Wednesday, March 18 - "Acts of God" Day 1

Greetings American Studies!

So these next few days aren't about formal education in many ways, but as you've seen in our class all year, there are other parts to being in school. For us, it's about our community and your voices.

While the assignments we post for these next three days aren't graded, we hope you'll spend some time with them in the spirit of keeping our community going strong, of taking the time to reflect on what you are experiencing, and of pushing your thinking to consider a variety of perspectives.

We'll start by asking you to write in your journal and/or to post something to our class Flipgrid. If you've never used Flipgrid before, you'll quickly see how easy it is to post video comments, view videos from each other, and even to share comments and feedback.

Here are the questions for you to explore:

1. How is the current COVID-19 situation (everything from school closing to plans canceled to sports and theater ceasing operations to restaurants stopping service to grocery shopping and beyond) impacting you personally? What are your feelings right now? What strategies are you using to cope with them?
2. What is the current situation telling you about what it means to be an American? This is a question we've been exploring all year, and certainly is taking on new levels of meaning in these challenging days.

When you are ready to post a video, here's how. Go the Flipgrid for your class period and use the code to get in:

• 5th/6th: https://flipgrid.com/amstd56 code "amstd56"
• 7th/8th: https://flipgrid.com/amstd78 code "amstd78"

There, you'll see a space to post your response to these questions. You can even look back at some of the previous responses from other questions (a few people tried it out over the weekend). This will be a tool we use once we get back to school, so trying it now will be helpful.

Tomorrow, we will be posting some suggestions of things you can do with your time - some directly linked to the class and plenty of others! Take care of yourself - keep your social distance - wash your hands! We miss you!