Students need to:

• Consider the complexities of the term "terrorism" and examine the terrorism of groups and nation states.
• Learn to critically examine depictions of terrorism in American film and mass media, and the stereotyping of Muslims, Arabs, and other Middle Eastern people.
• Study texts and films addressing terrorism and begin to understand not only its impact on victims, but its historical and political causes.

Literature and Film

Reel Bad Arabs: understand the influence of Hollywood and stereotypes about violence and terrorism on the understanding of people of Arabic background.

The Bat-Chen Diaries (7-12) is a powerful collection of writing by an Israeli girl killed on her 15th birthday by a suicide bomber. Her parents appear in the excellent documentary film about Israelis and Palestinians working for peace: Encounter Point.

Paradise Now, award winning film that puts a face on Palestinian suicide bombers (9-12).

Wild Thorns by Sahar Khalifeh, novel captures Palestinian life in the West Bank under Israeli occupation (10-12).

The Attack by Yasmina Khadra, powerful novel helps the reader understand Palestinian perspectives. (11-12)

Ripples Cross is a documentary film of an American college student who goes to Palestine. (10-12)

Time of Favor (11-12) Israeli film that explores the impact on a team of soldiers of the preaching of an extremist rabbi.

Footnotes in Gaza (11-12), also by Sacco is a powerful graphic novel addressing a massacre in the Gaza Strip committed by the Israeli military.

Sunrise over Fallujah by Walter Dean Myers young adult novel that addresses the experience of American troops in Iraq (grades 9-12).

Under the Persimmon Tree by Suzanne Fisher Staples is set in Afghanistan at the time of the American invasion after 9/11 (grades 7-9).

The clip Collateral Murder posted by WikiLeaks is filmed from an American helicopter. The killing of civilians, and the callus comments of the American soldiers makes it sound like a video game.