Context
In term 2 of the tenth grade Modern Global Communities course, we focus on Africa. In MGC History, students study Africa from colonization by European powers through independence and up to current day. In MGC English, we read Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe to examine the complexities of the culture and how it interacted with and was changed by European colonizers. You can read my reflections on one day’s discussion on the reading here to get a sense of what we talk about in class.
The essential question that ties the curricula of MGC English and History together is:
How do individuals resist cultural, political and economic oppression by an outside force?
The Assignment
Each student will create a post on this blog of a prominent African Citizen selected by the student from a list in this document in my dropbox. The post should address the following questions:
- Who is this person?
- Where is he/she from?
- When was he/she born and what was the time period like in the country?
- What has this person done, written, accomplished?
- What kind of oppression did he/she encounter? Describe the oppression in as specific terms as possible.
- How did he/she resist the oppression? What actions/accomplishments demonstrate his/her resistance?
- What did his/her resistance efforts help achieve?
The blog post should have at least one photo/image, and should have links to sources and to supplemental material. Each student can have complete creative control over how the content is presented and is encouraged to build off of the blogging skills acquired in the T1 project. The purpose of each post is to raise global awareness of a prominent African. Students are also encouraged to use Twitter to publicize their post and attract readership. Students might also find people on Twitter who know something about their chosen subject and interact with these people on Twitter.
Maximum length requirement is no longer than two scrolled pages. Please make the page visually appealing, informative, accurate, and transparent about sources.
The Essay
Before beginning the blog post, students will write a thesis essay in English class that offers a unique answer to the essential question above.
In the essay, the student must demonstrate a solid understanding of the concepts of oppression and resistance.
Students may download a graphic organizer to help plan out the essay here.
The Presentation
Students will discuss their Prominent African blog posts to the class in a brief presentation of 1-2 minutes. We will do these in the two weeks prior to the December vacation.
Blog Comments
Students, parents, members of the community, as well as visitors to the blog are encouraged to leave constructive comments on the student prominent African posts.
Thanks Joe for your interesting blog and for constantly searching graceful ways to communicate with all parents. I truly respect your humble nature and your sincere commitment to your students and us. Re; African project; When I heard our daughter Ariel read out loud Things Fall Apart some sentences I felt were so very mature for our youngest to be contemplating upon… my protective motherly coat took over…and yet when I think about how important it is to freely allow our children to find out about the world… to be exposed to all sorts of historical and current realities, I felt grateful to you as a teacher and for your choice. The title itself is univesraly human,kind, and our children are in a precious, growing up age where they can relate and perhaps be comforted by knowing it happens. Things do fall apart from time to time to countries and individuals, and human resilience throughout history is a testimony that things get picked up again with steadfast effort, faith, and most importantly, with people’s coming together for the greater good in cooperation. Thanks again for reaching out to parents and sharing our bambinos studying. Happy Day!