Middle East Introduction

Subtopics

Valid & Relevant Social Studies
Understanding the Middle East

Preliminaries

Current Events

Zionism

Arab Revolt

Demographics

United Nations

Research Tools
How to Search the Web
V&R Favorites
V&R Lending Library How to write a research paper
Rubrics
Buy Operation World CD

         You will begin your exploration of the Middle East by surfing the websites arranged by subtopic in the left side bar. (Check out the rubrics so you will know even before you collect information for a report how it will be graded by your intructor.) Allow at least two and up to five weeks as there are hundreds of sites in the V&R Favorites and over fifty in the Middle East catagory alone. (Many websites not specifically listed under Middle East have information you will need, like History sites, Map sites, Leaders, etc. So you can expect to be exploring at least one hundred sites at this time.)
      You might want to get ahead on organizing your finds. You may set up folders in your Interent Explorer Bookmarks. If you are comfortable with free tools that you download, check out Furl It! We used this tool to collect the 300+ sites in our Favorites, giving them ratings and catagorizing and clippings from the sites as well as comments.
Keynote is also a great free tool to organize information. You could also cut and paste, and type info into a Word document arranged in headings. Whatever is easiest for you. We at V&R use alternatives to Microsoft products whenever possible. StarOffice 7 is avaiable free to members of WorldWideHomeSchool. What a deal! We've used Microsoft Office but we must say Star Office from Sun Microsystems wins hands down.
If you feel you need to learn the geography of the area take the time now to do so. We recommend learning what recently come to be refered to as "The Greater Middle East". We also recommend that if you need to catch up on your history spend more time on the decades closest to modern times. If you were going to devote one week or five classes to Background History then we would recommend the following schedule.

Ancient History of Jews and up to the 1800's and the rise of Zionism (about three millenium)
History of Islam and Arab Peoples up to the late 1900's and the Ottoman Empire ( about 2 millenium )
World War I, World War II, birth of Israel, start of Cold War ( about half a century )
From just before the 1967 War to Fall of Communism 1992. ( about 3 decades )
From 1987 Intifada to present. ( less than 2 decades )

You may ask how on earth could you cover three millenium in one class? This would, of course, be an overview of the major changes and most important events in the first two classes, with more details given in each class as you get closer to the present. It can be done. You may find yourself getting very interested in the facts and events of long ago but try to resist. Pull information from history that is relevant to the present. By the way, we don't believe that history should necessarily be taught chronologically. You may find that a study of a modern day event is a good place to start. For example, while studing the construction of the Temple in the time of Solomon it seems irrelevant and... well, archaic. But if you begin your study with the significance of the Wailing Wall, the Dome of Rock in Jerusalem today then the significance of the Old Temple becomes more relevant and interesting. So let's start with whichever subtopic you like and EXPLORE!