real study or real academic source. Ms. Hopkin will show you how to access these on the Pinetree Library Website in class. (EBSCO Host). Remember: you need a code to access this outside of school!
GOALS AND DEADLINES
Activity should be planned to take 20 minutes, but you have a buffer of five minutes for unexpected surprises.
Battle Walkthroughs will start on Thursday, 25 April 2024! They will likely take 2-3 classes (order will be discussed in person, but everyone will be expected to be ready to go the first day).
You will also be assessed on how you participate in your classmates’ Battle Walkthroughs!
Remember you have two classes plus ESS to prepare for this in person! 🙂
You have already been put into groups. Check Teams!
In theory, each group should be able to fill in the Word Document attached to the assignment. If there are any issues, there is a back-up of the Word Document in Files –> Class Materials –> World War II. Make sure you download the file and save it – do not just work on it in Teams. However, Teams has assured me you can just work on the attachment within the assignment!
Use the reading and notes from yesterday to collaboratively work through the assignment. Just one assignment per group. Point form is fine, but the questions about more recent events (Afghanistan) should be in sentence form and include a quotation.
Not required, but if you needed more information on the War/Invasion (depending which sources you ask) of Afghanistan, this is a Canadian-approved source (but, as always, be skeptical!): Canadian Encyclopedia: War in Afghanistan
Submit your assignment to Teams by the end of class one per group).
VICTIMS OF GERMAN-OCCUPIED FRANCE AND NETHERLANDS: NEWSPAPER ASSIGNMENT
You will be writing as a citizen of France or the Netherlands, whose countries have been taken over by the Germans.
White you can use a provided template, HOWEVER – if you do use a Microsoft Word provided template, ensure you edit and adjust it to make it your own.
You are writing and fully formatting a newspaper article for a situation of your choice as a French or Dutch victim in German-Occupied France/Netherlands. You need to be extremely thorough in your background and in your execution of the paper.
The assignment should be the front page of a newspaper at the time. It should be in Microsoft Word, but you can save it as a PDF. It should also be landscape and you should adjust the margins to be narrow. It should be one page. Not more, not less!
You will be writing one predominant article that should take up most of the main space of the page. You should include most of the suggestions/prompts below. Remember it is the front page of your newspaper, so there is a lot more happening than just your article. Samples will be shown for inspiration. You should also try to look up newspapers from the time to get an idea of how to do this!
There will also be YouTube videos included to help guide you on how you could format your article. You do not have to do it this way, this is just to show you some of the formatting Word offers of which a lot of people are not aware. This will be at the bottom of this post.
Things to Consider:
Font size and style. Notice it is different for titles, articles, newspaper name. Do you want it to be readable from a distance? Subtle? Hide it from the German soldiers inspecting your baskets and bags? How could you do that?
Name of newspaper.
Date your article and newspaper is published.
Minimum one photo matching your article (look this up online).
Who are you writing as? Make up a full name for your character. What happened to them? Why are they writing this? (You cannot have the same scenario or backstory as the people in your table of five).
Are there ads on your paper? What might they be for given the context of the time?
Look up newspapers at the time. What other things do you see? What other articles are in the paper? How does it entice you to buy it? E.g. Advertisements, other articles in the paper.
READINGS
If just a link or title provided, you need to read the entire piece. If a link is provided with annotations below, it means only read those sections and skip the rest. This is also in addition to a verbal lesson given on the invasion of France yesterday.
You may use other sources (NEVER Wikipedia!), but you must cite them on a separate page.
MAKING NEWS ARTICLES IN MICROSOFT WORD TUTORIALS
Sound quality is not amazing, but the tutorials are quite helpful.
As always, remember it will change dependent on what version of Word you have, and whether you are using an app or online. All of these things are doable on all versions, you just may have to search or look in different locations to find them.
Axis advances into the Low Countries and France – Blitzkrieg.
German-Occupied France.
The Midterm Grading Conference Self-Reflection will be posted today at the latest (if it is not already posted). Please start it as soon as you see it in Teams – Grading Conferences likely start on Tuesday, Wednesday at the latest, and you cannot do your Conference until the Self-Reflection has been completed.
Empathy and understanding of the fears of war re: Appeasement.
The invasion of Poland being different.
Britain and France declare war on Germany. Canada declares war separately, to demonstrate they are an autonomous state, a week later 10 September 1939. World War II had officially begun.
In class assignment: look at the famous quotation by Niccolò Machiavelli from his book The Prince (published 1532). Below. Apply it to the content we looked at this week:
Germany’s Interwar Period.
Hitler’s rise to power and those around him.
Appeasement and invasions.
Compare: How does the quotation comment on people/us today?
Remember: Once your project is introduced next week (Monday/Tuesday, likely) the following days will be Midterm Grading Conferences!
“You will find that people are so simple-minded and so preoccupied with their immediate concerns, that if you set out to deceive them, you will always find plenty who will let themselves be deceived.”
