Last 24 hours for extra credit!!!! Post your comments now!

Chicos, 

Please submit your comments on the five current events today! 

 Remember that each comment you post is 5 extra credit points!

Grades must be turned in by Friday morning, so turn them in ASAP!

Gracias, 

Srta. Shannon

Current Event 5: Honduras

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-25346676

12 December 2013 Last updated at 06:36 ET

• Twitter

Honduras: Juan Orlando Hernandez confirmed as president

Mr Hernandez ran on a law-and-order platform

Continue reading the main story

Related Stories

• Honduras presidential vote recount
• 'Unassailable lead' in Honduras poll
• Two candidates claim Honduras win

The Honduran electoral tribunal (TSE) has confirmed governing party candidate Juan Orlando Hernandez's win in last month's election.

The result of the 24 November poll is contested by the defeated candidate, Xiomara Castro.

The TSE officially declared Mr Hernandez president for a four-year term from 27 January 2014.

Ms Castro, whose husband Manuel Zelaya was ousted as president in 2009, has demanded the election be annulled.

'Robbed'

She said she had been robbed of her victory by "fraud".

Supporters of Ms Castro's Libre Party have demanded an annulment of the poll

Mr Hernandez won 36.9% of the vote with Ms Castro coming second with 28.8%, according to results released by the TSE on Saturday.

The TSE said there was a difference of more than 250,000 votes between the two candidates.

Ms Castro alleges there were "inconsistencies" in thousands of tally sheets, which she alleges were "doctored" in favour of the governing party.

She also said that the voter registry included people who were dead or abroad, and that polling stations were poorly monitored.

Ms Castro and her husband have called on their supporters to march to the TSE on Thursday, the second such protest since the election.

Following Mr Hernandez's confirmation as president, the Organisation of American States (OAS) urged Hondurans to unite behind their elected leader.

"I call on all the citizens of Honduras to recognise, as it should be, their new president, and for the government and the opposition to unite to confront the urgent challenges which this American country faces," OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza said in a statement.

Divisive ousting

Ms Castro was standing for the Libre Party, created after the ousting from office of her husband.

Analysts say Mr Zelaya is trying to stage a comeback as part of his wife's team

Mr Zelaya's removal from office - which the Honduran truth commission said had been a coup - left the country deeply divided and triggered a wave of protests.

Analysts say Mr Zelaya, who could not run for president again, was attempting a comeback as part of his wife's team.

Mr Hernandez, whose National Party backed the ousting of Mr Zelaya, has vowed to restore order to Honduras, which has the highest homicide rate in the world.

Current Event 4: Uruguay

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/13/uruguay-president-jose-mujica-humble-leader-donates

Is Uruguay’s president José Mujica the world's most humble leader?

Uruguay’s President lives in a farmhouse, flies economy and donates most of his salary to social projects. How does your country's leader compare?

• Email

• Nassos Stylianou and Guardian readers
• theguardian.com, Friday 13 December 2013 09.11 EST
• Jump to comments (40)

José Mujica, the Uruguayan president, at his house in Montevideo. Photograph: MARIO GOLDMAN/AFP/Getty Images

José Mujica, President of Uruguay, made the headlines last year for his humble lifestyle, offering a stark contrast to the lavish lives of many modern day politicians.

Speaking to the Guardian from his small one-bedroom Montevideo home, Mujica says he realises that asking his counterparts to adopt a more sober lifestyle may not go down well.

However, as Pope Francis preaches humility, calling on hundreds of Argentinians not to fly to Rome to celebrate with him but to donate the money they would have spent on travel to the poor, is the tide changing on world leaders leading extravagant lives?

How do your politicians compare? And who do you think is leading the way? Share your stories in the thread.

Current Event 3: Cuba

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/obama-shakes-hands-cubas-raul-castro-21158775

Obama Shakes Hands With Cuba's Raul Castro

HAVANA December 10, 2013 (AP)

By PETER ORSI Associated Press

It was the briefest of moments, just seconds, two presidents shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries amid a gaggle of world leaders together to honor the late Nelson Mandela.

It would hardly have been noteworthy, except the men locking hands in Johannesburg were Barack Obama and Raul Castro, whose nations have been mired in Cold War antagonism for more than five decades.

A single, cordial gesture is unlikely to wash away bad blood dating back to the Eisenhower administration. But in a year that has seen both sides take small steps at improving the relationship, the handshake stoked talk of further rapprochement.

"On the one hand you shouldn't make too much of this. Relations between Cuba and the United States are not changing tomorrow because they shook hands," said Geoff Thale, a Cuba analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, a U.S.-based think tank.

