Presentations on "Arab Spring"
Find and read / watch / listen to at least five articles, sets of blog postings, radio or television broadcasts, etc. on one of the six countries involved in the Arab Spring. (You may instead choose a longer article from a quasi-academic publication, e.g., Journal of Democracy or Foreign Affairs, documentary, or some other lengthy work instead.) Alternatively, you may attempt the more difficult task of presenting on a theme across all six countries (such as the role of Islam, ethnic divisions, social media, etc.) Make sure you incorporate more than one perspective (e.g., do not use only Fox News reports). Then prepare a presentation of exactly one minute summarizing these pieces and tying them together. You are expected to add significant value during your one minute. Make sure the TA has any material you wish to display or distribute the day before the class.
Class Debate: Why did the Weimar Republic Collapse?
We are to divide the class into groups of four, with the remainder of the students acting as judges. The groups will be assigned one of four angles to explain the collapse of the Weimar Republic: structural, cultural, institutional, or leadership. The debate will be conducted in four rounds. In round one, the first member of each group will state the group's argument. In round two, the second member of each team will critique the case made by the other three groups. In round three, the third member will respond to the critiques by other groups of her group's argument. In round four, the last member of the group will summarize the case for his group. The judge will then select what she thought was the best case and explain why. The teams will decide among themselves who will assume which role in their assigned group; all statements will be limited to two minutes each. Following the debate, we will then have the class vote on (1) who made the best case and (2) which explanation was most convincing, independent of presentation.
Breakout Groups Presentations on Athens and on Redesigning the U.S. Constitution
For these weeks, the TA and I will divide you into groups of 3–5 people. (These groups will be different from each other and from the teams in the class debate.) In the case of the U.S. Constitution, each group will do a significant amount of outside reading (several hundred pages, divided among the team members); because you are working as a group, you will be able to read through a wider range of material than you would otherwise.
We will leave 20 minutes at the end of the presentations by the breakout groups for general discussion and around 5 minutes for switching between teams, so that the length of each breakout group's presentation will be 25 minutes divided by the number of teams (probably about 4 minutes). Each team will decide how it wishes to divide its time among team members. You will be graded as a group.
Show and Tell on Iraq
Find an interesting article (or blog post, film, broadcast, etc.) on Iraq summarize it for the class, and critique it or show how it calls into question other material. The source must be reputable but ideally should not be a standard U.S. news outlet (e.g., The New York Times). You will have exactly one minute and are expected to add significant value during that time. Make sure the TA has the material you wish to display or distribute the day before recitation.