Friday, May 1. 2015

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

D Block Crime, Media and Society 12 - This week we started with Scooby Doo and today we'll watch Batman: The Animated Series Two Face (part 1) and Two Face (Part II). These episodes provide 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 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. Don't forget...I'd like you to evaluate your own personal consumption of media and try to figure out all the various forms of media that you consume for one day...yep everything in 24 hours.

C Block Geography 12 - Today we are continuing our work on the Medicine Hat Topographic map. You need your Canadian Landscape topographic map book and the Medicine Hat map can be found on pages 40-42. You will need to work on questions 1 a, b and d, 2 a & b, 3 a-e, and 7 a-d. This work is due and you should get it finished by the end of class today. If you don't get this work finished and wish to work on this activity out of the class I would highly suggest you ask me questions ahead of time. You can find topographic maps of Medicine Hat on Google Maps (Type in Medicine Hat Alberta on a Google search and click on maps at the top and then choose "Terrain" as an option). For other maps and information on Medicine Hat that will help you with some of the topographic map assignment questions check out Tourism Medicine Hat


B Block Social Studies 11 - Today I’d like you to begin a propaganda poster assignment. For this assignment, you will create your own propaganda poster for Canada in World War II. What you put on your poster has to be relevant to Canada (Encourage men to enlist; Pressure women to encourage their husbands, brothers and boyfriends to enlist; Encourage women to help out at home e.g. conserving food, buying victory bonds; Encourage children to help the war effort e.g. purchasing war stamps; Persecution / suspicion of enemy aliens; Encouraging pacifism; Glamorizing the Canadian war heroes; or just plain Demonizing Japan, Germany or Italy). You need to make sure that your poster is as authentic as possible (stay within the 1940’s decade) and that it could have been useful to the war effort.

Your poster will be graded on the following criteria:

• the purpose of the poster is clearly defined
• the poster demonstrates knowledge of World War Two content
• the poster is persuasive
• it’s visually appealing
• creativity and originality

The best propaganda posters use both words and pictures. They could use only words, but remember that the poster needs to be appealing to the eyes (and that sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words). In addition, the posters should be in color (and no, pencil-lead grey is not a color). Remember, the poster needs to be visually appealing; otherwise nobody is going to support the war effort! Check out the following:
Canadian Air Museum Propaganda posters
Canadian War Museum Propaganda posters
US National Archives Powers of Persuasion