He contrasted the moment to a 2002 development summit where then-Mexican President Vicente Fox asked Fidel Castro to leave to avoid having him in the same room as U.S. President George W. Bush.

"What's really striking here is the contrast," Thale said. "It's a modestly hopeful sign, and it builds on the small steps that they're taking."

Not everyone was so happy about it.

"Sometimes a handshake is just a handshake, but when the leader of the free world shakes the bloody hand of a ruthless dictator like Raul Castro, it becomes a propaganda coup for the tyrant," said Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban-American congresswoman from Florida who until January 2013 was chairwoman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Obama and Castro's encounter was the first of its kind between sitting U.S. and Cuban presidents since Bill Clinton and Fidel shook hands at the U.N. in 2000.

It came as Obama greeted a line of world leaders on his way to the podium for a speech at the memorial.

Obama also had a cheek-kiss for Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. The two have clashed over reports the National Security Agency monitored her communications, leading the Brazilian leader to shelve a state trip to the U.S. earlier this year.

In another potentially uneasy exchange, Obama briefly greeted Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whose refusal to sign a security agreement with the U.S. before year's end has irritated the administration.

Obama adviser Ben Rhodes said the handshakes were not planned in advance and didn't involve any substantive discussion. "The president didn't see this as a venue to do business," he told reporters traveling back to Washington aboard Air Force One.

By shaking Castro's hand, Obama sent a message of openness that echoes a speech he gave at a Democratic fundraiser in Miami last month.

"We have to continue to update our policies," he said then. "Keep in mind that when (Fidel) Castro came to power, I was just born. So the notion that the same policies that we put in place in 1961 would somehow still be as effective as they are today in the age of the Internet and Google and world travel doesn't make sense."

As president, Obama has lifted limits on how often Cuban-Americans can visit family back on the island, and how much they can send home in remittances. He also reinstated "people-to-people" cultural exchange tours to Cuba. The result is more than a half-million U.S. visitors to the island each year.

Current event 2: Latinos in the United States

http://afterdeadline.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/hispanic-latino-or-what/?_r=0

Hispanic? Latino? Or What?

By PHILIP B. CORBETT

Notes from the newsroom on grammar, usage and style.

The nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court prompted discussion about our use of “Hispanic,” “Latino” and related terms. It’s not a simple issue, and I consulted with a number of reporters and editors here who offered good counsel.

Here are some key points to keep in mind:

• While both “Latino” and “Hispanic” are generally acceptable, some people have a strong preference. We should respect those preferences as much as possible in referring to individuals and groups; reporters and editors should routinely ask.

• Specific references like “Puerto Rican” or “Mexican-American” or “Guatemalan immigrant” are often best.

• Judge Sotomayor clearly uses “Latina” for herself, and we should respect that preference whenever feasible. In more detailed references, we can note that her parents moved to New York from Puerto Rico. Once again, remember: they were not immigrants.

• In describing one distinction she would attain if confirmed, I think we have to say she would be “the first Hispanic justice,” despite her own use of “Latina.” Calling her “the first Latina justice” isn’t quite what we mean, and several people I consulted agreed that calling her “the first Latino justice,” while perhaps grammatically defensible, seems awkward or wrong.

• I will adjust the current entry in The Times’s stylebook to clarify that “Latina,” like “Latino,” can be used as an adjective as well as a noun. We should be aware, though, that for many English speakers the use of inflected adjectives may still be unfamiliar.

• As always, references to ethnicity should be used only when they are pertinent, and the pertinence is clear to readers. One reporter pointed out that many second- and third-generation Latinos regard themselves as simply “American” or “Texan” or whatever. If ancestry is relevant, phrases like “a lawyer of Mexican descent” or “a New York native of Puerto Rican descent” might serve.

• Our stylebook defines “Hispanic” as “descended from a Spanish-speaking land or culture.” But be aware that opinions vary on how broadly to apply these terms. Can “Hispanic immigrants” describe a group that includes Brazilians or other Portuguese speakers? Can “Hispanic” describe immigrants from Spain itself? Once again, being specific will help minimize confusion or ambiguity.

• We should avoid constructions like “President Obama has nominated Judge Sotomayor to be the first Hispanic justice on the Supreme Court,” or “Judge Sotomayor is hoping to become the first Hispanic justice.” That phrasing suggests that their primary goal is to have a Hispanic justice. We can note the potential distinction parenthetically: “Judge Sotomayor, who would be the court’s first Hispanic justice, …” (Similarly, during the presidential campaign, we tried to avoid phrases like, “Senator Obama is campaigning to become the first African-American president” — that wasn’t the point of his campaign.)

