Friday, November 22. 2013

Today's schedule is D-AG-C-B-A

D Block Law 12 - Today we'll start with a section of the CBC Fifth Estate documentary "The Unrepentant". We'll watch the real interview of Karla Homolka. After, we'll watch the Law & Order episode “Fools for Love” (season 10, episode 15). This episode is based on the Leslie Mahaffy, Kristen French, and Tammy Homolka cases. All three were victims of Canada's own "Ken and Barbie killers", Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka. Bernardo was sentenced to life imprisonment for his part in the murder of Tammy Homolka (Karla's sister) and the kidnappings/murders of French and Mahaffey, and Karla Homolka accepted a ten-year plea bargain for her roles that was later upgraded to a twelve-year plea bargain. Homolka was released on July 4, 2005, and has opted to live under the name Karla Teale (Bernardo and Homolka had originally planned to change their surname to Teale, in honor of fictional killer Martin Thiel). For more news on Karla Homolka (now called Leanne Bordelais) check out the article at the Globe and Mail here...or CBC news here.

C Block Crime, Media and Society 12 - Last week we started with Scooby Doo and today we'll watch an episode of Batman: The Animated Series Two Face (part 1). This episode provides an alternate origin story to Harvey Dent / Two Face than the movie The Dark Knight. The animated series was a sort of watershed for crime serial animation in that it was styled after a "film noir" format (a gritty and dark holywood genre of crime dramas from the 1940's and 1950's). This episoide is just over 20 years old (yep from 1992) and is a brilliant example of a cartoon series taking its audience seriously. It provided gripping, intelligent, and compelling episodes that did not shy away from important issues and was adept at examining crime from a criminological perspective.

From TV.com...Harvey Dent, campaigning for a re-election, vows to rid Gotham of Rupert Thorne's crime and corruption. The tables turn when Thorne gets a hold of Dent's psychological records and discovers his alternate personality the violent Big Bad Harv. Thorne attempts to blackmail the DA with this, and the following fight in Thorne's chemical plant hideout results in an explosion that scars the left side of Dent's body, despite Batman's attempts to save him.

So when we finish the episode we'll try to make sense of what messages the episode tries to pass on to its audience (remember it's children) and also what the episode says of crime.

B Block Social Studies 10 - On Wednesday we didn't get to it so, We'll take a look at the Metis, Louis Riel, William McDougall, Thomas Scott, the Metis Bill of Rights and the Red River Rebellion of 1869-1870. I'll show you a Canada: A People's History episode, give you a few notes on the background to the Rebellion and then I have five questions you need to answer:

1. Who were the National Committee of the Metis and what were their goals?
2. Who was William McDougall and what conflict did he get involved in at the Red River?
3. What is a "provisional government" and why did Riel establish one?
4. What was the Metis Bill of Rights (list out the 5 points the text addresses). Was this Bill reasonable? Why or why not?
5. What was the Thomas Scott affair? How did it affect both the Metis and the the settlers in the Red River? How did the Canadian government respond?

A Block Criminology 12 - Today we will be covering a brief history of law and crime to finish out introduction to criminology unit. This will get us ready for our first quiz in the course next week. After that, we'll watch an episode of Criminal Minds "The Crossing" from season 3. From tv.com:
The team members try to identify a stalker before he can attack a woman who is being stalked in Silver Spring, Maryland. Meanwhile, Hotch and Rossi are called as consultants on a possible battered woman syndrome murder case in Boston.