Egypt is the most populous country in the Arab world and has often been its leader. But this month, the spark of revolution in Tunisia seemed to set fire to decades worth of smoldering grievances against the heavy-handed rule of Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak. Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets calling for Mr. Mr.Mubarak to step down, defying bans and curfews. It was by far the most serious challenge to the regime in memory.
–Overview from the Times Topics page on Egypt
On the seventh day of uprisings in Egypt, we offer several ideas for approaching this breaking news in the classroom.
We’ll continue to update the post as events unfold.
Get the Big Picture
For a quick “Egypt 101,” you might read aloud to students, or have students read and annotate, the Times Topics page overview on Egypt, which is updated regularly to reflect breaking news and put it in context. As students listen or read, have them write down a list of topics, terms, names and questions they would like to know more about. You might then move on to the more elaborate gallery walk format, below.
Introduce the Events Through a Gallery Walk
One way to quickly introduce students to a complex topic, and provide them with images and text from which they can generate questions for further discussion and research, is through a gallery walk.
Depending on your curriculum, how much background knowledge students have and the technology available, choose from The Times and other coverage to find texts of all kinds to hang or project around your classroom or place in “stations.” A variety — short readings of different kinds, photographs, maps, podcasts and video — is ideal. The Times Topics page on Egypt, on President Hosni Mubarak and on Mohamed ElBaradei are excellent places to start, since all pull in the most recent articles and multimedia automatically, and feature a short Times-written overview of the topic at the top.
Have students circulate around the room with pen and paper as they read and view what you have posted. (For example, you can choose from captioned photographs here and here, video or an interactive map.) You might ask students to keep a simple T-chart as they work, one side for listing observations and reactions to what they see and read, and the other for their questions.
After the gallery walk, have students discuss their reactions and questions in small groups, then write their common questions on the board. As a class, come up with broader categories under which student questions can be sorted. (For example: “What led to this uprising?” “What do we need to know about Egypt, its history and social and political structure to understand these events?” “How are national and international leaders responding?” “How might these events affect the whole region?”) Students can then form groups to pursue one of the questions in depth. Provide each group with relevant articles, or invite them to search the Times’s site, and have them mine what they find for answers. In a future class, groups will present their research findings to their classmates.
Invite Students to Post Reactions
Have You Been Following the News About Egypt? Our Student Opinion question invites any student 13 or older to post a response to unfolding events, and to write about how, why and when they tend to follow news about international events in general. Why should non-Egyptians care about what happens in Egypt?
Identify Just the Basic “5 W’s and an H” of the News
In schools or homes where other demands mean little time to delve into this topic, you might help students answer the simple questions we feature daily about a news story in our 6 Q’s About the News: Who, What, Where, When, Why and How? The 6 Q’s we posted on Jan. 27, “Protests in Egypt,” might be a starting point.
Investigate the Roots of Dissent
After examining this chart, illustrating that Egyptians have become increasingly dissatisfied with the direction of their country over the past few years, have students read about the reasons that Egyptians have taken to the streets. Have students create a chart that identifies protesters’ concerns. Discuss with students whether these concerns would lead them take the kinds of actions Egyptians have taken if they found themselves in a similar situation.
Track Global Effects
Times headlines for Jan. 31 include “Unrest in Egypt Unsettles Global Markets,” “Israel Shaken as Turbulence Rocks an Ally,” and “Political Crisis Starts to Be Felt Economically.” How, in our global world, is the crisis in Egypt something that touches us all? How will these events affect the delicate balance in the Middle East? Students might brainstorm and create their own graphic organizers visualizing the effects — political, economic, social, technological, etc. — that they observe as they read and listen to the news in coming days. They might also make predictions for the effects they expect to see, and then follow the news to see how they play out.
Map Discord
As the inspiration for a Jan. 18 lesson plan, we used a Week in Review article that stated “It’s still early, but 2011 may prove the year that the status quo in the Middle East proved untenable and began falling apart.” In the lesson, “Mapping Discord: Creating a Primer on the Arab World,” we ask “Why is there much turmoil in the Arab world right now? What are the key issues facing the nations in that part of the globe?” Students then create an annotated map of the Middle East and North Africa that includes information about five countries in the Arab world —Tunisia, Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan and Iraq. You might adapt the questions and activities here to respond to breaking news.
