Appendices

Learning Journal:

A learn­ing jour­nal usu­al­ly takes the form of a binder that every stu­dent has (some teach­ers choose to keep these in class to pre­vent them from becom­ing mis­placed). Assignments, quick writes, home­work and oth­er mate­ri­als can be com­plet­ed and insert­ed in the binder. The jour­nal is an impor­tant resource for stu­dents and teach­ers alike for keep­ing track of progress and study­ing for tests and assignments.

The pur­pose of the learn­ing jour­nal is to focus a stu­den­t’s atten­tion on the par­tic­u­lar sub­ject mat­ter at hand in your class.

The assump­tion behind a learn­ing jour­nal is that lis­ten­ing and par­tic­i­pat­ing in dis­cus­sion, tak­ing notes, and reflect­ing on your opin­ions giv­en the evi­dence pre­sent­ed facil­i­tates deep­er knowl­edge and per­son­al­izes it espe­cial­ly when stu­dents can put the issues, con­cepts, and ideas in their own words.

A learn­ing jour­nal is a reflec­tive doc­u­ment where stu­dents are free to express them­selves and their opinions.

A learn­ing jour­nal is an effec­tive assess­ment tool for teach­ers. It aids a teacher in deter­min­ing how stu­dents are pro­cess­ing and inter­act­ing with the mate­r­i­al and con­tent you are covering.

A learn­ing jour­nal pro­vides a con­ti­nu­ity of direc­tion and focus giv­en that most stu­dents are in at least five class­es a day.

It is impor­tant to use learn­ing jour­nals dai­ly for quick writes, jour­nal assign­ments, notes, quizzes, etc.

Teachers should read and com­ment on learn­ing jour­nal assign­ments and stu­dent writ­ing on a weekly basis.

Assure the stu­dents that the learn­ing jour­nal is a con­fi­den­tial doc­u­ment between the stu­dent and the teacher. However, some sec­tions may be used in class as appropriate.

Quick write:

• Quick writes have sim­i­lar goals to the learn­ing jour­nal, in that they help focus stu­dent atten­tion and assess pri­or knowl­edge, or ini­ti­ate a new idea.
• Quick writes are usu­al­ly done at the begin­ning of the class as a means of assess­ing stu­dents’ under­stand­ings of the mate­r­i­al in order for the teacher to make instruc­tion­al deci­sions such as review­ing pre­vi­ous con­tent that stu­dents may have had difficulty with.
• Quick writes are fre­quent­ly used as a spark to focus and stim­u­late class discussion.

Persuasive argu­ments:

Persuasive argu­ments are a sig­nif­i­cant com­po­nent of any cur­ricu­lum that empha­sizes crit­i­cal think­ing. Although the mod­els for this vary, the basic prin­ci­ples are sim­i­lar among the models.

A com­mon mod­el for per­sua­sive argu­ments usu­al­ly con­tains the following principles: 

1. A clear­ly stated position
2. Support for the posi­tion with data
3. Additional sup­port (war­rants) drawn from gen­er­al demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples that are part of any social stud­ies cur­ricu­lum. For exam­ple, in the state of Michigan they con­sist of the Core Democratic Values. A few exam­ples per­tain­ing to this par­tic­u­lar unit: Equality before the law, jus­tice before the law, indi­vid­ual lib­er­ties vs. the common good.
4. Support your point with out­side knowl­edge that is not part of the con­tent that you are teach­ing. In oth­er words, bring in an exam­ple from his­to­ry or cur­rent real world events.
5. Describe and refute the oppos­ing argu­ment to your position

1) Approximately how many states cur­rent­ly have the Death Penalty?

a) 47
b) 37
c) 27
d) 17

2) Number in order the stages in a cap­i­tal case from the list below:

a) guilt phase
b) penal­ty phase
c) pre-tri­al
d) post-con­vic­tion review
e) direct appeal
f) clemen­cy
g) exe­cu­tion
h) fed­er­al habeas corpus

3) Women have, his­tor­i­cal­ly, not been sub­ject to the death penal­ty at the same rate as men. In the United States women have con­sti­tut­ed what per­cent­age of executions?

a) 16%
b) 1%
c) 3%
d) 13%

4) Not believ­ing in the ​“true God” was once grounds for receiv­ing the death penal­ty in colonial America. 

a) True
b) False

5) The exis­tence of the bru­tal­iza­tion effect (that the death penal­ty actu­al­ly encour­ages crim­i­nal activ­i­ty) was argued by Dr. Benjamin Rush — sign­er of the Declaration of Independence. This oppos­es the death penal­ty argument of: 

a) Retribution
b) Deterrence
c) Arbitrariness
d) Risk of exe­cut­ing the innocent

Short answer:

6) What are the cur­rent meth­ods of exe­cu­tion used in the United States today?

7) If your state has the death penal­ty what meth­ods are used?

Group Facilitator _____________________

Date_​_​_​_​_​_​_​

Group Grade Average: ________________

Grading Rubric:

(If any­thing but a 3.0 is giv­en either a 4.0 or under a 3.0, the group leader is required to give an expla­na­tion for this on the com­ment sec­tion of this form.)

• 4.0 Student coop­er­at­ed ful­ly, or respectfully/​productively dis­agreed, with group and leader, per­formed assigned tasks, found nec­es­sary infor­ma­tion as well as addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion and could explain it.
• 3.0 Student coop­er­at­ed ful­ly with group leader, per­formed assigned tasks and found necessary information.
• 2.0 Student required reminders to get to work, found only the nec­es­sary infor­ma­tion, and com­plet­ed the min­i­mum assigned tasks.
• 1.0 Student com­plet­ed assigned tasks after exten­sive pres­sure or teacher involvement.
• 0.0 Student was unco­op­er­a­tive and unproductive.

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