Today our media specialist visited us while we were in the computer lab. She shared with us a resource that we can use to gather evidence to support our position on the essay we are writing as our quarter one project. She shared with us Opposing Viewpoints which is a database of articles about specific issues. We can find our articles that will help us better understand other people's views on my specific topic. (Have we as Americans lived up to the ideals outlined in the Declaration of Independence - we can focus on a single ideal or on all of them).

She also showed us how to quickly and easily create the bibliography information needed for our paper. If we are using the Opposing Viewpoints resource these citations are already created for us and we need only copy them from the website.

We can access this database from the Multnomah County Library web site so long as we have a library card. We can also log on to OSLIS and access the opposing viewpoint by following the step outlined in class. The username for access away from school is port and the password is oslis. You must be a PPS student to access the resource.

There will be no additional homework but I the rough draft will need to be posted to each student's shared document in Google docs by October 4th. That means that this essay will need to be done outside of class. I know I promised very little homework but I just can't find the minutes to get the writing done within class time. That said, ten days to write five paragraphs does not seem too unreasonable nor an excessive burden.

We returned to the class for the second half where we read a short section of the textbook and discussed the peopling of the colonies via indentured servitude.