POLS 2xxW: The Arab-Israeli Conflict
General Education Course Development Grant
jeremy.pressman@uconn.edu
The Arab-Israeli Conflict looks at Arab-Israeli relations from 1881 until the present. It mixes theory and history and focuses on war, diplomacy, nationalism, religion, and foreign policy. The major assignments for the class would include a research paper, a simulation, team research activities, exams, and possibly oral presentations. The pedagogy will vary across traditional lecture methods to a variety of active learning approaches and critical discussions.
Course Objectives
1. Develop strong analytical writing skills.
In contrast with a traditional focus
on factual knowledge, this course is centered on the development of strong
analytical and critical thinking skills for the student. As a result, instead of requiring that
students know every detail of the conflict, this course will help them analyze
the goals, motivations, and causes of the major players. One method for
achieving this course objective is to help students develop 15-page research
papers where the topics emerge from a close study of history and theory. By
delving into the uncertainties and ambiguities of particular periods and
events, I hope to pique the interest of students to dig deeper into causality,
motivation, and evidence. For instance, why did the British make contradictory
promises to Middle Eastern actors during World War I? What did the Soviet Union
have to gain in 1967 from exaggerating the Israeli threat to
Part of this will result from
lectures, readings, and role playing that underscore different opinions on
similar topics and highlight what we do not know and what remains confusing or
contradictory. (e.g., Benny Morris and Fred Khouri,
two historians, present two different understandings of the Arab summit at
2. Discuss and develop the skills and components of good writing from a technical perspective
I plan to use a number of techniques to enhance student writing skills. This includes:
a. Peer editing – both doing it and talking about how to do it in a way that is most helpful to one’s peers (in order to move beyond the ‘cool, Prof. Pressman has just given us 20 minutes of small group time to goof off.’)
b. Writing discussions - discussions and possibly assignments on writing topics such as plagiarism, citation format, revision, evaluation of internet sources, and proofreading techniques. My aim is to move beyond the mechanics and help the students understand why they should care about these issues (why not plagiarize? Why bother with proper citations? What are the pros and cons of Google-ing for my evidence?).
c. Types of writing – educate the students about different types of writing including news stories, op-eds, research papers, journal articles, and books. What does each type accomplish? This also lends itself to showing them particular aspects of political and political science writing and to modeling well-written and influential work (avid reading often makes for better writing).
3. Develop critical thinking skills though multiple learning techniques
In addition to what I have already mentioned and standard exams, I plan to use:
a. Simulation – A class on the Arab-Israeli conflict lends itself to a simulation of diplomatic summits in which the students take on roles of real politicians and diplomats. I plan to consult with Prof. Mark Boyer (POLS) who is very familiar with simulation work. My goal is to develop a new role-playing simulation for the course. I also intend to explore whether other universities might be interested in conducting a two-way or three-way on-line simulation (e.g., see Prof. Clement Henry’s multi-university simulation at http://www.la.utexas.edu/chenry/aip/)
b. Team research activities – I plan to
divide the students into teams with 3-4 members. Outside of class, the teams
will work on two types of issues. First, one team might be asked to find an
answer to a question raised by a student in class in response to lecture or
readings (e.g. How large was Soviet-Egyptian trade in the 1960s? Who bombed the
US Marine barracks in
4. Consider moral and ethical questions raised by the various aspects of the conflict
The topic is rich with possibilities for in-class debates/discussions: Are suicide bombings ever justified? What does it mean to say the Palestinians have a ‘right’ to self-determination? Does who started the war matter for how we understand what should happen after the war? Is the idea that people are innocent until proven guilty a luxury of peaceful societies? Is anything wrong with leaders acting in their self-interest? Moral debates could be based on rival readings (Ethics & International Affairs, for instance, had a provocative give-and-take on Israeli targeted assassinations). If the work-load was not already too heavy, I would explore the possibility of organized debates in which students debate the pro and con side of a moral resolution.
Relations to the new general
education requirements
The course addresses two competencies and two content areas.
