We are continuing to work on the unit on Civil Rights.

In order to make sure I did not duplicate any prior study, Katya and I first catalogued the books and plays she previously studied. After examining Katya's literary preferences, we decided that we would first study " Huck Finn" by Twain, followed by JD Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye", and last ,Nora Hurston's novel, "Their Eyes Were Watching God" (which I explained was not a religious book or about religion ).I then outlined on the board American literary movements from the Romanticism of Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter" to Twain and into the early 20th Century. I explained the significance of Mark Twain to American literature and why some scholars consider "Huck Finn" the Great American Novel. I noted the characteristics of the Romantic novels of the first half of the 19th Century and how Twain, while occassinsaly indulging in imaginative plots and descriptions , marks the beginning of the American novel depicting real people speaking in local dialects living in realistic ,not aristocratic , settings.

We began by reviewing some civil liberties and rights that have at times in U.S. history been denied to certain groups of people. We discussed the definition of civil rights and race and civil rights. Although there have been improvements in civil rights in the U.S. since 1963, there are huge disparities that remain between blacks and whites in America. For example: black-white, unemployment and housing ratios remain quite unbalanced in contemporary American society. The political position in which African Americans found themselves until the 1960s made it difficult for them to advance their interests through legislative strategy. We discussed the Civil Rights Amendments - the 13th ammendment abolished slavery, the 14th recognized African Americans as full citizens with equal protection under the laws and the 15th gave African American men the right to vote. In the Supreme Court's Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, racial segregation was legalized in the U.S. This law stayed in effect until 1954 with the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. the Board of Education. With this decision, the Supreme ruled that racial segregation was finally illegal.

Today's class focused on why the courts are so important in defining civil liberties, for both the national government and the states. We discussed which forms of expression - examples are speech that threatens national security, libel, obscenity - are not protected by the Constitution and why. We discussed how the Constitution protects religious freedom.

In this activity, Katya worked on larger systems that represented linear equations in three dimensions. She used the method of elimination to solve this systems.

I talked with Katya about continuing with her. She informed me that she does not have time to fit this elective in her schedule if she does not need it.

Federalism is behind a lot of things that matter to many people in this country. For example, what people pay in taxes, speed limits, regulations on the purchase of liquor, pollution, how much money should be spent on schools. Federalism is at the heart of the controversies surrounding the Affordable Care Act. Federalism affects almost every aspect of crime and punishment in America. Federalism is critical to how certain civil liberties and civil rights are defined and protected: for instance, some state constitutions mention G-d and some state laws specifically prohibit funding for religious schools. The Founders used federalism to protect personal liberty. Our government as defined by the Founders is called a "federal republic." It gets its powers from the people and from state governments. Federalism refers to a political system in which there are local units of government as well as a national government that can make final decisions for at least some governmental activities and whose existence is specially protected.

Katya had done her pre-writing. We created a thesis statement. We then worked on selecting the best textual evidence to support her thesis. I also reviewed the correct structure of an expository essay. Katya will write her rough draft for homework.

We discussed the historical origins of federalism - a political system in which the national government shares power with the local (state) governments. The Constitution doesn't spell out the powers that the states are to have. States rights are vaguely mentioned in the 10th Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution , nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. We will be discussing more about federal vs. state's rights in future classes.

After the adoption of the United States Constitution, the U.S. dollar was defined by the Coinage Act of 1792, which specified a "dollar" to be based in the Spanish milled dollar and of 371 grains and 4 sixteenths part of a grain of pure or 416 grains (27.0 g) of standard silver and an "eagle" to be 247 and 4 eighths of a grain or 270 grains (17 g) of gold (again depending on purity).[40] The choice of the value 371 grains arose from Alexander Hamilton's decision to base the new American unit on the average weight of a selection of worn Spanish dollars. Under the Articles of Confederation, each state had its own currency. There were actually NJ dollars, NY dollars, PA dollars, etc. The U.S. Constitution rectified this confusion and standardized all U.S. currency. Alexander Hamilton oversaw the creation of standardized U.S. currency in the late 1780s. He got the treasury to weigh a sample of Spanish dollars and the average weight came out to be 371 grains. A new Spanish dollar was usually about 377 grains in weight, and so the new U.S. dollar was at a slight discount in relation to the Spanish dollar. The design of U.S. currency reveals so much about U.S. history and government. For instance, on one side of the U.S. dollar there is an unfinished pyramid, and the Eye of Providence. The all-seeing eye over the unfinished pyramid is supposed to portray the United States as a land continuously growing and far from finished, although some believe it indicates a connection to the Illuminati secret society.