Rationale

=Rationale=

Conflict has been a part of human existence since the very beginning, but some of the most brutal struggles in human history have been based at least partly upon religion. Yet, despite the fact that some of those conflicts have been highly publicized in contemporary times, it seems that many people do not understand the driving forces behind these conflicts. This may be due to the fact that many religious conflicts also involve political issues as well. With that said, students should be familiar with some of the facets of the major monotheistic religions as they have evolved throughout history. We believe that generally speaking, students are likely to be somewhat familiar with at least one of the religions that will be studied in depth. However, even if they already have a baseline understanding of all three religions, it is probably unlikely that they have undertaken a study of how these religions have a common history or how they compare to each other in a contemporary sense in terms of beliefs, practices, and other facets. Without this knowledge, students will be likely to struggle to understand how religious differences have lead to historical and contemporary conflicts.

Logically, once the foundational information about the three religions in question has been mastered, students can now proceed to examine three of the most important examples of religious conflict in human history. The usage of __Night__, __Palestine__, and material on the Crusades will continue to provide students the opportunity to integrate what they have already learned about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as they apply to a certain historical context and also to the implications of that context. Analytical and comparative skills will be a strong part of this section of the unit and the section that follows as well. The unit’s conclusion will encourage students to examine some major political issues and how they can complicate conflicts that are already inherently complicated. In addition, the final project will culminate with student’s creation of a unique video production connecting all three weeks of the unit. This allows for quite a bit of higher order thinking skills as well.

We have selected __Night__, and __Palestine__ because we believe that they provide insight into some contextual issues that would be missing if the Holocaust and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict were studied in general. As a result, we have chosen to teach the Holocaust from an intermediate stance. We recognize that although defending this stance is difficult it is the best choice given our focus on the connections between the many themes throughout this unit. Teaching through the particularist approach could possible deny some of the connections that we want our students to make. On the other hand, using the universalist approach solely denies the Holocaust its significance in our opinion, which we do not want to happen for our students. The best choice from our perspective then is to use some kind of intermediate approach.

Aside from some of the specific knowledge and skill needs, today’s modern world has become increasingly globalized and interconnected, which requires that students be able to examine and analyze the roles of both political and religious issues whenever conflict occurs that may involve either. The ongoing War on Terror, the Iraq War, and the conflict in Afghanistan are rife with examples of how both religion and politics play a role in global affairs. These are issues that affect Americans both young and old on a daily basis regardless of whether we are aware of their pertinence. Therefore, in order to be able to analyze both these conflicts and those that are likely to appear in the future, students can and should use history as a means of both understanding and prediction. Also, it is unlikely that as a country and as global citizens we will be able to eliminate these conflicts if that is possible without some understanding of how religious difference and political issues continue to divide people.

This unit is also heavily based upon making connections between many of the different areas of social studies inquiry. The unit begins by focusing primarily on a few of the world religions. From there, the aim is directly upon world history. Lastly, important issues from the realm of civics become the major target. Along the way, some areas of geography are detailed as well. Yet, the unit is designed to scaffold students as they build their way up to making some major connections and possible decisions about how to proceed to resolve these conflicts. For example, the information learned about the religions in the first week, is built upon and used when examining the historical events. Likewise, what the students have learned about the religions and the historical events are further integrated with political issues during the final week. We believe that social studies is not a collection of mildly interconnected disciplines, but all integrated, which is why displaying this to students through this unit is quite important.