This year's speeches

I would have to say that this year is the first year that I really understood what these speeches meant and their magnitude. I felt that this was the first time I was knowledgeable about the election and had some feelings toward it that were not just my parents. But anyway, these speeches really showed a lot of the candidates character and their attitudes. I think McCain's speech really showed his gracious attitude and his will to help out the country at all costs and I think that will help him the long run as he continues to serve his country. I feel that Obama's speech really showed his charisma and his excitement. He showed his plans a little for his presidency and he really got everyone excited. I fell they both did excellent jobs and I know both speeches would be difficult to execute in the perfect way they both managed to.

Past Election speeches

I am excited about this unit for many reasons, one is that we are covering victory and concession speeches and these are some of the most important and famous speeches a president or candidate can make. I remember watching the speeches in 2004 and in 200o. These speeches were very interesting to me at the time because I really did not understand what was going on but saw the magnitude of people there and of people watching and knew it was important. I also hear a lot about these speeches in my history classes and it is very interesting to see what they had to say at the start of their term in office and to see what really happened and their final speeches as president.

My Sources

For my topic I am doing teacher reform and how each candidate feels on the topic. So I chose some articles that help show the need for reform and a need for a new system.

My first topic is a video about how the U.S. school systems are failing to do their job and we are falling behind other countries in our public education. This gives a lot of numbers and is an ad just to get people thinking about the issues.

Next, this is an article that gives a detailed account of each candidate's views on a wide variety of topics retaining to education. this gives good insight to what each one wants to do and people can start thinking whether their ideas will work or not.

Lastly, this article/video is about Dallas I.S.D. had to layoff a large portion of its staff very recently do to lack of money. This is a very real and local example. this shows how it happens and just our need for something new. So this last one really leaves us knowing we need to make sure we fix the problems we have made about education.

My Research

As i went looking on the different databases I was pretty surprised. It was amazing how there was so much information in these specific areas and that it was so easy to sift through it all. It makes me glad I live in the computer age, just thinking what people did in college before computers scares me.
I was able to find an article and got a link of a youtube video about education and its state in America and what each candidate thought about the issue. I know there is even more out there for me to use, but this is certainly a good starting point.

Unit 2 Topic

My topic for unit 2 will deal with education. I am thinking about focusing on teachers and what each candidate will be for teachers and what they are most concerned about. I am not totally sure but we will see how it goes.

The people who will be interested in this will be teachers, parents, students, and anyone involved in teaching.

Many people are talking about this issue and it deals with every family since every child must go to school.

Primary sources for this topic will be articles in newspapers, interviews with the candidates, interviews with teachers, also with people analysing the topic.

Humor Piece

For my humor section of the project I decided to make a political cartoon. I choose a cartoon because I felt I could express my views in a simple and effective way. My cartoon will have Obama and McCain both looking at the sky and they are debating over what color it is, but they are other way off. Then a person will be standing there commenting on how stupid this is while another person will be very interested and wanting to hear more of the debate. I will use some exaggeration to get my point across, but the fact that the politicians are lying will still be evident.

Humor argument

My article for the humor argument come from the Houston Chronicle. The story is from Oregon. It is about how a 71 year old man went to the hospital due stomach pains and he was told he was pregnant. This is an unbelievably bad mistake by the hospital. And I think the argument here is that doctors can not make mistakes like this. Although this one did not hurt anyone it could be very easy for it to happen to another patient that would be life threatening. This is like the hospital in Corpus Christi that gave the wrong medication to a baby, and the baby died. This is a funny situation with the old man, but it is a serious topic and should not be over looked.