How to Take an Essay Exam

Here,
here, and
here.

Tempera (not tempura)

Here is the link to the video we watched about tempera.

Tempera
     Tempera, also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigment mixed with a water-soluble binder medium (usually a glutinous material such as egg yolk or some other size). Tempera also refers to the paintings done in this medium. Tempera paintings are very long lasting, and examples from the 1st centuries AD still exist. Egg tempera was a primary method of painting until after 1500 when it was superseded by the invention of oil painting. A paint consisting of pigment and glue size commonly used in the United States as poster paint is also often referred to as "tempera paint," although the binders and sizes in this paint are different from traditional tempera paint.

History 
     Tempera painting has been found on early Egyptians sarcophagi decorations. A related technique has been used also in ancient and early medieval paintings found in several caves and rock-cut temples of India. High-quality art with the help of tempera was created in Bagh Caves between the late 4th and 10th centuries AD and in the 7th century AD in Ravan Chhaya rock shelter, Orissa. 
    The art technique was known from the classical world, where it appears to have taken over from encaustic painting and was the main medium used for panel painting and illuminated manuscripts in the Byzantine world and Medieval and Early renaissance Europe. Tempera painting was the primary panel painting medium for nearly every painter in the European Medieval and Early renaissance period up to 1500. For example, every surviving panel painting by Michelangelo is egg tempera.
     Oil paint, which may have originated in Afghanistan between the 5th and 9th centuries and migrated westward in the Middle Ages eventually superseded tempera. Oil replaced tempera as the principal medium used for creating artworks during the 15th century in Early Netherlandish painting in northern Europe. Around 1500, oil paint replaced tempera in Italy. In the 19th and 20th centuries, there were intermittent revivals of tempera technique in Western art, among the Pre-Raphaelites, Social Realists, and others. Tempera painting continues to be used in Greece and Russia where it is the required medium for Orthodox icons.

Technique
     Tempera is traditionally created by hand-grinding dry powdered pigments into a binding agent or medium, such as egg, glue, honey, water, milk (in the form of casein) and a variety of plant gums.
     Tempera painting starts with placing a small amount of the powdered pigment onto a palette, dish or bowl and adding about an equal volume of the binder and mixing. Some pigments require slightly more binder, some require less. A few drops of distilled water are added; then the binder (egg emulsion) is added in small increments to the desired transparency. The more egg emulsion, the more transparent the paint.

Egg tempera
     The most common form of classical tempera painting is "egg tempera." For this form most often only the contents of the egg yolk is used. The white of the egg and the membrane of the yolk are discarded (the membrane of the yolk is dangled over a receptacle and punctured to drain off the liquid inside). Egg yolk is never used by itself with pigment; it dries almost immediately and crackles when it is dry. Some agent is always added, in variable proportions. One recipe calls for vinegar (1:1 proportion to egg yolk by volume); other recipes suggest white wine (1 part yolk, 2 parts wine). Some schools of egg tempera use various mixtures of egg yolk and water.When used to paint icons on church walls, liquid myrrh is sometimes added to the mixture to give the paint a pleasing odor, particularly as worshipers may find the egg tempera somewhat pungent for quite some time after completion.
     The paint mixture has to be constantly adjusted to maintain a balance between a "greasy" and "watery" consistency by adjusting the amount of water and yolk. As tempera dries, the artist will add more water to preserve the consistency and to balance the thickening of the yolk on contact with air. Once prepared, the paint cannot be stored. Egg tempera is water-resistant, but not waterproof.
     Different preparations use the egg white or the whole egg for different effect. Other additives such as oil and wax emulsions can modify the medium. Egg tempera is not a flexible paint and requires stiff boards; painting on canvas will cause crackle and pieces of paint to fall off.

Tempera grassa
     Adding oil in no more than a 1:1 ratio with the egg yolk by volume produces a water soluble medium with many of the color effects of oil paint, although it cannot be painted thickly.

Pigments
     Some of the pigments used by medieval painters, such as cinnabar (contains mercury), orpiment (contains arsenic), or lead white (contains lead) are highly toxic. Most artists today use modern synthetic pigments, which are less toxic but have similar color properties to the older pigments. Even so, many (if not most) modern pigments are still dangerous unless certain precautions are taken; these include keeping pigments wet in storage to avoid breathing their dust.

Application
     Tempera paint dries rapidly. It is normally applied in thin, semi-opaque or transparent layers. Tempera painting allows for great precision when used with traditional techniques that require the application of numerous small brush strokes applied in a cross-hatching technique. When dry, it produces a smooth matte finish. Because it cannot be applied in thick layers as oil paints can, tempera paintings rarely have the deep color saturation that oil paintings can achieve. In this respect the colors of an unvarnished tempera painting resemble a pastel, although the color deepens if a varnish is applied. On the other hand, tempera colors do not change over time, whereas oil paints darken, yellow, and become transparent with age.

