Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Ideas

Post your ideas here.

53 comments:

  1. Wow, thanks Matthew, that was fast!

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  2. Thanks, it was my pleasure! Any of you have an idea for the background of the group?

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    2. Look up a painting called "A Prayer at Vally Forge," its one of my favorites!

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  3. Wow. This is impressive Matthew!!!

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  4. Can we finish deciding what events we are going to have? The quicker we do that, the more time we'll have to spend on everything else. :)

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  5. This is awesome, Matthew! :)
    I sent out the general email just to let you all know.

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  6. Thanks!

    Sure Katie. Who wants to come up with a list of events? From there we can discuss what to change.

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  7. Hey everyone! Lissy and I were talking, and we thought that our story should be written from the perspective of children. Our original idea was to have a brother and sister with their english friend/cousin. All three of these characters would be fictional, but after doing a little research, Lissy found this web sight, http://allthingsliberty.com/2013/04/young-people-at-war/ . This gives an idea of the role an American child might have had during the war. The first boy, Joseph Plumb Martin, could be used as one of the main historical characters, our story would follow him through the battles he fought in. To give a feel for the life people lived in occupied towns, we could introduce two fictional girls: an American girl with her English cousin/friend. We could arrange a meeting between the them, or just create two separate stories with parallels.
    There are several stories of women spies during the war that could be included, and there is no shortage of stories of brave men. This is just an idea that we could play around with! :)

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    1. Okay, the link didn't work, I guess you'll just have to copy and past! Sorry! :O

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    2. That is not a bad idea! Although, if you go to the website, it says that he joined the war a year later. If we want to have the first events, we either have to tweak the story, or find someone else who started from the beginning.

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    3. Yeah I think we can tweak the story a bit.

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  8. Hey Guys!
    Max Pointer has agreed to be the narrator for our project! He is very talented at this type of thing and I think he would be an amazing narrator. Let me know if this works for all of you.

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    1. that's great. he will be awesome




      does anyone have a part that they were thinking about doing? if you do please let all of us know so we can get started

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    2. If I could do Paul Revere/ Lexington and Concord that would be great? If anyone else wanted to do this, I would be fine with doing something like where they train, which would also be cool. Yeah

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    3. I think it would be awesome if we did the Battle of Lexington and Concord from the eyes of both the English soldiers and the Colonial soldiers. How the English viewed it, and how the Colonials viewed it.

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    4. Yeah I was thinking that too.

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  9. I would love to do the Boston Tea Party? But if anyone else has their heart set on that I can switch. :)

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  10. I would love to do Either Bunker Hill or Trenton. If someone wants one of them ill take the other, it doesn't matter which of the 2 I take. 😃

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    1. I'll do Bunker Hill or the Battle of Lexington and Concord from one point of view if that works for everyone :)

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    2. Ok, I will take Trenton then.

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    3. Johnna, can you do the Lexington/Concord battle from the view of the Americans? And then you can do like a story scene. And I will then get Paul Revere and the English view? Does that work for everyone?

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  11. What were the 12 events we are going to cover?

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  13. I thought of another idea for our project that may be easier to do as a group. In each episodes (chapters) we could have reporter/s that could go on both sides of the war (i.e. loyalists or patriots). These reporter/s would be fictional characters. Here is a rough example of how it might look like:
    (Setting: Crossing the Delaware River on Christmas Eve)
    Reporter: We are right now at the Delaware River. Let me try to talk to someone. Hello, young soldier. What's all the commotion? Why are you crossing the river on this frigid night?

    Soldier 1: General Washington is having us cross this cold river to try attack the British army.

    Soldier 2: They're not going to know what hit them!
    .................(conversation continues for a bit can describe more of the attack plan that Washington created)....

    Reporter: That is quite a clever plan. Let's check what's going on across the river. Charles (reporter), what is happening in the British camp?

    Charles: It looks like they are having a grand time, celebrating Christmas and clearing their minds of the war.
    ...........................
    Some things we need to decide:
    If we use this idea we will have to decide if we have the same reporters in each episode
    If we do have the same reporters then we need to create a "story board" for their characters. (Character traits)
    We also need a theme(thread) that brings all of our episodes together. (Ex. Independence, search for freedom, who really won the war (every event claims to be the one that wins the war but really it is all the events that won the war), search for liberty, forgiveness, team work)

    We need to remember that whatever we end up doing needs to be simple and easy to tie together. We have 12 different people needing to each make their own script and we have to write our rough drafts soon. We will need to talk about everything at lunch this coming Wednesday so that we can be ready to write our drafts that week. What do you guys think? Hope what I said made sense!

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  14. Okay, so I made a list of possible topics (This is basically the headers for the sections in the history textbook) pg. 105-131:

    1. Boston Tea Party
    2. Paul Revere/ Shot heard ‘round the world (battles of Lexington and Concord)
    3. Bunker Hill
    4. Trenton/Princeton
    5. Brandywine
    6. Saratoga (This is an important battle/campaign but I don't know if its long enough for a whole chapter, maybe we could just stick it in somewhere.)
    7. Vally Forge (this would include the army training)
    8. Monmouth
    9. War in the West
    10. War in the South (this looks long, but I think certain things can be cut out)
    11. Cowpens
    12. Cornwallis Surrender/Treaty of Paris

    These are just my ideas, we don't have to use these, but we just need to get some suggestions out there. :)

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    1. Great list! Some other ones we could add could be:
      Second Continental Congress Meets and the Battle of Quebec which is after the Battle of Bunker Hill

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    2. I would really love to do the Boston Tea Party...
      ..if that doesn't work than I could do Monmouth..
      ..if that doesn't work than I will do whatever is left.. :)

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  15. I would like to do Cornwallis Surrender/Treaty of Paris if that is still possible.

