Welcome!

This is an overview of our civics blog.
 In general you can post to the news events of the day by selecting from the tabs on the right of the screen.  They are organized by the week.
You will be responsible for posting one news event that pertains to civics / government / world issues from Canada or a world region per week.
You can post as many as you like.  One, Twenty, but I will only select one for evaluation.
That post should contain a MINIMUM of two sources (not including your newslink itself), and one of those two sources should be from a reliable (i.e. academic/government) source. Please abstain from using wikipedia, random websites, etc.

You will begin that post with the statement "This is my weekly post ..." or "Mark this one" so that I know which one to evaluate.
Please change up your topic on a weekly basis so that you have covered many topics by the end of the course. I won't be a stickler here, so you can overlap a tad, but if I notice that you are constantly posting on the same issue on the same part of the world or repeatedly post about the legalization of marijuana then I will make you aware of the need to vary your posts.

Try to comment on another student's post so that it feels like a conversation/debate/or learning table.  You may even include a response as one of your selected posts to be evaluated.  In fact, I encourage it.

As the course develops and we begin to understand the major government issues, you may wish to explore a particular topic more in-depth.  A particular issue may strike a chord with you.  You may also take part in a long-term ongoing conversation on that topic that lasts the duration of the school semester.

There are roughly 10 weeks left in the school year to the course.  I will evaluate your best ten posts and will allow for the lowest to be dropped.  I will allocate these marks in the Thinking/Inquiry. segment of your mark based on your weekly participation.  You will be expected to tie in course material that we cover on methods of critical thinking and analyzing citizenship and government issues.

This blog is live - this means it is a work in progress and can be modified to suit the needs of your learning.  Feel free to post comments/suggestions under the tab titled "Forsyth please add"
Let's get this started then shall we?  I've created a tab titled Week 1-News where you can feel free to add comments on this week's top current events.

This is a great experience I have done in the past with senior level courses. Every one of those students came back to thank me for this experience.  They commented that this is exactly what they were doing in University / College and that they were miles ahead of their classmates in knowing how to score good marks in this format.  The key here is not to proscrastinate and make sure you post each week. A week ends Sunday night.

Enjoy!