Ground
     Tempera adheres best to an absorbent ground that has a lower "oil" content than the tempera binder used (the traditional rule of thumb is "fat over lean" and never the other way around). The ground traditionally used is inflexible Italian gesso, and the substrate is usually rigid as well. Historically wood panels were used as the substrate, and more recently un-tempered masonite and modern composite boards have been employed. Heavy paper is also used.

American Revolution Videos
•A brief history of the American Revolution (with drawings)

•Khan Academy lecture on early US History (only until the 8:22 time in the video)

The American Revolution

The Stamp Act

            The Stamp Act was passed in early 1765 and was created to help cover the cost of maintaining British troops in the colonies. It affected printed materials ranging from university degrees to wills, newspapers and playing cards. After being met with protests, boycotts and cries of taxation without representation in the colonies, Great Britain repealed the Stamp Act in 1766. However, as the act was repealed, Parliament also issued the Declaratory Act, which said Britain "had, hath, and of right ought to have, full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of America, subjects of the crown of Great Britain, in all cases whatsoever."

The Boston Massacre

            The five victims of the March 5, 1770 Boston Massacre were:

- Crispus Attucks, of African American and Native American descent

- Samuel Gray, a rope-maker

- James Caldwell, a 17-year-old sailor

- Samuel Maverick, a 17-year-old wounded in the shooting who died the next day

- Patrick Carr, a leather worker who died two weeks later

Future President of the United States John Adams defended the British soldiers involved in the attack in court. Six of the eight soldiers were acquitted, while the other two were convicted of manslaughter and branded on their thumbs as punishment.

Boston Tea Party

            In 1773, colonists protested against Britain's decision to grant the East India Company a monopoly on the tax-free transport of tea, according to history.state.gov. In the midst of a stalemate between the ships carrying the tea and a British admiral who had been ordered to see that the tea was unloaded, some 50 men marched down to the wharf and threw 340 tea chests into the harbor.  The British government responded with the Coercive (Intolerable) Acts, part of which closed the port of Boston to everything but British ships until the East India Company was compensated for the loss of the tea. The action led to the gathering of the First Continental Congress, which sent a petition to England asking that the Intolerable Acts be repealed.

Patrick Henry

            During the second Virginia Convention in March 1775, delegate Patrick Henry took to the floor to argue that despite American efforts to reach peaceful agreements with Great Britain, "there is no longer any room for hope."

            "They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary," Henry said. "Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power....

            "Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

The Shot Heard 'Round the World

            On April 19, 1775, British forces were sent to arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock and to seize military stores being kept in Concord, Massachusetts. Minutemen and colonists, warned by Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott, gathered on the Lexington Green to meet the British. A fight broke out between the 700 British troops and the 77 colonists, and it remains unclear to this day who fired what is considered the first shot of the American Revolution.

            The poem "Concord Hymn," by Ralph Waldo Emerson, is inscribed on a monument in Concord and contains the most famous phrase associated with that day:  "Here once the embattled farmers stood / And fired the shot heard round the world."

The Battle of Bunker Hill

            During the night of June 16, 1775, and into the morning of June 17, more than 1,000 colonists marched to Breed's Hill — bypassing Bunker Hill — and began establishing breastworks overlooking the British in Boston. The British, needing to remove the colonists from the hill, began assembling troops.

            As the British marched up Breed's Hill, one of the colonial commanders ordered his men not to fire "until you see the whites of their eyes," according to American folklore.

            The Americans abandoned their position when they ran out of ammunition, making the battle a British victory. However, 1,054 British soldiers were killed or wounded, compared to 400 Americans. "The success is too dearly bought," Britain's General William Howe wrote afterward.

The Declaration of Independence

            The Declaration of Independence was drafted between June 11 and June 28, 1776, and was presented to Congress on July 1, according to archives.gov. After a few days of revisions, the document was officially adopted on July 4.

            On July 5, copies were dispatched by members of Congress to assemblies, conventions and committees of safety, as well as to the commanders of American troops.

            The document was signed by the delegates at various times over the next five months.

Written by Thomas Jefferson

           As Congress was moving into a three-week recess in June, the delegates appointed a committee of five to draft a statement presenting the colonies' case for independence. The committee was made up of John Adams, Mass.; Roger Sherman, Conn.; Benjamin Franklin, Penn.; Robert Livingston, N.Y. and Thomas Jefferson, Va.

            According to Jefferson, the committee "unanimously pressed on myself alone to undertake the draught (draft). I consented; I drew it; but before I reported it to the committee I communicated it separately to Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams requesting their corrections . . . I then wrote a fair copy, reported it to the committee, and from them, unaltered to the Congress."

            Jefferson was 33 years old at the time. He later became the third president of the United States.