Examine Different Perspectives
Split the class into small groups and assign each group a different viewpoint about what is the central issue of the Egyptian protests. Have students create a visual representation of their assigned article’s argument (a Venn diagram, a story-board, a flow chart, etc.). Have each group present its creation to the class and explain what its assigned author saw as the central issue of the Egyptian protests. After the presentations, have students discuss the similarities and differences among each of the assigned opinion pieces. Which arguments resonate most with them? Why?
Investigate the Role of Technology
Conduct an adapted version of the warm-up activity from this Times lesson, which has students brainstorm a list of ways that activist groups share information and then examines how shortened this list is when all mentions of technology are unavailable. Next, show the chart in “Egypt Cuts Off Most Internet and Cell Service,” which illustrates the precipitous drop in Internet traffic in Egypt on Jan. 27. Ask students to brainstorm ideas about what could account for such a drop in Internet traffic, then read the article and discuss whether they believe that shutting down Internet access made people more or less likely to join the protests.
Finally, put the discussion in a bigger context by reading “Spotlight Again Falls on Web Tools and Change,” to examine how, “in Minsk and Moscow, Tehran and Beijing, governments have begun to climb the steep learning curve and turn the new Internet tools to their own, antidemocratic purposes.” What predictions do students have for Egypt after reading this?
Consider the Role of the Media
Read about the role that the satellite channel Al Jazeera played in escalating the dissent. What does Marc Lynch, a professor of Middle East Studies at George Washington University, mean when he says, “The notion that there is a common struggle across the Arab world is something Al Jazeera helped create…They did not cause these events, but it’s almost impossible to imagine all this happening without Al Jazeera”?
Students might discuss the political role of media in their own lives. Without consistent television and Internet programming, would they interact with politics in the same way? Would they have the same political vocabulary or see political issues in the same light? Given the important role the media plays in national and global politics, what responsibilities does the media have?
Examine the American Diplomatic Dilemma
Watch the video “Clinton Calls for an ‘Orderly Transition’ “ from a Jan. 30 appearance by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on “Meet the Press.” What is the diplomatic dilemma facing the United States, which has long backed President Mubarak, but is sympathetic to the reasons for Egyptian unrest? How should the United States react?
Read about the diplomatic history of the United States in Egypt and consider different viewpoints about how the United States should proceed. Then write memos for President Obama and Mrs. Clinton proposing courses of action that the United States should take in response to events in Egypt.
Uncover Egyptian History
According to the Times Topics page on Egypt, the country is “a heavyweight in Middle East diplomacy, in part because of its peace treaty with Israel,” “a key ally of the United States” and “often the fulcrum on which currents in the region turn.”
Begin investigating some of the historical roots of these statements with our On This Day in History feature, which links to an important historical Times front page each day. Have students read the original Times article on the March 26, 1979, Camp David peace treaty, signed by Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel and President Anwar Sadat of Egypt at the White House. Then have them read the On Oct. 6, 1981, article published when Mr. Sadat was shot to death by Islamic militants while reviewing a military parade.
Discuss the Role of Young People
Political organizers, many younger than 30, are taking the lead in efforts to topple a regime older than they are, write David D. Kirkpatrick and Mona El-Naggar in “Protest’s Old Guard Falls In Behind the Young.” Why and how have young people taken this role? How have older opposition leaders reacted? What role is Mohamed ElBaradei, the diplomat and Nobel laureate, playing and why? Do you think young people in the country where you live could have significant political power if they chose to use it? Why or why not? What do you think young people in your region would consider worth organizing and fighting for?
Follow the Events
Have students keep an updated timeline of events in your classroom. Partners or small groups might be made responsible for different aspects of the situation, depending on in what context you are teaching it, and can be asked to bring in news stories and photos to add to the timeline regularly. Students might also be asked to provide quick daily or weekly oral updates on their subtopic. One way to follow events as they unfold is via the Lede blog.
Tags:Economy of Egypt, 2011 Egyptian protests, History of Egypt, Cairo,Hosni Mubarak , Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Politics of Egypt, Egypt
(source:nytimes.com)
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