Period 2: Turmoil in the Middle East, Day 8 - Class Recap

The ball of string from our class unity activity today! This was a lot of fun, thank you for participating!
Dear class,

A lot of fun today, with some good content and substance mixed in. Hopefully we are feeling much more together than last class, when we had a lot of intense debate on some very powerful issues. Thank you for the participation - though my goodness, it is difficult to get some of you to listen up and pay attention to others. Always things to work on and improve!

Essential Questions: In what ways are cultures and countries interconnected? What is the impact of religion on policy in the Middle East?

Soundtrack: "Kashmir" by Led Zeppelin. Lyrics here. As Krishna helpfully pointed out, Kashmir is a region in between Pakistan and India. Learn more about it here. As I said in class, this is another one of those regions in the Middle East where there is a LOT of conflict about who should control it. "Kashmir" is also used in some of the Portland Trail Blazers introduction videos at the Rose Garden, and P. Diddy made a remix of it for the movie Godzilla. Now THAT is a versatile song selection!

AGENDA 4/21/09:
News Brief
Forced Choice Debrief
Class Unity Activity
Mapping the Middle East

Homework: Study for Middle Easy map quiz (Friday). Watch the Blazers game! Read blog recap!

There will be a Middle East map quiz on Friday, so please be studying for that. The countries you are required to know are: Iran, Iraq, Israel, Sudan, Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Any other countries that you can identify could also help your grade. Remember that the map I will use is a little bit different from the map I handed you to study off of! See the "Mapping the Middle East" section below for more information.

News Brief: Aaron brought in this article to share with the class: U.S. generals gauge where fight in Afghanistan is headed. I talked a little bit in class about Newsweek calling Afghanistan "Obama's Vietnam?" in a cover story earlier this year. That article can be found here. This is a region of the world with a LOT of conflict, like I said! The United States is pouring more troops into the situation, as President Obama says that he wants to turn the focus from Iraq to Afghanistan. Will it work? Only time will tell.

Also, I showed the class the cover story from the Sunday Oregonian, which happened to be talking about something we had just talked about in class: the cost of the death penalty vs. life in prison. That article can be found here: OregonLive.com - Can Oregon afford the death penalty? It certainly is an interesting thing to think about!

Iris, you are up for a news article on Friday! One current article about anything around the world happening outside the United States.

Forced Choice Debrief: I am glad we had a little more time to go over this. I asked about what the really big debates last class were about. Not surprisingly many of you said the debate about religion was especially contentious. It happens all over the world, and especially in the Middle East! Religion is really one of the sparks that lights people's fires.

Nasser wanted to hear about people's reactions to the prompt: Islam is a peaceful religion. I thought this was especially well done in class - there were some very good viewpoints on each side. Again, sometimes it is all a matter of interpretation! What do YOU believe?

I mentioned that I would post on the blog about the video we watched a little bit of in Mrs. DeFrance's class, "Obsession," and how it was mailed out to "swing state" voters last fall. Here is a great article about it: CNN.com - Muslim DVD rattles voters in key battleground states. A quote I thought was especially interesting:

But Larry Sabato, a political observer and director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said it's naïve to think such a video won't influence undecided voters.

"It's pretty obvious that the group sponsoring it wants people to think more about terrorism, about national security, about Middle East politics and maybe less about the economy," said Sabato. "Well, that obviously favors one side -- the Republicans."

Because a number of Americans still believe, incorrectly, that Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama is a Muslim, political observers said they believe the DVD plays directly into that misperception.

A lot of interesting parts to that quote. Why would making Barack Obama seem like a Muslim be a good strategy? Why are Republicans seen as better at national security than Democrats?

Anyway, thanks for the participation here! Always good to see other thoughts!

Class Unity Activity: This was really interesting, fun, and hopefully a good way to remind each other that we are all in this class together, despite any differences of opinion. We threw a ball of string around, while holding on to a bit of it. Each person had to explain a little bit about what they knew about their heritage. We all had really interesting and different backgrounds! I have to give credit for the idea and the yarn to my friend Alexis, who is currently in the same program as I am at Lewis and Clark. Good times. Thanks for your participation, and remember that we are all interconnected! When someone stumbles, it is up to the rest of us to help them back up! A HUGE thank you to Iris and the other ladies that helped me roll the ball of yarn up again - no joke, that took me 3 hours to do by myself last time. :-)

Mapping the Middle East: Again, so everyone is clear on exactly why I am having you do this, we read this article in class from the projector: CNN.com - Study: Geography Greek to young Americans. Simply incredible statistics, especially because the United States is currently in the midst of two wars in the Middle East. In 2006, only 12 percent of 18-24 year olds could place Afghanistan on a map, and only 37% could place Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Simply unacceptable. Let's improve those numbers a bit, shall we?

I then gave you the rest of class (about 15 minutes) to complete the blank maps that I handed out, as well as study up for the quiz next class. Hopefully I was able to touch base with everyone that has missing work, as well. If you are concerned about your grade and what you have missing, please see either me or Mrs. DeFrance at lunch or after school, and we would be more than happy to let you know what to get in. Thanks for working on this!
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I will be at the Blazers game tonight (YES!) so I will not be able to post or respond to comments from around 5:00 to 10:30 PM tonight. Remember that tomorrow it is a testing day, along with the career fair, so I will not see you again until Friday. Thus, watch The Office if you get the chance on Thursday night at 9:00 PM on NBC. Always good times. Enjoy the sunny weather! :-)