Activity 2: Pakistan: A Nation Divided

Do this activity as the previous one. Publish all answers on your blog with the title above.

Pakistan's political situation is an ever-changing landscape. Despite sharing the same religion, the population is divided into many different ethnicities, sects of Islam, and languages. Its long, complex history includes invasions since 5000 BC and a variety of governments in the 19th and 20th centuries.



Now answer the following questions:
Which is its location? What countries does it border with?
What does the geography say about the country?
What is the dominant religion? Which other exist?
What are the different ethnic groups?
Which ones are the main customs and traditions?

For background information read the following article and answer the questions: http://www.bu.edu/com/co201mag/contest/s04/finebalance.htm

How is this his life different from yours?
Which custom caught your attention?
How does his religion affect his way of acting?

Now imagine you are meeting a fictitious Pakistani teenager. Get an image and a name for him/ her. Choose one fo the following from each list. Check out with peers as you cannot repeat religion and ethic group more than 5 times.

Here are two links that can help you do some research:
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/pktoc.html
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/pakistan/default.htm

Religion:
Sunni Muslim
Shi'a Muslim
Parsi
Buddhist
Hindu

Ethnicity:
Punjabi
Sindhi
Pashtun
Baloch
Muhajir

You will be interviewing him. To answer the questions according to him/her, you will need to do some research. Ask him/her the following questions:

How often do you go to a religuous service? Where? Waht happens there?
Do you know anyone of a different religion? How do you get along?
Do boys and girls hang out socially? Do you go to parties?
How many people live in your house? How do you interact?
Who goes to school in your family?
How do you dress?
Which ones are your daily chores?
What does it mean to be belong to your ethnic group?
Where are your relatives from?
Do you hang out with people of other ethnicities? How do you get along?
Do you have to marry someone of your same ethnicity?
Describe a typical tradition.

Finally, on 1/4 cardboard, paste the image of your friend and with images and a few words, introduce him/her to the rest of the class. You have to express why he/she is special and should be respected.

News 2

Find two different news items on Fidel Castro of the last two days. You can use the news feeds on this blog. Copy the link, title and date.

For each one answer the who, where, when, but especially why and what of the news. Then compare both news and say it what they are different and in what similar.

Publish this on your blog.

Politicians

Say from which country the following people come from. Then locate them on a map. On the map write a number for each country.

1. Silvio Berlusconi
2. Michelle Bachelete
3. Hillary Clinton
4. Hu Jintao
5. Álvaro Uribe
6. Ehud Olmert
7. Gordon Brown
8. Ban Ki Moon
9. Nocolas Sarkozy
10. George Bush
11. Vladimir Putin
12. Fidel Castro
13. Mahmoud Abbas
14. Taro Asso
15. José Luis Zapatero
16. Kim Jong Il
17. Barack Obama
18. Dalai Lama
19. Pratibha Patil
20. Thein Sein
21. Robert Mugabe
22. Hamid Karzai
23. Raul Castro
24. Mohamed Osni Murbarak
25. Dmitry Medvedev
26. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
27. Abhisit Vejjajiva
28. Ignacio Lula da Silva
29. Angela Merkel
30. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
31. Asif Ali Zardari

Activity 1 - The War between Israel and Gaza

All answers must be published on your blog by Friday, January 16. The title will be the one above.

Answer the following questions.
1. Where is Israel? Locate it on a map.
2. Why was Israel created?
3. Where are the Palestinian Territories? Locate on a map.

As background read the following article:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/world/july-dec08/israel_12-30.html
and check out the timeline:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/01/04/world/20090104_ISRAEL-HAMAS_TIMELINE.html
and a brief history of the conflict
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/studentactivity/20090109gazahistory.pdf


and answer the questions. Some of them need to be updated considering the article was written on December, 30. Therefore, check out the latest news.

1. What is happening in Israel and Gaza?
2. How many Palestinians have died and how many Israelis?
3. What is Hamas?
4. What was the U.S. response to the attacks?
5. What happened when Israel was declared a state in 1948?
6. What did Israel agree to in the Oslo accords?
7. How did Hamas come to power in Gaza?

Next read the article: "The New Meaning of an Old Battle"
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/featured_articles/20090109friday.html

and answer the questions:
a. To which "old battle" does the article's headline refer?
b. What seem to be the hopes underlying Israel's assault on Gaza?
c. How would a clear Israeli victory affect the region?
d. How would a clear Israeli victory affect the United States?
e. Why does Iran have much at stake in the outcome of the current crisis?
f. How likely is it that the Israeli assault will be successful?
g. What are some of the divisions in the Middle East that this conflict has highlighted?
h. What happened in Lebanon in 1982? How are the Gaza attacks similar?
i. In what ways might the attacks on Gaza backfire?
j. Why does Mr. Abbas say he will walk away from the peace talks begun by President Bush in 2007?
k. What lessons has Israel learned from Lebanon?
m. In what way is the timing of this renewed battle beneficial?
n. How will the Obama administration be able to capitalize on the situation in Gaza?


Next, select a recent image (it must be copied to your blog) from the war and answer the following questions:
-What is going on in the photograph?
-Who is pictured?
-What can you learn about how the main subject in the photo is feeling from his or her facial expression?
-What might this person be feeling, given what is going on in the photograph?
-What might this person want to say to the "opposite side"?

Finally, write a letter from the person in the photograph to a corresponding person on the other side of the conflict, revealing the photographic subject's perspective on the situation. This letter must be handwritten on a 1/4 cardboard together with the photograph.