Studying controversial current issues: Afghanistan and Iraq wars

The year 13  (VG3) Social Studies English course includes the following curriculum objective:

…enable students to:

• analyse a regional or international conflict in which at least one English-speaking country is involved

This makes it possible to study current issues that may be of great interest to students. However, it also entails certain risks when it comes to bias and an unbalanced presentation of the conflict in question. I have pondered whether to help students find sources or to leave them to their own devices.  I ended up collecting a few, but adding a disclaimer about any neutrality in the selection. Critical skills in assessing the sources will be and important part of the assignment.

Day 1: Introduction: brief lecture on main trends in US and UK foreign policy (20 minutes)

Day 1: Watch the film Charlie Wilson’s War.  Briefly discuss: what is the message of the film? How is the message brought across?

Day 2: Introduction: Afghanistan – the current situation: a CBS report for “60 minutes” from September 2009.

Day 2: Your task for today and next time is to prepare a presentation that will enable all of you to form an informed opinion on, and also write a persuasive formal essay on, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. I suggest that it should contain at least the following (feel free to add other elements if you find something of interest):

1. A rough timeline of important events in the conflicts (limit the number of events you include to avoid too many details). Make sure you note any change in US and UK policy towards the countries in question (switching of allegiance, etc).
2. For Iraq: at least  two-three explanations for the war (possibly relevant terms: WMD, neoconservatives, oil, liberators, tyranny, democratization) . Try to find opposing views and see how proponents of  these argue their case; at least a couple of different views on the results of the war; some ideas on what the future holds for Iraq.
3. For Afghanistan: a clarification of the respective roles of the United States and ISAF in the conflict;  at least two-three different views on what the US and NATO should do in Afghanistan. (Possibly relevant terms: containment, counter-insurgency, afghanization, AfPak strategy, ink spot strategy, nation-building)
4. For both conflicts: an outline of how these conflicts are similar to  or different from other conflicts that the UK and the US have been involved in.

Below are links to some sources on the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq: These are links I have collected in my Diigo account. Remember, these are highly controversial conflicts and there is no neutral, unbiased way of looking at them. Although I have tried to include sources that represent differing angles, you need to pay particular attention to who the sources are and what biases they may harbor. Assessing the reliability and possible bias of the sources is part of the assignment.

Links on Afghanistan conflict.

Links on Iraq conflict.

Day 3: Presentation to class.

Assessment will be on the scale of high – medium  – low level of attainment according to the following rubric:

	High	Medium	Low
Content	Ample, well-supported, processed	Adequate, sometimes supported, reproduces sources	Barely adequate response to questions
Structure	Logical, easy to follow	Some attempt at structure	Little or no structure
Language	Precise, varied, idiomatic	Adequate for communicating, though with some lack of idiomaticity and precision	Communicates, but with major problems of grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and/or idomaticit

Day 4: Writing (essay)