Signers of the Declaration of Independence

            The Declaration of Independence was intended to lay out colonial grievances with Great Britain, and began:

            "When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another . . . a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

            The story behind John Hancock's large signature on the Declaration of Independence is embedded in American history and led to his name being adopted as a common term for large, bold writing or a signature.

            Different versions of the story have Hancock exclaiming — in various ways — that his signature was large enough for King George to read without trouble. In reality, according to Snopes.com, Hancock's signature was simply larger than the others because he was president of the Continental Congress and first to sign the document.

            Hancock signed the Declaration of Independence on August 2, 1776.

            "It's worth remembering that signing one's name to the Declaration of Independence was no small thing," Mike Krumboltz wrote at Yahoo in 2011. "Those who signed the document were sure to be hanged for treason should they be caught."

Benjamin Franklin

            Benjamin Franklin was born in 1706, and became one of the most well-known and celebrated Americans both at home and abroad before, during and after the American Revolution.

           Franklin helped negotiate the alliance with France during the war, was appointed Minister to France, helped negotiate the treaty of peace with Great Britain, negotiated treaties with Prussia and other European countries, was elected president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promotion the Abolition of Slavery and served as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention which produced the United States Constitution in 1787.

            At the July 4, 1776 vote on the Declaration of Independence, Franklin was reported to have said, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

 

Thomas Paine

            Thomas Paine was born in England and moved to American after meeting Benjamin Franklin. After Lexington and Concord, Paine published the pamphlet titled "Common Sense," which argued for American independence from England.

            "Anyone sitting on the fence who encountered 'Common Sense' was probably no longer sitting on the fence," author Jack Fruchtman Jr. told the Chicago Tribune in 2011. It was a pamphlet that became a bestseller and changed the world.

            While George Washington's forces were languishing during the winter of 1776, Paine began releasing a series of pamphlets known as "The American Crisis." Washington, whose army was on the verge of disintegrating, had the first pamphlet read aloud to his men, who rallied to win the Battle of Trenton soon after.

The Battle of Trenton

            The Battle of Trenton came in the wake of disastrous losses at Long Island, White Plains and Fort Washington and a series of retreats across the northern states.

            At this point, Washington wrote to his brother, saying, "I think the game is pretty near up."

            In a bold military move, Washington decided to attack the Hessian troops in Trenton, N.J. on Christmas day. Washington and his men began to cross the Delaware River around 11 p.m. on Christmas, and despite being impeded by weather and ice on the river, reached Trenton around 8 a.m. on December 26. During the battle, 22 Germans were killed and more than 900 were captured. No American lives were lost during the battle, although between two and five colonial soldiers died of exposure or illness.

            James Monroe, fifth president of the United States, and William Washington, a distant relative of General Washington, were wounded during the fight.

            Trenton, combined with a victory soon after at Princeton, provided Washington's demoralized army with a new lease on life.

Worst Defeat of the Revolutionary War

            Americans suffered their worst defeat of the Revolutionary War on May 12, 1780, when Major General Benjamin Lincoln surrendered to British Lieutenant General Sir Henry Clinton at Charleston, S.C., according to history.com. The surrender followed a more than month-long siege of the city.

            According to theamericanrevolution.org, around 5,400 American troops were up against more than 13,500 British troops, and the defeat left no Continental Army in the South.

The Surrender of the British

            In 1781, the seventh year of the American Revolution, Britain's Charles Cornwallis brought his forces to Yorktown in Virginia. General George Washington's forces, French forces under the command of Comte de Rochambeau and a French fleet under the command of Admiral De Grasse put the city under siege, cutting off the possibility of a British retreat or reinforcements.

            The siege began on October 9, 1781, and Cornwallis asked for the terms of surrender on the 17th. The official surrender ceremony took place two days later. According to legend, the British musicians played a tune called, "The World Turn'd Upside Down" at the surrender.

             The American victory at Yorktown effectively brought an end to the Revolutionary War.

The Treaty of Paris (1783)

            Preliminary articles of peace were signed on November 20, 1782, and the Treaty of Paris, which formally ended the war, was signed on September 3, 1783. The Continental Congress ratified the treaty on January 14, 1784.

            Two crucial provisions of the treaty with Britain were British recognition of U.S. independence and the delineation of boundaries that would allow for western expansion in America.

How to Make a Good Power Point Presentation

There are tips on what makes a good presentation here,
here,
here,
here,
and 
here.

Want to see some good presentations?  Look here.

Letters of Intent

Different websites I looked at discussed three basic kinds of letters of intent: business, work, and college.  Here is a web page that gives you samples of all three and explains each step in the process.

http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Letter-of-Intent

A letter of intent can also be called a letter of interest, a personal statement, a statement of purpose, or a cover letter.

