Extremism

We're having a quiz on the 3 monotheistic religions next Tuesday.  There is a chance a portion of it will be an essay question.  I'll let students know by Friday if I'm going through with that or not.

Today we finally graded those Venn diagrams.  They should be in the grade book tonight.

We also discussed religious extremism.

As always, students came into class and started working on bellwork.

Today they picked up this cartoon on the way in:

They were asked to identify the different aspects of the picture, and then explain the point the cartoonist was trying to make.

Some students incorrectly answered that the cartoonist was saying all religions are violent.  The point the cartoonist is making is that there are extremist elements in all religions, and the religion shouldn't be defined by the extremist elements.

We've already dedicated a lot of time to Islamic extremism (between the 9/11 attacks  and the attacks on Charlie Hebdo.)  So today we spent a little time on extremists in Christianity and Judaism.

The picture is a little jarring if you're unfamiliar with it.  But when we teach that the Klan identifies as Christian, we're not lying.  

For Judaism, we looked at the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.  Students filled out a simple flow chart explaining who he was, and what happened.  (He was assassinated by a radical Orthodox Jew who felt Rabin was giving too much to the Muslims.  ...Essentially, he wasn't "Jewish" enough.)

If you're here because you want extra credit, you were supposed to read and discuss the blog with an adult.  If you've done that, write a paragraph telling me how the discussion went.  When you're done, have the adult you've discussed with sign the paper.  Turn it in tomorrow for extra credit.