• Log In
  • Log In
Slate (skeleton-v3 PHP 8 prototype)
Slate (skeleton-v3 PHP 8 prototype) Learn · Create · Lead
  • Students
    • Mission and Vision
  • Parents
  • Community
    • Mission and Vision
  • Calendar

American History - Laufenberg Public Feed

Create a Post

  1960s Primary Source Doc Stories

Posted by Diana Laufenberg in American History - Laufenberg on Thursday, May 17, 2012 at 8:51 am
In the comments, post your story.  Then... read through other stories and build on it with another one of the primary source documents.  Keep the stories interesting and relevant.  No shenanigans, please.  Goal is to represent a story line that creatively incorporates the primary source docs in a building story.
33 Comments

What if? History Benchmark

Posted by Kimberly Cayamcela in American History - Laufenberg on Friday, June 1, 2012 at 10:04 am


IMG_1994
I fully enjoyed working on this 4th quarter "What If?" benchmark. I have always been interested in immigration, and so I chose to focus on immigration. My Point of Divergence was Manifest Destiny. I changed historical events that had occurred in the year 1845; the Annexation of Texas. I killed the 11th president of the United States: James K. Polk. I did this by making James Brown Clay, son of Henry Clay assassin, causing events like the Annexation of Texas, the Mexican American War, and the Mexican cession to occur. I envisioned the result of this change would decrease the importance of immigration today. Mexicans would not be entering the U.S.A., suffering from poverty and corruption. Their lands would have been filled with abounding goods and no troublesome would exist today.
What I enjoyed about this project was that we had the chance to select a historical event as we wished, rather than being given what to do. Each individual was able to produce a product of their creativity. Oddly enough, I did not find this project to be challenging. I thought that I would have difficulties in comprehending the historical concept of it, but all went well. If I didn't understand something fully, I would simply watch a documentary or search it thoroughly and then add he information onto my final product. The most interesting event that I investigated was the Mexican American War. When I watched the documentary "Mexican American War" on the History channel what caught my attention was this quote:"If he bullied Mexico enough, Mexico would give up their lands." It's crazy to me to see how America supported Polk's decisions of war.

Decisions lead to more decisions, as do problems. A decision within a decision-decision inception! A historical event leads to more historical events. A decision in history is done accordingly to the finalized first decision. For Instance, in James K. Polk's presidential campaign, he makes promises and ends up keeping his promises like his promise to annex Texas, but that results in the Mexican American War. Yes, decisions in history are very influential indeed. Systemic decisions impact historical records by giving a result accordingly to the decisions that are made. I believe this project could be improved if the project was assigned earlier in the quarter. This project is very time consuming and with Summer kicking in, it's difficult to put on my thinking cap- at least for me it is. If I had the power to do this project over again, I would have worked on the project day by day, rather than all at once. I crammed in doing my research, when there was no reason for it if I worked on it week by week. I just felt that I wouldn't comprehend that a part of me said that I had to research everything thoroughly and not miss anything; it made me research many things all at once.


Be the first to comment.

What If History Benchmark!

Posted by Mohamed Marzouk in American History - Laufenberg on Friday, June 1, 2012 at 10:01 am

In my project, my point of divergence  is that Germany did not have to pay for all of them war crimes after World War I. The article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles had never been written and an alternative article: article 239 had been passed in its place.  After my DOV, Hitler never took over Germany because Germany didn't go into the Economic turmoil they went through. The Communist Nation of Germany had taken over, and Joseph Stalin from Russia had become that ruthless dictator of Europe. World War II had never began and the Cold War was amplified. Since World War II never happened and Germany didn't split, a lot of Germany's scientists didn't come to the US. This lead to the USSR winning the Cold War and the United States handling the Cuban Missile Crisis wrong; which ultimately lead the nuclear destruction! Ultimately, I enjoyed this project because of the broad topics we could pick from. The one thing I especially enjoyed about the project is the freedom of what I wanted to happen after my DOV. I really enjoyed researching about Joseph Stalin and how ruthless, and an overal bad leader he was. I feel like Hitler extremely impacted the future and how it changed. I could improve this project by making the transitions a lot more fluent and crisp, maybe with a little bit more time I could of done that.
Tags: What If History
Be the first to comment.