A brief report from the Pew Hispanic Center offers some interesting background (including more on the Cardozo question). Here’s one section:

Q. How do Hispanics themselves feel about the labels “Hispanic” and “Latino”?

A. The labels are not universally embraced by the community that has been labeled. A 2006 survey by the Pew Hispanic Center found that 48% of Latino adults generally describe themselves by their country of origin first; 26% generally use the terms Latino or Hispanic first; and 24% generally call themselves American on first reference. As for a preference between “Hispanic” and “Latino”, a 2008 Center survey found that 36% of respondents prefer the term “Hispanic,” 21% prefer the term “Latino” and the rest have no preference.

Q. What about Puerto Ricans? Where do they fit in?

A. Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens by birth — whether they were born in New York (like Judge Sotomayor) or in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (like her parents). According to the Census, some 97% of all persons born in Puerto Rico and living in the mainland United States consider themselves Hispanics. Overall, Puerto Ricans are the second largest group of Hispanics in the 50 states and District of Columbia — they make up 9% of the mainland Hispanic population, well behind the Mexican-origin share of 64%, but ahead of the 3.5% share of Cubans. In 2007, the 4.1 million persons of Puerto Rican origin living in the mainland United States exceeded Puerto Rico’s population of 3.9 million.

Current Event 1: Spain

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/10376516/Church-beatifies-522-martyrs-of-Spanish-Civil-War.html?fb

Church beatifies 522 'martyrs' of Spanish Civil War

Spain's Catholic Church has beatified 522 "martyrs", mostly clerics killed during the Spanish Civil War, prompting fury from Franco-era victims' groups who say the honour "legitimised" his dictatorship.

After Francisco Franco's victory, Nationalist forces executed some 50,000 Republicans. Photo: Getty Images

AFP

11:48PM BST 13 Oct 2013

The mass kicked off with a pre-recorded video greeting by Pope Francis, rebuffing an umbrella association of groups who said the beatification would be a "political act of pro-Franco affirmation" by the Church.

"I join all the participants in the celebration with all my heart," the pope said to long applause from the thousands attending the beatification mass in the eastern coastal city of Tarragona.

Spanish media described the event as "the biggest ever beatification in the history of the Church".

Historians have estimated that about 500,000 people from both sides were killed in the 1936-1939 war. After Francisco Franco's victory, Nationalist forces executed some 50,000 Republicans. Franco's dictatorship lasted until his death in 1975.

Several thousand priests, monks and nuns were thought to have died at the hands of the Spanish republic's mainly left-wing defenders, among whom anti-Church sentiment was strong.

The Spanish Catholic Church apparently sought to sidestep the controversy by referring to the 522 to be beatified as "martyrs of the 20th century in Spain".

But Pope Francis on Sunday was more explicit, saying at the Vatican that they were "martyrs killed for their faith during the Spanish Civil War."

The umbrella association of dozens of groups supporting Franco-era victims had written to him, saying: "Under the guise of a religious act, the (Catholic) hierarchy is committing a political act of pro-Franco affirmation."

The Platform for a Truth Commission added: "You should know that the Catholic Church backed Franco's military uprising against the Spanish Republic in 1936."

The Church "considered the war 'a crusade' by backing the generals who revolted, (and) legitimised the fascist dictatorship and the fierce repression that it afflicted on the Spanish," said the letter published Friday.

It has "forgotten the victims of Francoist repression", the letter said.

Some more progressive sections of the Spanish Catholic Church, a minority in Spain, also opposed the beatification, saying it would reopen the wounds of the past.

In addition to 515 Spaniards, three French, and a citizen each from Cuba, Colombia, the Philippines and Portugal were among those beatified, which is the last formal step before possible sainthood.

Spain's conservative government was represented at Sunday's beatification mass by the justice and interior ministers, Alberto Ruiz Gallardon and Jorge Fernandez Diaz.

Nearly 4,000 family members or descendants attended the mass at an education complex, along with some 2,700 clerics, according to organisers.

The youngest of the "martyrs", Jose Sanchez Rodriguez, "was killed at age 18 against the wall of a cemetery" in Madrid at dawn on August 18, 1936, along with seven other clerics, by a group of militiamen, according to the Madrid diocese.

The oldest, Sister Aurora Lopez Gonzalez, had fled her convent near Madrid in July 1936 when it was "taken over by revolutionaries". She was executed some five months later aged 86.

The Vatican has regularly beatified Spanish Civil War victims.

In 2007, Francis's predecessor Benedict XVI staged the Vatican's largest previous beatification ceremony, involving 498 victims of religious persecution during the war.

