Senior Current Issues – topics for study….
For the remainder of the semester I’d like for us to take on relevant world issues. We talked a bit about it in class…I’ve settled on a few that I think would be interesting to explore. What I want us to do is to begin our study in the classroom as a group – with organized audio-visual media (NPR, Frontline, Sixty Minutes) and class discussion in an effort to get a basic understanding of the issue.
After that we’ll move into the computer lab or we’ll use our own personal internet devices, laptop, Ipad, phone, etc, and we will search for corresponding stories (of personal interest) to broaden our knowledge base. For follow up assignments I will require from you an IOW (Issue of the World). You will be need to search and find a legitimate news article that spins off of our original study.
You will be required to take the article apart in an active reading format (as we did last year in Government and Economics). Go here for specifics. If provided the opportunity we will present these IOW’s orally. Below are the following topics (with your input) that I’ve chosen for us to focus upon. I will post assignments as we go along. You may work with a partner on this assignment..
• Issue #1 – Wiki-leaks (Julian Assange, Bradley Manning, and Edward Snowden) – If you don’t know about this…you should. It’s creepy…and it’s inspiring, and it’s thought provoking. I certainly think you’ll find the entire ongoing story compelling. We’ll start with Frontline and Assange and move towards Snowden and then let you loose on your own.
• Issue #2 – The Life of Nelson Mandela – I am working on this one.
• Issue #3 – Refugees – I really want to bring to you an appreciation, an understanding of the refugee crisis in this world. It’s overwhelming, and so troubling. I’m working to create an overview of the issue that will provide you an insight to what so many teens in the third world live with on a daily basis. Give me a little time…we’ll take a good look at this stuff. I want it to be well organized.
• Issue #4 – Globalization – Planet Money’s T-shirt Project – We are really fortunate here – that we’ve stumbled into a fascinating presentation of the core of globalization. And believe me we will follow the trail. From NPR – “Our Planet Money team is making a T-shirt and following the shirt around the world as it gets manufactured — from the farms where the cotton is grown to the factories where the shirts are sewn together. All this week on Morning Edition and All Things Considered we’ll be hearing stories about the fascinating world behind that T-shirt.” The series is extremely interesting. I think you’ll learn a lot about the world economy in the process.
So there you go…four issues til Christmas, and a few weeks past. Let’s take em apart and learn something!
