Students in the NMH course, "The Islamic Middle East" (taught by Dick Schwingel and Ted Thornton) and in the ACS, Beirut course, "History of the Middle East" (taught by Betsy Crook) collaborated in the Spring of 2002 on projects organized into several areas of inquiry, or "panels." Each student in each school was assigned to a panel. Each student submitted a paper which was linked to this web page and accessed by clicking the student's name. Students read and wrote reviews on each other's work. The reviews were posted on a web-based "bulletin board" for all members to read and discuss. The bulletin board and links to student papers have been deactivated.
Uncertainties about security in Beirut prevented a repeat run of this very successful venture in the spring of 2003, but plans are in the works for another go in 2004. Detailed instructions for the project follow below.
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Students will be in regular email contact with one another to organize their work, divide the tasks among themselves, share resources, ideas, and points of view. Each will write up his or her portion of the work into an essay of about three to five pages due on May 10, 2002. The work will be published on this website and available via downloading by clicking on the names below.
Each student will also submit a "reflection paper" privately to his or her own teacher in which he or she writes about the experience of collaborating over the internet with students in another school and in another part of the world. Detailed steps are posted below.
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Click on "Bulletin Board" to post messages for one another. |
NMH-ACS Panels:
1. "Media and the Arab Israeli Conflict"
| Aref Dogmoch (ACS) | Nadim Shalak (ACS) | Brendan Connor (NMH) |
| Anthony Torbay (ACS) | Karan Khosla (NMH) | N'ZinghaTyehemba (NMH) |
| Serene Abbas (ACS) | Christina Kim (NMH) |
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Click on "Bulletin Board" to post messages for one another. |
2. "Palestinian Refugees"
| Mario Saraiva (ACS) | Kevin Smith (NMH) |
| Francesca Vitiello (ACS) | Anna Karefa-Johnson (NMH) |
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Click on "Bulletin Board" to post messages for one another. |
3. "Globalization"
| Fady Ramadan (ACS) | Tom Spera (NMH) |
| Suzi Stowbridge (NMH) | Seul Gee Lee (NMH) |
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Click on "Bulletin Board" to post messages for one another. |
4. "Islamic Revival Groups"
| Nadine Farsoun (ACS) | Andrew Baldwin (NMH) | Ben Bray (NMH) |
| Caitlin McNeil (NMH) | Daniel Auger (ACS) | Brian Kares (NMH) |
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Click on "Bulletin Board" to post messages for one another. |
5. "US Foreign Policy Post 9/11"
| Rami Tabbara (ACS) | Alex Forden (NMH) |
| Dimitriy Marinov (ACS) | Melanie Todman (NMH) |
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Click on "Bulletin Board" to post messages for one another. |
6. "Women in the Middle East"
| Yasmine Nsouli (ACS) | Heather King (NMH) |
| Lauren Buchanan (NMH) |
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Click on "Bulletin Board" to post messages for one another. |
Step 1 -- NMH Students: Email colleagues at ACS introducing yourselves and sharing initial thoughts about how to proceed with the project.
Step 2 -- ACS students: Make a record of NMH colleagues' email addresses and reply to NMH colleagues as in Step 1.
Step 3 -- ACS and NMH colleagues: Keep in daily touch with one another as the research phase unfolds and especially when it comes time to write. Use the linked Bulletin Board to communicate. Concentrate on:
| 1. Dividing the topic into discrete sections, |
| 2. Deciding which perspectives will be represented, |
| 3. Deciding what resources you will use. |
| 4. Addressing these basic questions: |
| Is it possible to agree upon a common thesis? |
| If not, which theses will be represented on your panel? |
Step 4 -- Each panel member will draft an essay of about three to five pages on his or her area of concentration and submits it to his or her teacher(s) on May 10, 2002. Also send your essay as an attachment in Microsoft Word to your fellow panel members for reading and peer editing. Work will be evaluated and returned for corrections.
Step 5 -- Betsy Crook will submit corrected electronic versions of ACS papers (in Microsoft Word) to Ted Thornton and Dick Schwingel for publication on NMH Website as soon as possible after corrections are made.
Step 6 -- Also due on May 10 with the major essay: each student will submit a one page reflection paper on the project as a whole in which you comment on the collaborative aspects of this project (i.e. how your panel worked together): "What things did we agree on?," "What things did we not agree on,?" "How was my point of view changed or expanded by the contact and collaboration with my colleagues on the panel?"
Step 7 - Please send us your feedback (via your teacher(s)) on what procedures to follow for next year. What did you find useful, helpful, difficult? What changes would you recommend? What should be deleted? What should be retained? Are there additional activities that we can pursue; e.g. an online debate, video creation, or meet in London for a forum (this last is R.E. Schwingel "thinking outside the box"), other kinds of exchanges?
Step 8 - Read one another's essays as assigned and write a paragraph or two review of an assigned essay. Use the Bulletin Board feature to post your reviews and read and comment upon those of others.
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Click on "Bulletin Board" to post messages for one another. |