Other websites:
http://jobsearch.about.com/cs/coverletters/ht/coverletter.htm
http://jobsearch.about.com/od/coverletters/a/cuttingedge.htm
http://www.ehow.com/how_7572960_write-letter-intent-undergraduate-college.html
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/how-to-write-a-letter-of-intent-for-college.html

If you really want to read something unusual, read about admission essays for the University of Chicago.  That school has always asked students to write really strange essays.

The current year's essay topics and past essay topics are available.

How do I pick a career?
http://careerplanning.about.com/cs/choosingacareer/f/right_career.htm

http://www.yourfreecareertest.com/
http://www.skillcow.com
http://www.tcu.gov.on.ca/eng/quizzes/workpreference_quiz.html
http://checkoutacollege.com/explorecareers/interestsurvey.aspx 
http://www.ivillage.com/what-gets-you-fired-find-out-and-start-living-happier-life-today/4-a-496291?p=1
http://www.assessment.com/TakeMAPP/StartMAPP.asp

http://www.careertest.net/ (at the bottom, click on "Take the test!")
http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Who-Are-You-Meant-to-Be-Self-Assessment-Quiz
http://www.deweycolorsystem.com/tests/color-career-counselor/ (don't give your real name and email) 

List 13 Definition Key Words

briefly--short time

chaotic--confusion

circulate--move continuously (like air)

consistently--same way

controversial--angry discussion

exemplify--example

exhibit--public demonstration

found--start—with money

gratifying--giving satisfaction

improperly--immorally

impulsive--act suddenly—not thinking

infrequently--not often

interpret--explain, translate

isolated--alone

launch--start—public product

legitimate--fair reason

lethargic--no energy

overtly--openly

particular--one individual

profoundly--great effect

radiant--showing great HLH (health, love, happiness)

ridge--long mountain top

sharply--critically

situated--particular place

span--length of time (short or long)

spontaneous--acting suddenly—just want to

stream--continual flow (people or vehicles)

striking--interesting attention

subsequently--after

unmistakable--unique

Letters of Intent

Different websites I looked at discussed three basic kinds of letters of intent: business, work, and college.  Here is a web page that gives you samples of all three and explains each step in the process.

http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Letter-of-Intent

A letter of intent can also be called a letter of interest, a personal statement, a statement of purpose, or a cover letter.

Other websites:
http://jobsearch.about.com/cs/coverletters/ht/coverletter.htm
http://jobsearch.about.com/od/coverletters/a/cuttingedge.htm
http://www.ehow.com/how_7572960_write-letter-intent-undergraduate-college.html
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/how-to-write-a-letter-of-intent-for-college.html

If you really want to read something unusual, read about admission essays for the University of Chicago.  That school has always asked students to write really strange essays.

The current year's essay topics and past essay topics are available.

Inflation Videos from Class

Here they are!  All these videos come from Khan Academy.

Video One

Video Two

Video Three

And Video Four

Lecture notes on the blog!

The other 2 pages of notes are on the blog.  Go to the entry below to find them.

Homework 5/27

Today in class we talked about writing letters of recommendation and asking people to write such letters.  I talked about a few websites that give you some good ideas.  The assignment is to write a letter asking someone to write a letter of recommendation for you.  The assignment is due via email by Thursday, June 6.

Here are a few useful links for you:

• How to Ask Your Professor for a Letter of Recommendation Via Email
• How to Get a Great Letter of Recommendation
• Letter of Recommendation: How to Ask for It

• Recommendation Letter Template
• Letter of Reference Template

Words that are both verbs and nouns

Initial stress derived noun
Many words that are nouns and verbs

Homework assignment 5/21
Today in class we talked about typing tests. I said I wanted you to take a typing test each week (by Friday evening) until you can type 45 words per minute with 85% accuracy.  I've kind of sprung that on you, so I won't make this part of your grade until NEXT Friday, May 30th.  Remember when you take a typing test that you have to complete all 3 parts before it will report a score to me.

The next assignments that are due are all on the same day—Tuesday, May 27.
1. Vocabulary definitions for list 13.
2. A draft of your resume or c.v.
3. Notes from the second lecture on the blog.

Homework assignment 5/20
I want to help you with your resume or c.v.  Send me an email with what you have and what you need to do with it. 

Punnett Square video

The video we watched in class was this one.

Here is the video I told you about in class on Monday.  The original link can be found here.  Watch the video and take notes as we did in class.  After you take notes, fill in the left column with the information you think is important.  Then I want you to turn in your notes to me on Tuesday, May 27. (In class I said on Monday but that day is a holiday.)

To help you, here are the notes I took from the first video:

Here are the other two pages of notes:

Have fun!

I will be posting links to articles and videos that you will use as part of your homework.  Sometimes it will be listening to a lecture and taking notes.  Sometimes it will be making cultural observations.  Sometimes it will be to start a discussion.