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  16. I would like to do valley forge or Trenton if that works:)

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  17. Ok, I compiled a list of what people are doing, using Grace's list of events:

    1. Boston Tea Party - Grace Pointner
    2. Paul Revere/ Shot heard ‘round the world (battles of Lexington and Concord) - Katie (English), Johnna (American
    3. Bunker Hill - Matthew Oh (Colonial), ? (English)
    4. Trenton/Princeton - Lissy Rienow
    5. Brandywine
    6. Saratoga (This is an important battle/campaign but I don't know if its long enough for a whole chapter, maybe we could just stick it in somewhere.)
    7. Vally Forge (this would include the army training)
    8. Monmouth - Elizabeth
    9. War in the West
    10. War in the South (this looks long, but I think certain things can be cut out)
    11. Cowpens
    12. Cornwallis Surrender/Treaty of Paris - Grace James

    This is just a basic, we can easily edit it. Even the whole thing, with who wants what. ;)

    A lot of you had 2 different ones, I put up one of the 2, but if you decided that you really don't want that one, just tell me. ;D Or just copy, and paste the edited list, whatever works.

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  18. We need to decide on a character list.

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    2. I think we first have to decide how many main characters we are going to include, which ones are English and American, and weather their girls or boys.

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  19. Yes guys we really need to decide on the characters and general story line. This is what Mr. Parker said on the blog:

    Your Documentary Proposal should include the following information:

    1. Time period and location
    2. Character list
    3. A paragraph description of the plot arc

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    1. Because we each need a paragraph of what our chapter's plots are going to be, we sort of need an overarching story line for the whole thing.
      We could all think of one then compare them, or one person would write the general idea...idk. If you need a person to write the general story line then I could try, I'm just not sure I could have it done by Wednesday.

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    2. Here's kinda what we need for the story line:


      Stasis
      Trigger
      The quest
      Surprise
      Critical choice
      Climax
      Reversal
      Resolution

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    3. one person should write the story line. Your also right it would be very difficult to have it completed by class.

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    4. I was wondering if we could ask Mr. Parker if we could meet during lunch to figure out the character list, I think something like that could be hard to do via blog... just a thought.

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  20. Just in case someone checks this before their email:
    Hey everyone,
    I am emailing instead of writing on the blog because it looks like not everyone has had a chance to participate in our conversation about our documentary projects via blog. Our proposal for the documentary is due this Wed. None of us can complete it if we don't all work together. It sounds like we need more time to talk as a group since it is too difficult to do this via email or blog. We also need more time to plan everything out since we thought that all we had to do this week was give our topic. I agree with Johanna about making a over arching story line (ie. a theme like I talked about in one of my posts on the blog). Personally, I don't think that one person should take the brunt of the work to write the over arching story line.

    Should I contact Mr. Parker and ask if we can talk at lunch to get story line and characters written out and get an extension for our proposals? Please reply to all ASAP!!!
    Thanks!
    Grace J.

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  21. Sorry I wasn't at Grace's on Sunday! I arrived later than expected and was wiped out. Does anyone have notes from it that they could post on the blog?

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    1. Johnna Forth is going to post her notes, I don't remember if she is going to post it on the blog, or email though.

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  22. In bold italics are important things that each chapter will include according to the meeting yesterday.

    Here it is:


    1.Boston Massacre/Boston Tea Part: Start- Flashback to Massacre

    Finish- Going to enlist

    * Introduces William and Jed



    2. Paul Revere/Battles of Lexington and Concord: Start- Enlisting

    Finish- Realization of war

    * Meet Lieutenant Sharp



    3. Bunker Hill: Start- Jed flashback/middle of battle

    Finish- Washington coming/introduced

    * Introduces George Washington * William wounded



    4. Trenton and Princeton: Start- Marching in snow w/ troops

    Finish- Washington’s announcement



    5. Brandywine: Start- Arrival, fortification

    Finish- Departure from battle



    6. Saratoga: Start- Middle of battle

    Finish- Leaving Saratoga



    7. Valley Forge: Start- Marching through winter storm

    Finish- End of training/private moment



    8. Monmouth: Start- Washington giving orders

    Finish- Jed reflecting on Molly Pitcher



    9. War in the West: Start- William reporting to Captain

    Finish- ??

    10. War in the South: Start- ??

    Finish- ??



    11. Cowpens: Start- Middle of battle action

    Finish- Race to the Dan



    12. Victory at Yorktown: Start- Setting up artillery

    Finish- Singing of treaty



    This is all I caught from my notes. So, again, if something is different, please let everyone know! :)



    Also, here are our fictional characters:



    Jed Martin- American- stereotype teenager- self-reliant- vulnerable- rough- selfish



    William Maxwell- American- stereotype leader- indecisive?- too sacrificial- short



    Lieutenant Daniel Sharp

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  23. Would it be alright if I focused on one or two battles of the War in the South? For example, starting with Charleston and ending with the "Swamp Fox" Francis Marion.

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