Competencies
1. Writing – The mix of assignments and discussions will lead to well-structured and well-written papers that are based on quality evidence and research. The mix of activities is meant to promote critical thinking.
2. Information literacy - The students will have many opportunities to evaluate information gathered by members of the class (paper, simulation, team activities) or outside authors and experts (the course readings). These same assignments will give students a chance to synthesize and then present information in both written and oral formats. Given the heated nature of the conflict, any course on the conflict naturally lends itself to understanding topics such as bias, selectivity, and evidentiary standards. I hope a central result of the course will be that the students improve their ability to assess information in paper articles and on-line. I also hope to nudge them beyond Google into other databases or (gasp) into the stacks at Babbidge.
Content Areas
1. Social science – The course is
interdisciplinary in the sense that it draws on history, economics and sociology
(especially in terms of the communal structures of the warring parties). At the
same time, it is firmly grounded in the techniques and theories of political
science (e.g., Robert Jervis’s chapter on competing models of force and
diplomacy and William Quandt’s three explanations for
2. Diversity and multiculturalism
– The Arab-Israeli conflict is an excellent laboratory in which to study the
role of culture and perceptions in politics. The conflict sits at the
intersection of religion, ethnicity, and nationality. I plan to focus on this
issue in two ways in particular. First, by examining competing senses of
identity: Israeli vs. Palestinian vs. Arab, Jewish vs. Musli
Evaluation
I will evaluate the course primarily through student feedback and evaluation, including a mid-course, anonymous, qualitative evaluation by the students. I think the assessment of student work will also go a long way toward seeing whether the objectives are being achieved. Student work so often reflects back the good and the bad of our teaching and course design. In addition, I plan to consult with both the Institute for Teaching and Learning and the Teachers for a New Era Project about how they might be able to provide more systematic assessment support for this new course. Lastly, I would welcome my department’s teaching mentor to class for another faculty perspective.
Please note: A more basic version of this course has been taught as POLS 296W (special topics).
My initial plan is to work on
- an Arab-Israeli diplomatic simulation game including roles, materials, and rules.
- contacting other universities to consider the idea of running the simulation with other courses. (and spending some time ‘negotiating’ how such a multi-university simulation might work)
- handouts and lectures on how to do peer editing (this will include reading English & pedagogical writings on peer editing as well as reading student evaluation forms I have collected on peer editing. I will then incorporate the various insights into the handouts and lectures.)
- screening Arab and Israeli films to find 2-3 that are useful in addressing identity and culture questions.
- an on-going evaluation process for use during the course. This might mean working with ITL to develop evaluation mechanisms.
- a handbook of writing discussions (lesson plans and handouts on writing topics such as plagiarism, citation format, revision, evaluation of internet sources, common usage errors, and proofreading techniques).
- a format for moral and ethical debates. I may create formal, structured debates, or I may develop an informal system that requires greater student input and initiative during the course. (In the past I had thought these debates would just emerge from class discussions, but I have not always found that to be a sufficient mechanism in my international relations courses.)
- primary documents. I have started to gather links to on-line collections. (see http://anacreon.clas.uconn.edu/~pressman/documents.htm) I need to gather more links, and I need to develop a student assignment built around using a document (how to get students to analyze it in a useful fashion).
- reading books and journal articles on a number of the aforementioned topics (on peer editing; on identity and culture issues to look for short stories or memoir excerpts that might compliment the films; on possible topics for ethical debates such as suicide bombings, targeted assassinations, collective punishment, ethnic cleansing, and religious supremacy)
- compiling a list of possible speakers in the
As I move forward, I will need to structure the course around these different pieces and add additional elements not covered on this list (e.g. team research activities).
-----Original
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From:
Sent:
Dear
members of the evaluation committee:
I am
writing to present my strong endorsement of Professor
yours
truly,
Howard L.
Reiter
Howard L.
Reiter
Professor
and Department Head
Department
of Political Science
Box
U-1024
Phone
860-486-2440
Fax
860-486-3347
E-mail
howard.reiter@uconn.edu