Edited by Bonnie Malkin

Extra Credit Opportunity: FINALS WEEK!

Hola chicos!  I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend.  The final extra credit opportunity for the first semester is here.  This EC opportunity will only be available until Thursday, December 19.

Right after this post, I will include 4 current events.  These are news stories are about the Spanish-speaking world.  Your extra credit opportunity is to read the article, then post a comment on it.

To comment on the article, click the like that says how many comments there are on the article.  In order to add your name, select "Open ID" in the "Comment As" drop down menu.  In the blank space that says, "Enter your comment," begin typing.  Remember your comment must be 4-5 sentences long!

Please include:
 - your name
 - your period
 - 4-5 sentences in English commenting on the article.  Comment on what the article is about, why it is important to us as Spanish learners, and students/citizens of the world.

Enjoy!

PS -
Concerning grades, they will be posted by Monday afternoon.  Monday is THE LAST DAY to turn in ANY late or missing work from the semester!  I will not accept work after Monday.  Please make sure to turn in anything you have from this semester!!!

Gracias, chicos!  Enjoy your weekend.

Srta. Shannon

Extra Credit opportunity! This week only!

Chicos,

Can you believe the end of the semester is finally upon us?  This means it is the season of freezing weather, exams, and extra credit!

We will have one opportunity for extra credit this week, and one next week.  That will be it for the end of the semester!

Your task this week is to...

...create a new classroom cheer!

That's right, chicos!  Let's have some fun this week!  Can you create a new classroom cheer for Ms. Shannon's clase de español?  

If so, please be prepared to debut it in class THIS FRIDAY!

Part I of Semester 1 Study Guide

Hola chicos, padres, y tutores,

Here is the list of 30+ questions to write down and answer in complete Spanish sentences seen and practiced on Tuesday, Dec. 10.  We will be using this list as Part I of our study guide for our Semester 1 final exam.

1. ¿Cómo te llamas?
2. ¿Cómo estás?
3. ¿Qué día es hoy?
4. ¿Qué día es la Navidad?
5. ¿Qué día es tu cumpleaños? / ¿Cuándo es tu cumpleaños?
6. ¿De dónde eres?
7. ¿Dónde vives?
8. ¿Cuál es tu número de teléfono?
9. ¿Cuál es tu nacionalidad?
10. ¿Qué hora es?  /  ¿Qué hora son?
11. ¿Cómo eres?
12. ¿Cómo es él?  / ¿Cómo es ella?
13. ¿Cuántos años tienes?
14. ¿Cuántos años tiene él? / ¿Cuántos años tiene ella?
15. ¿Qué te gusta hacer?
16. ¿Qué te gusta hacer después de las clases?
17. ¿Qué te gusta hacer en los fines de semana?
18. ¿Qué te gusta hacer en el verano?
19. ¿Quién le gusta …?
20. ¿Qué prefieres?
21. ¿Qué te gusta más?
22. ¿Cuáles clases tomas?  / ¿Cuáles clases tienes?
23. ¿Cuántos clases tienes?  / ¿Cuántos clases tomas?
24. ¿Qué necesitas en la clase de ___?
25. ¿Cómo es el maestro?  / ¿Cómo son los maestros?
26. ¿Cuál es tu clase favorita?
27. ¿Cuáles clases te gustan?
28. ¿Cuáles clases no te gustan?
29. ¿Qué haces en las clases?
30. ¿Qué haces en la escuela?
31. ¿Te gusta?  /  ¿Te encanta?  /  ¿Te interesa?  /  ¿Te aburre?
32. ¿Qué voy a necesitar?
33. ¿Qué estación es?
34. ¿Qué tiempo hace?

Homework for the Week of Dec 2 - Dec 6, 2013

Hola, chicos!  

Here is our two-part homework assignment.

Prompt:  "You are Skyping with a student from Chile who is planning to spend a semester in school in Memphis. She has asked you about your school and your classes. Tell her about your school day and describe five of your classes and two of your teachers for her."

Tuesday, 3 December, 2013:

- Write 7 total sentences describing your classes and teachers.
- 5 sentences:  Describe your classes. Tell how you feel about them AND WHY!  Don't forget to use porque.  Describe 5 different classes with one sentence each.
- 2 sentences:  Describe 2 of your teachers.  Pick 2 teachers to describe, tell which class you have them for.

Wednesday, 4 December, 2013:

Google Voice!  Call our Google Voice number at 901-300-6836.

Leave a message for Emilia, your Skype pal.  Tell her about your 5 classes and 2 teachers.  Use your written script from Tuesday!