Post- Classical Africa Map

Learn History Like the Griots?

I would really love to learn history verbally as the griots did in Africa. Not only were the lessons factual and informative, but they gave the lesson in a story form. I personally love when history is taught like this because it gives some else's perspective of the history. And although reading does help, I believe that listening to someone else giving their recollection of a certain time period is much more informative  than just reading facts out of a textbook.

Final Day of Trial, PLUS Results!

Last day of the trial, the closing statements, went fantastic. Olivia did a great job wrapping up and summarizing the key points of our case. Ashay did well too, but he shuddered from time to time, which I believe made the prosecutions closing statement a little weak. I was disappointed with the outcome of the trial though. Even though we did not get accused of genocide, we were still convicted of kidnapping and terrorism, which I thought and still think is sad. I think part of it was my fault though, with my stage fright while cross-examining. But on the bright side, at least we didn't get convicted of all three charges. Overall I had fun during the case, and I did learn a lot as well! This was a great way to prepare for the test and I'm very proud of the Mongol D.

Day 2 of the Trial

Day two of the trial went OK. Nathan went ahead and questioned the second Yuan peasant without asking me if it was ok. I'm over it, but I wish I could've made up for my mistakes yesterday. I hate to admit it, but Michelle was actually a really good cross-examiner. But I do believe that Pappas hit it out of the park when he questioned Kristoff Yamonovic (<--- I think that's how you spell it?). I am eager to hear Ms. Fishel's final verdict, but right after the closing statements. We have total faith in Olivia! On a side note, it was unfortunate that Kublai (Sabrina) was not able to make an appearance, but we had a back up and we think he did great! (Arvind)

Day 1 of the Trial

First day of the trial was today, and in all honesty, I did not do well in front of the rest of the class. Stage Fright at its worst! But I did make the witnesses swear so I take that as a plus. To ought, I'm definitely gonna study up for the other Yuan Peasant, aka Tori Condon. Hopefully I do a complete 180 and actually make a point with the questions that I am going to ask. But other than that, I think the rest of the gem performed excellent, especially Pappas, who literally made Rachel tremble with fear on the stand.

Weekend

Studying wicked hard for this trial. Very nervous to question Pope Innocent the IV, or should I say, Pope Guilty hahahahaha. But in all seriousness, Chris Pappas and I have been looking over notes from class and have been coming up with really good questions. I am a bit nervous to talk in front of the class though, but I hope that I don't mess up because I don't want to ruin the Mongol D's chances!

January 9th

Finally got a solid half hour to discuss game plan with the rest of my team. Nathan continues to furiously work on the blog, which I still have to create a personal "about me" page for. Chris Pappas and I worked furiously on trying to research some stuff of Pope Innocent IV as we believe he will be our biggest threat. But overall, we had a great day. Going to definitely watch some Crash Course videos tonight to prepare for both the trial and for the mid-term. All hail the Mongols!

January 8th

Great day today for the 5 minutes I had with the team. Finally finished assigning roles and I continued to research for the cross examination. I finished reading about 4 pages of chapter 18; not a lot, but I will definitely get more done tomorrow. I actually really like tweeting from our Mongol Defense Twitter. Trash talking is actually so much more than I actually realized!

January 7th

We had a great first meeting with the group today. Some (not all) of the roles were assigned. I am still contemplating whether I should or should not be Kublai Khan, but we'll figure it all out tomorrow. We did however set up a Google Doc, and created a folder in Google Drive. Nathan Rippin also did a great job setting up a blog AND twitter account for our group. We finna kick some Mongol Prosecution butt on Monday!