What If? US History Benchmark

Posted by William Johnson in American History - Laufenberg on Friday, June 1, 2012 at 9:57 am

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BycGX2yA2jghcDFzaFJ6ZVNwZjQ
Newspaper on Legalization
Newspaper on Legalization
My project is about the decriminlization of cannabis. My point of divergence occurs when Jimmy Carter decides to make an appeal to Congress to decriminalize cannabia. This occurred near the end of his presidential term. Due to this, the Drug Enforcement Agency refocused to attack the drug cartels shipping other narcotics. This not only led to the taking down of several cartels, but also to a reduced incarceration rate from his term onward. His bold move and promise made on the campaign trail was followed through and states have now began to tax marijuana. This has led to much more beneficial development in urban areas as well as reduced budget deficits.
Be the first to comment.

What If? US History Q4 - Tenzin Ngawang

Posted by Tenzin Ngawang in American History - Laufenberg on Friday, June 1, 2012 at 9:52 am

My point of divergence was governor Alfred E. Smith from New York winning the 1928 presidential election instead of Pres. Herbert Hoover. President Franklin D. Roosevelt blamed Pres. Herbert Hoover for starting the great depression and therefore, I chose this as my point of divergence. I liked this project because you could actually choose any topic you want and you get to change something small that twisted everything. I chose this topic because I wanted to know more about the Great Depression because I don't recall myself learning about that time period in any of my classes. I just heard it was a really mournful time period in US History. I researched and learned that Herbert Hoover was the protagonist, he was the president during great depression and he was blamed for it. So I asked the question, what if the presidential candidate who was running against him during the previous election, would America had to suffer the great depression time period. The other candidate was either Alfred Smith or Calvin Coolidge and I realized that Calvin Coolidge withdrew himself from running as a president after his son's death. I debated whether to chose Calvin Coolidge rather than Alfred E Smith multiple times as my point of Divergence because Calvin Coolidge was an interesting character. Therefore, if I were to do this project again, I'd choose Calvin Coolidge as the president during the great depression era. The most challenging part of the project was the final product, I didn't know what to put and how 2012 would look like because of my point of divergence. The most interesting that I came across through my research was the great depression occurred a decade after the roaring 1920s. Roaring twenties was a time period when America was on the top of the world, America was known as the richest country in the world. However, a decade after, Americans were loosing job, they couldn't afford anything. The unemployment rates increased up to 25 percent, which is a lot, millions of citizens were losing their job. 

​Primary Sources:


AlfSmithSpeechAnalysis_BM4 6.50.04 PM
PosterAlSmith_BM4
Screen Shot 2012-06-05 at 8.10.46 PM
Screen Shot 2012-06-05 at 8.10.46 PM
What If? - Tenzin Ngawang
View more presentations from tenzy94.
Be the first to comment.

What If? Benchmark

Posted by Michelle Torelli in American History - Laufenberg on Friday, June 1, 2012 at 9:50 am

My awesome website that I created with yola!


I really enjoyed this project. The topic of my project revolved around the Space Race; previous history states that USA had captured German rocket personnel, giving them the advantage to win the Space Race (Landing on the Moon first) against Russia. My point of divergence for this project was "What if USA captured decoy German rocket personnel." 


Through my point of divergence you will see complete chaos and total change for what the USA and Russia has become for 2012. I briefly explained and tied in primary sources, both prior and post, to my point of divergence. The future that I envisioned of my POD was for the Russians to land on the moon first. Nevertheless, the USSR to remain together and would become the most wealthiest economy in the world due to their findings on the moon. Also, the USSR would gain partnerships of other countries (China and Japan) to support them in creating advanced technologies for the market.


I liked everything about this project, specifically the creativity and openness we were given to choose what we wanted to do and how we could create the final product. The most difficult aspect of this projects was successfully tying everything together in an appealing matter. Also, creating primary source documents were difficult because of the detail required to connect with my POD.



