December 20th

Today we talked about the stories we rread over the weekend. The woman I read about, Kate Rackleff, wasn't actually in the Trail of Tears, her mother was. Kate told the story of how terrible and dirty and depressing the Trail of Tears was. So many people died, but luckily all of Kate's mother's family survived the trip.

December 16th

Today we learned about the differences between voting now and voting in the 1800s. Also we looked at voting statistics for different 1800s elections, and it was interesting to see the trend. It was good not to have to take notes today, it gets kind of tedious.

December 8th

Today we did a few papers about national banks and whether they should be allowed or not. It was a very controversial topic in our class, and two papers ended up taking the whole period, not that I'm complaining.

Tuesday December 7th

Today went by so slowly, and history seemed especially long. I thought it was kind of interesting today, because we were talking about how the slaves escaped. In 6th grade, at 6th grade camp, we played a game called Underground Railroad, where we had to pretend to be runaway slaves. I remember it was super scary, because we never knew who to trust, so I can only imagine how the slaves felt when it was real. Also I  learned that Newburyport was a station for slaves to go and stay, and that chimneys on the houses indicated safe houses. I'll be on the lookout for the chimneys when I drive down that street from now on.

Monday..........

Today was like many other days, we took notes. This time, the notes were about the beginnings of the end of slavery. Then, we each got a number and found our group, and talked about the chapters we read. It was a handy way to "read" the whole book, while only actually reading three chapters. Reading wasnt too fun, obviously, but the fact that it was on the computer made it worse, in my opinion. After like an hour, my head hurt. But it's okay, I'll get used to it. Mr Boyle said that when we're in college, textbooks will be online, something to look forward to..

FRIDAY

On Friday, we didn't even talk about what we had to read or the factory assignment, we took notes about the Mason-Dixon line and plantations. It turns out plantation owners werent as bad as I thought, but of course, they're still horrible because they own other humans.

December 2nd

Today we had a substitute teacher, Mrs. Jones. We had to read an essay on plantations of the early 1800s and then write an essay about factories and plantations and which one we'd rather be in. I would personally rather be a factory worker, because while they did have tedious boring work, they at least had freedom. Humans arent goldfish or guinea pigs, animals kept in cages. So why should the slaves have been required to stay on a farm?