by Katarina Mijatovic
Level: 82

Several of my students have said that knowing the facts about the 9-11 tragedy and its perpetrators gives them a feeling of empowerment which helps to combat their fears. The following is the type of lesson one can create based on an informative news article. The hardest part is finding a level appropriate article or adapting it.

The following lesson is based on a rather lengthy reading from Time magazine online (05 Nov) titled "Hate Club: Al-Qaeda's Web of Terror" by Michael Elliott. The objectives of the lesson are:

• to provide background information about al-Qaeda and an explanation for the phenomenon of international terrorist cells and how they work .
• vocabulary development.
• to provide topics for class discussion and in-class writing

Home assignment:

1. Read the article, "Hate Club: Al-Qaeda's Web of Terror", highlighting ideas and words you don’t understand or have questions about.
2. Highlight the following words, listed in the order that they appear in the article. Without using a dictionary, guess their meaning from the context and jot it down.

dragnet

hunch

reclusive

logistics

acolyte

directorate

anathema

tentacles

foiled

epitomize

insurgent

succor

ideologue

In-class group assignment:

I. Share your vocabulary definitions with your group using a dictionary only to resolve disagreements.

II. Discuss the main ideas of the article with your group and try to answer the following questions:

1. What is the meaning of al-Qaeda al-Sulbah-the? Why do you think bin Laden’s organization bears this name?

 

 

2. How did the death of Abdallah Azzam affect al-Qaeda?

 

 

3. Who are the Takfiris, and why are they particularly dangerous?

 

 

4. The author says that "cheap air transport, the effects of decolonization and a population explosion in the poorer parts of the world have combined to create an unprecedented movement of humanity from one nation to another." How do these 3 factors also help terrorism?

 

 

 

 

5. Why is London considered by some to be the capital of the Arab world?

 

 

6. Why was it easy for a terrorist cell to thrive in Hamburg, Germany?

III. Each group will be assigned one of the above questions for which they have to prepare a response to present to the whole class. The class may ask questions or disagree with the response.

IV. Lab assignment:

The article mentions terrorist Yasser al-Siri’s website. Find it on the Internet. It isn’t easy to find! (Hint: do a search on his name to find a website that tells the name of his organization. Then do a search for the organization's UK website without using his name in the search query.)

Read a few of the articles on his site about human rights abuses. What do you notice about these articles? Would you have guessed that this was the website of an al-Qaeda terrorist? Why or why not? E-mail me the answers to these questions.

V. In-class writing assignment:

Most of us know globalization as an economic and pop culture process. However, today we face the problem of the globalization of terrorism. How can global solutions be used to fight this phenomenon? Answer this question in a 350-400 word essay. Consider the possible roles of governments, NGOs, religious organizations, individuals, etc.