Digital Curriculum:
Media Construction of
the Middle East
Curriculum Kit:
Media Construction of War
Curriculum Kit:
Media Construction of
Presidential Campaigns
Vendors of Media
Literacy Materials
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Media Construction of the Middle East
Media Construction
of the Middle East: A Digital Media Literacy Curriculum
Cover |
Overview, Objectives, and Pedagogy
| How
to Use These Materials
| Resource
List
Unit
1: Introducing the Middle East
Unit 2: Israel/Palestine: Histories in Conflict
Unit 3: War in Iraq: Whose Voice, Whose Story?
Unit 4: Militant Muslims and the U.S.
Unit 3: War in Iraq:
Whose Voice, Whose Story?
This unit teaches the history of Iraq, contemporary Iraqi/U.S. relations,
and the current war. It deepens student thinking through presenting conflicting
perspectives and claims and encourages students to use multiple sources and
perspectives when evaluating truths.
Lesson 1:
Background History - Conflicting Timelines
Lesson 2: TV Totalitarianism
Lesson 3: Media Coverage of the Gulf War
Lesson 4: The War in Editorial Cartoons
Lesson 5: Covering the War
Lesson 6: “Celebration” or “Protest”
Lesson 7: The Jessica Lynch Rescue - News, Propaganda or
Entertainment?
Lesson 8: War Crimes at Abu Ghraib - Showing Photos?
Lesson 1: Background History
Teacher Guide (PDF) |
Lesson Summary:
Students scan the sweep of Iraqi history and explore fact and opinion,
objectivity and subjectivity, bias and point of view in historical timelines. |
| 
Handout in Teacher
Guide (PDF)
|
Documents:
Timelines of Iraq's history from the U.S. State Department and www.PeopleJudgeush.org
- an organization that seeks to charge Bush with war crimes. |
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Lesson 2: TV Totalitarianism
Teacher Guide (PDF) |
Lesson Summary:
Students learn about Saddam Hussein and the history of his dictatorship.
They explore the role of media in a totalitarian government and decode
messages in a music video. |
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Video Clip
(QuickTime)
|
Document:
Music video featuring Saddam Hussein that used to air at the beginning
of the Iraqi nightly news. |
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Lesson 3: Media Coverage
of the Gulf War
Teacher Guide (PDF) |
Lesson Summary:
Students review the history of the Gulf War of 1991, and by identifying
the bias in a documentary video, they learn about the US government's
role in influencing media coverage of the war. |
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Lesson 4: The War in Editorial
Cartoons
Teacher Guide (PDF) |
Lesson Summary:
Students learn about the background history of the War in Iraq and the
anti-war movement. They decode political cartoons from around the world
and identify critiques of media coverage of the War in Iraq. |
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Slideshow (PDF)
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Documents:
24 cartoons grouped into six categories: dissent, world leaders, why
war?, statues toppling, U.S. foreign relations, and media. |
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Lesson 5: Covering the
War
Teacher's Guide (PDF) |
Updated August
30, 2006
Lesson Summary:
Students learn about the history of the War in Iraq from "Shock and
Awe" to "Democracy in Iraq" through the analysis of international
and domestic newspaper front pages. |
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Slideshow (PDF)
|
Updated
August 30, 2006
Documents: Newspaper
front pages from around the world, paired by date, with contrasting constructions
of key events in the war. |
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Lesson 6: "Celebration"
or "Protest"
Teacher Guide (PDF) |
Lesson Summary:
Students learn about the holy Shia Mosque of Ali in Najaf and about editorial
choices made in TV news broadcasts by comparing the construction of two
conflicting reports on the same event. |
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Video Clip (QuickTime)
|
Document:
Excerpts from two television news broadcasts on April 4, 2003 - one
from Deutsche Welle TV, a German station broadcast in the U.S. via Newsworld
International and one from the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather.
|
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Lesson 7: The Jessica Lynch
Rescue - News, Propaganda or Entertainment?
Teacher Guide (PDF) |
Lesson Summary:
Students learn to ask key media literacy questions and to examine the
credibility of different types of TV programming, including news, news
criticism and drama. |
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Video Clips (QuickTime)
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Documents:
Video clips from American Forces Radio & Television news, ABC
Primetime with Diane Sawyer, the BBC documentary War Spin,
and the NBC docudrama Saving Jessica Lynch. |
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Lesson 8: War Crimes at
Abu Ghraib - Showing Photos?
Teacher Guide (PDF) |
Lesson Summary:
Students learn about war crimes committed by U.S. forces at Abu Ghraib
and discussion reasons for limiting public access to certain powerful
images and information. |
| 
Slideshow (PDF)
|
Documents:
Photographs of torture at Abu Ghraib.
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