Current Events Reflection and Essential Questions

I have learned a lot from the current events assignments. I now know much more about what is happening in different regions of the world, and I know where to look for more information about current events. Focusing on one region for a while before switching focus to another helped me see how the events happening in one area can be similar or even directly related to events somewhere else. I could have learned more by spending more time trying to find sources of news and by doing research on the histories of the countries in each region I studied. Next time, I think that students would benefit from class and group discussions. Now that I know where to look for news and have some knowledge of what is happening in the world, I am interested in current events and I will try to stay updated on them.

• From whose viewpoint are we seeing or reading or hearing? From what angle or perspective?
• While some of the information is from primary sources, coming directly from the areas that the events are happening in, much of the news comes from sources that seem to be relatively neutral regarding these events, including Chinese and Indian websites.
  
• How do we know when we know? What's the evidence, and how reliable is it?
• The primary sources are reliable in giving facts, but sometimes they will mix these facts with biased opinions. The secondary sources also seem reliable, backing up information with evidence including quotes. They do not seem to have much reason to be biased, although they sometimes write their interpretations of events.
  
• How are things, events, or people connected to each other? What is the cause and what is the effect? How do they fit together?
• There appear to be many factions involved in the current events in North Africa, including political and religious groups. These factions have had influence on most of these current events, each trying to resolve the region's conflicts in ways that would benefit them the most. However, the interests of some of these groups conflict with each other, extending and sometimes escalating the conflicts.
  
• What's new and what's old? Have we run across this idea before?
• The current events in North Africa reflect events that had occurred in the past. Certain factions and conflicts, such as the arms race between Morocco and Algeria and the fighting over the Gaza strip, stem from older, similar conflicts.
  
• So what? Why does it matter? What does it all mean?
• Because the events occurring in North Africa are related to things that happened in the past, people can learn more about North Africa's history from these current events, which reflect the differen beliefs and conflicts of old factions.