We have a new president!

The first African American has been elected to our nation's highest office.  Incredible.  This is an historic day.

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

We've looked at several speeches so far this year and we heard a couple of good ones tonight.

Having just studied JFK's inaugural address, parts of Barack Obama's acceptance speech jumped out to me as being very Kennedy-esque.  Though it had strong echoes to JFK, it was also very much his own in tone.  I was rather impressed, but I'm interested to know what you think.

For those of you watching tonight, you also heard a very gracious concession speech by John McCain that struck a very different tone to what he put forth during the final month or so of the campaign.

Election Night!

There is no homework tonight!!!! 

Whatever happens tonight, we will elect either the first black person to the presidency or the oldest first-term president and the first female VP to the white house. 

This is big. 

It was only 90 years ago that women were jailed and beaten for picketing to get the vote.  As recent as the 1960's, there are documented cases of black people being lynched in America. 

For a black man to be on the cusp of becoming our president is huge.  For a woman to become the vice president is really big.  This is the type of thing you will tell your kids and grand kids about. 

Aside from all the issues in this election, how much this election means for the direction of our country, this election is one for the history books. 

Don't miss it. 

Watch history being made tonight.

Using Sources

In our textbook, read pages 62-68.  Blog the questions for the assignment.

Much of learning how to use sources well is about feel.  Pay attention to how sources are used in the sample essay in the assignment.  Most of us learn this skill through seeing examples of how professional writers did it and struggling through the hard work of making it sound right.  Oh, and it helps if you check out your sources so you don't end up quoting the website of a 5th grade science class.  :)

Vocab 2

Don't forget DGP.  A test cometh...