We are continuing our explication of A Christmas Carol. We are working to understand literary concepts such as character arc, plot, inciting incident, hubris, character orchestration, etc.

We reviewed two homework problems and talked about the regions of the atom (nucleus and electron cloud).

With rare exceptions, like meteor strikes or volcano eruptions, most important historical developments occur in reaction to trends, ideas or actions. They may be instantaneous reactions to an invasion or government measures taken to counteract longer trends, like immigration or birth rates. The American Revolution is one of the more important events of the past few hundred years for understanding modern history. It was also one of the seminal moments of the Enlightenment, where for the first time portions of Enlightenment political philosophy were used to help create an entirely new country. In this lesson, we're going to look at the immediate events that led to the open rebellion by the American colonies up to the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. When Washington and French forces forced Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown, the fledgling nation's existence was secured - a victory with effects felt worldwide in the late eighteenth century. Most notably in France, Ireland, and Poland, revolutionaries and luminaries looked to America and its embrace of Enlightenment-era principles as an example for their own countries' political struggles. In America, the end of the revolution marked an exciting time where the restraints placed on the colonists by their British overlords were removed and settlement of the West was opened, and the politically-minded colonists possessed a blank slate on which they could create any government they wanted. With these exciting prospects in mind, it's also important to remember that the American Revolution didn't benefit everyone. Britain experienced a series of political and economic upheavals as a direct result of the war, and colonists still loyal to the British crown were forced to uproot their families and move north to Canada. Above all, the American victory was a complete disaster for the Native Americans who had depended upon British authority to block the colonists' westward migration.

The planned lesson could not take place because Jaydn was not online.

Jaydn reviewed SAT words being studied. She did an online review of words and played a matching game. She then appropriately applied the words to the given sentences. In conjunction with the theme of the novel The Glass Castle, Jaydn wrote on the value of nonconformity. Using text-based evidence, she discussed ways in which the parental characters do the unexpected. She also wrote of a time she wanted to do something different but decided to conform. She ended the writing with a stated quote on nonconformity.

We did an overview of Edgar Allan Poe's works including plot summaries. We discussed the differences between traditional narrators and unreliable narrators. We also compared the ghost elements in Poe versus Dickens.

Critical Analysis of Charles Dickens' text. We also compared various screen adaptations of Dickens' work with the original.

Hobbes believed in absolute monarchy as an ideal political system. According to this concept, the monarch should hold complete and total power. Citizens had no authority either to invest the monarch with his power or to take it away. Rather, their duty was to comply with the monarch's edicts. The theory comes from the idea that human beings can't be trusted to govern or to control themselves. They needed a king to make the decisions, create and enforce the laws, and ensure their well-being. In absolute monarchy, the king serves as the all-powerful father exercising complete authority over his unruly children, the citizenry. Hobbes claims this is because human nature is foolish, selfish, violent. Hobbes' ideas about the social contract are also key to his political philosophy. He believed the social contract enables humans to escape the brutality and primitivism of human life in the state of nature. The social contract means that humans give up certain liberties in order to receive the protections of the king and civil society. For example, we give up the liberty to steal from our neighbor in order to receive the benefit of knowing our neighbor cannot steal from us either - at least, not without punishment.
The absolute monarchy, for Hobbes, enables this civilized society. It is the ideal system through which the social contract may be fulfilled. When left to our own devices (i.e., the state of nature), we all descend into barbarity and chaos. Hobbes' ideas about the social contract are also key to his political philosophy. He believed the social contract enables humans to escape the brutality and primitivism of human life in the state of nature. The social contract means that humans give up certain liberties in order to receive the protections of the king and civil society. For example, we give up the liberty to steal from our neighbor in order to receive the benefit of knowing our neighbor cannot steal from us either - at least, not without punishment. The absolute monarchy, for Hobbes, enables this civilized society. It is the ideal system through which the social contract may be fulfilled. The English Civil War, Interregnum, and Glorious Revolution helped inspire the ideas that would earn Locke the name the Father of Liberalism. In fact, it was Locke, not Thomas Jefferson, who would first describe the three fundamental human rights: life, liberty, and property. In Two Treatises of Government, Locke argued that these fundamental human rights come from God and no human can control or take them away, not even an absolute monarch. These rights belong to all humans and they endure from birth until death. Locke's theories would strongly inspire the American Revolution and the US system of government. Locke claimed that an ideal form of government allows human beings to exercise their reason and their liberty to the fullest. Locke claims that humans enter into a social contract to achieve the ends of justice and equality that they may not be able to achieve on their own. To help with this, citizens give a small measure of authority to a leader who helps resolve disputes, enforce the rule of law, and ensure the orderly operation of society. The leader's power comes only from the consent of the governed. The leader uses their power to protect the life, liberty, and property of the citizenry. When the leader fails to meet his obligations to his people, for example, by ruling arbitrarily or unfairly, then the citizenry may revoke their consent to be governed. They may rebel, as was the case in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which Locke strongly supported. Locke strongly opposed the idea of the absolute monarch. Rather, Locke took the liberal view that humans should have the liberty to exercise the fundamental rights that they were born with. As such, the only proper role of government was to protect those individual rights, such as through conflict mediation and the enforcement of the rule of law. We looked at how these two political thinkers impact British history in the 1700s when Great Britain reforms its monarchy by establishing a Parliament - a group elected by the people with whom the monarch must share power. There was a brief introduction to how these enlightened ideals influenced the American Revolution. Jaydn will read about the causes of the American Revolution tonight, complete 5 review questions and prepare for a quiz on the H.W. for class tomorrow.

I reviewed with Jaydn what we had covered thus far in chpater 2. I showed her examples of convex and concave figures. We then studied conditional statements along with their antecedent and consequent phrases. I explained counterexamples as ways to disprove conditional statements. There was no assignment.

We began the syllabus-proper today, with vocal warm-ups, techniques, also using parts of Vocalizes ("songs without words"), learning tonic sol-fa to develop sight-singing proficiency, and Jaydn ended by singing Amazing Grace (beautifully).