Finally… well a couple of weeks ago (yikes!), we finished our Islam unit. It was a pretty exciting ending, but a slightly weird one as well. We started out and ended the interesting unit with two different teachers. I thought that was strange and “not right”. But anyways.. in Social Studies, we were assigned to write an Islamic Portfolio saying what you liked and what you learned from it. We gave the hard copy version to the teacher. But I put it in my blog anways. There might be some bad grammar in here (that’s why our teacher didn’t give back any of the portfolios to anyone. Too much grammar mistakes…oopps!) Hope Mr. R reads it and know how we ended our unit..
Caravan Days
During the caravan days, I was the Secretary. It’s Kattib in Arabic. Frankly, it wasn’t the best job in the world. I had to write down the facts that everyone talked about during the Caravan Game. It was kind of hard at first. But at the end, I learned on how to write quick notes (everyone talked so fast!).
Caravan
Our goal of the game was to be the first caravan group to reach to Mekkah. The first person to get there first to do their pilgrimage, or Holy journey, will win the game. Along the way, we will have to collect money and get a number of fact cards that will eventually help us during the Islam Bowl. What I liked about the game is that it’s very thought-out. Everything was really organized. The facts weren’t too dull and the quiz cards really woke my brain up. When one group had a wisdom card (information card) or a quiz card, the Secretary will have to write the answers down; Even though the cards weren’t yours. At the end of the race to Mekkah, the Holiest city for Muslims, we will have an Islamic Bowl (pretty much like jeopardy). What I disliked about the game was that there wasn’t much variety with the cards. They kept on repeating the same facts or quiz cards. Some of them had to do with dates. And earlier in the beginning of the year in class, we made it official that we will not learn or memorize dates and big numbers. Personally, I would recommend doing this game for the 7th Graders next year. It’s not always the best activity to do. It’s an educating game (most of the time) and there is a pinch of fun in it. The game is a great way to teach about Islam. That’s because we were simulating that we were Muslims during the olden times. We felt that we were in it, we understood it more clearly, and for 2-3 weeks we were in the life of a Muslim.
Festival Day
For our Festival Day, our group made a presentation of the 1001 Arabian Nights. Each person in our group picked one story to play on the dhow. Our group had three stories. They are Aladdin, Sinbad and Ali Baba. We did a skit for all three of them and we played them on the dhow. We only had only three days to rehearse our plays but had two weeks to plan it out. Our group had practiced for three classes and one lunch break. Practicing during lunch was not the best time. But at the end, that lunch hour turned out pretty fun and mostly, really helpful. Our goals for the play were for it to be exciting, funny and easily related to our Islam Unit. We planned it out carefully so that we don’t go overboard with our jokes or be too serious about the plot. It turned out that our play was a 50/50 balance of educational and fun. I thought our best play had to be Aladdin. It was our first skit out of three. It was very simple and the characters of Aladdin were turned more into modern characters. The simplicity of the play made it successful. Our troubled play would be Ali Baba. Many props had to be “imagined” and instead of 40 thieves in the play, it’s only just one thief. I thought that made it a bit confusing because at the end of the skit, it looked like that only one thief was killed. That was the bad parts. The fun part was when a jar full of water dumped me. That was the way that killed the thief. I thought that that was a good way to end the whole thing… except the fact that I got wet. The relationships among my other group members were kind of a “mix-up”. There were a lot of distractions but many good times where we cooperated well. When we decided to do this play, we immediately thought of giving everyone one story to pick and play during the Festival Day. So that left everyone with thoughts in their heads on what to choose. The next day, our group brought up their stories that they chose. After some days where we had to think over our props and other things, we had to decide that everyone would do their own scripts. We had two to three days to write them. Now that is when the distractions came along. I wrote my script of Ali Baba on a school trip I was in. But then, that thought-out and well-written script I wrote was left in Germany =( .So I had to make another one in class that same day I came back from the airport (which was torture because we landed at 3.30 am and it turned out I was “excused” from school!!). But going to school on that day wasn’t a really bad choice. I did 2 pages, back-to-back in class. So if I didn’t leave it there, we would’ve had another day to rehearse the play. That was a mistake I know I will never do again.
Dhow Trip
We had a field trip on a dhow for our Festival Day. It was pretty fun and educational. The surroundings really sank in my mind and it convinced me that we were away from the whole “modernized world” thing. I felt like a real Arab sailing across the seas. The dhow itself pretty much had the characteristics of what the dhows might look like back then. The food had a twist of an Arabian cuisine, the presentations were about many Islamic and Arabic topics and the entertainment itself was Middle Eastern. There wasn’t many relations to the Western or modern world.
Our group did our play on the dhow and it wasn’t really steady… I mean literally. The floor of the dhow was “tilted” downwards and that was hard to do a lot of our moves in the play. And the limited area on the boat made it really hard to do the play and make it seem more realistic. That was the hardest thing to figure out when doing our play.
Summary & Reflection
Overall the experiences I’ve had throughout this unit, I thought that it was a great lesson. It was kind of unstable where we had our “major change” in class, but it went pretty even at the end of it all. We had to except changes and it didn’t turn out as planned, but the changes we had to compromise was reasonable. I liked the whole “Islamic simulation” thing definitely made the unit more exciting. Even though I’ve taken many classes and had an experience with Islamic Studies, this was a whole new thing to learn about. The field trip was a great bonus for our unit. We understood many things on the dhow. Some of them were how Arab traders transport from one place to another and what their lifestyles were like. I’ve also learned many other things from other groups’ presentations. It was a nice idea to have the Festival Day during the field trip on the dhow. The understanding of Islam has impacted me in special ways. For me, being a Muslim, the facts I have learned in class about Islam will be always remembered. Many of the facts itself was pretty new to me. I learned a lot of number facts about Arabs (and Arabic) and Islam, like population numbers and statistics. And the things that really fascinated me most were about Arab cultures. A lot of the facts that were shared in class were completely new to me. It showed me a whole new perspective about Arabs their connections with Islam and the region. The histories of the Empires were also really interesting. I find documentaries really captivating… while others find it not as attractive (I’m weird that way). I really enjoyed the month of the Islamic Unit. I encourage doing this whole scene again for the new seventh graders next year. They are in for a great Humanities year up ahead of them. What I think should stay next year is the simulation and the field trip. I suggest that next year, there would be a day where everyone in the grade comes to school wearing traditional or Islamic clothing. And then, they would watch a movie like Aladdin or other Arabic-inspired movies. So overall, it was a great experience…=) Pics from here and here.
Comments(1) | 