​
Tags: WhatIf
Be the first to comment.

What if? US History Benchmark

Posted by Sam Lovett-Perkins in American History - Laufenberg on Friday, June 1, 2012 at 9:40 am

Screen Shot 2012-06-04 at 12.59.48 PM
Screen Shot 2012-06-04 at 12.59.48 PM
This is a picture of one of the primary sources I made for our "What If?" project. The "What If?" project is mostly a creativity project where we can create an alternate future that occurred due to one specific change in American history. We then would need to create three primary sources to validate a future where this event had happened. Finally we then tie all three sources together along with three other real sources prior to the point of divergence into one final product. For my final product I made a website for a museum that featured American History for the alternate future. One can access this website by clicking here. 

For my project the main idea was, what if Napoleon Bonaparte never sold the Louisiana Purchase exclusively to the United States? My point of divergence was when Napoleon was considering to sell the Louisiana Purchase he asked his council for advice. In real history the council disagreed with him and he sold the territory in spite of them. However in this alternate future his council agreeded with him and so he considered the full possibilities of selling it to the other neighbor of New France, Spain. He ended up selling it to both to get more money, in this way it created much tension between the US and Spain, which turned into a war for many years after.

The alternative future would then be very different. The main difference is because of the increased contact with Spanish culture a much larger percent of American society speaks Spanish. In addition the united states is in a constant state of alarm in preparations of any kind of violence from Spanish troops. The two countries in the current day are at a cease fire much like North and South Korea. IN addition to this there is also a heavy Native American influence on American culture. Because Native Americans were never moved out west they were forced to interact with colonists and the mix of culture was more evident in society.

I had mixed opinions about this project. I like the creativity aspect and the ability to explore a change in history. It shows that the smallest of moments can change the future greatly, and it really helped with noticing how important small changes have been. The process for this project was simple I stayed on top of my work and did everything in a timely manor. It was challenging to make primary sources look old.

Tags: WhatIf
Be the first to comment.

American Dream Assignment_USH

Posted by Tenzin Ngawang in American History - Laufenberg on Monday, May 7, 2012 at 8:12 am

IMG_0059
IMG_0059
Be the first to comment.

American Dream of the Future

Posted by Natalee Schiavoni in American History - Laufenberg on Sunday, May 6, 2012 at 4:16 pm

http://prezi.com/v7b-s9aoqtlo/american-dream-of-the-future/

Here is the link to the Prezi I made demonstrating the effects that will happen and change the way the American Dream will look like in the future.
Screen Shot 2012-05-06 at 4.18.46 PM
Screen Shot 2012-05-06 at 4.18.46 PM
Be the first to comment.

American Dream

Posted by Candace Blocker in American History - Laufenberg on Sunday, May 6, 2012 at 10:37 am

Everything is bigger, everyone becomes more greedy and wants more but "needs" more.
Photo
Photo
Be the first to comment.

American Dream of the Future!

Posted by Sierra Dinvil in American History - Laufenberg on Sunday, May 6, 2012 at 8:23 am


USH_Dinvil,S
Be the first to comment.
216 posts:
← Prev
  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
Next →
RSS

AMHIST-005

Term
2011-12

Blog Tags

  • immviz1112 19
  • WhatIf 9
  • nhd12 5
  • INFOGRAPHIC 5
  • What If 5
See all See less
  • Rburenstein
  • USH
  • nhd 12
  • #votervoice11
  • Homepage
  • History
  • bnoi
  • American History Water
  • American History - Water
  • USHistory
  • immvix1112
  • polls
  • voterchoice11
  • Voting Interview
  • Q1 History
  • new slide bryanna
  • american dream
  • BMQ4
  • What If History
  • 11th grade
  • free press
  • zenger
  • article

Teacher

  • Diana Laufenberg
Slate (skeleton-v3 PHP 8 prototype) · Location: 1482 Green St · Shipping: 550 N. Broad St Suite 202 · Philadelphia, PA 19130 · (215) 400-7830 (phone)
×

Log In