Happy Tuesday, dear readers!

No New Music Tuesday today, I’m afraid.  With the school year winding down, several aspects of the job are winding up as we enter into exam review season.  I’m attempting to squeeze in one last mini-unit covering the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, and European exploration in the span of three lessons, so my unstructured time has been spent putting together slides for  those quite vast topics.  We’ll see if I can speed run the biggest events of 1300-1600!

The point is not an in-depth analysis of these major movements, but to keep the students a taste before they head into United States History next year.  The first part of United States History examines the political, social, and religious context of late medieval/early modern Europe, as that context is significant in the exploration and colonization of the Americas.  I’d like the students to finish the “story” of World History in such a way that it dovetails with the “story” of United States History.

I’ve tinkered with my latest composition, “Japanese Trapdoor Snails,” slightly, but have hit a bit of a block with it.  As with writer’s block, the solution is simply to write—in this case, music.  To do that, though, I need to have a bit more unstructured time, and what I’ve had has been dedicated to more pressing matters.

This screenshot of measures of 8-9 is all I’ve added (substantially) in two weeks:

Not exactly a prodigious output.

The goal today is to wrap up my slides, then to hammer out the final exam for World History.  That way I can get the students the Final Exam Review Guide this week, so they’ll have it about two weeks before their exam.

Well, back to slides, my friends.  If you want to gawk at my work, here are the slides.  Depending on when (or if) you look at them, I’ve got to backfill them with more examples of Renaissance art and writing.

Happy Tuesday!

—TPP