Lesson Plan: Arabic Scarves

One of the things that we have discussed in our World Religions class are the clothes typically worn by many Muslims.  Aspects of their dress have both cultural and religious significance in Islam.  One of the items of clothing that we have discussed is their use of scarves, particularly for headdresses for both men and women.

In the early days, scarves were extremely practical for the original Muslims, who were mostly desert dwellers.  Scarves that could be draped around the face protected both sexes from sunburn and sand storms.  But even in modern times and in urban settings, many Muslims continue to wear scarves for headdresses.  Women may wear a niqab (Arabic for veil) to cover their face as part of their hijab (Arabic for curtain or cover), or modest clothing that covers everything but a woman's hands and face when she is out in public.    Muslim men often wear a keffiyeh or a square cotton scarf, usually in a checked or plaid pattern.  The black and white keffiyeh is a symbol of the Palestinian political movement, and was made famous by Palestinian politician Yasser Arafat.  Muslim women also may wear scarves not as veils, but as decorative items or as dance accessories.  The women's decorative scarves often have flowers or other forms from nature woven into them, but the men's rarely have images, but instead favor geometric patterns.

So as one of our hands-on projects for Islam, we gave the students squares of white cotton and allowed them to decorate them as they chose (but reviewing the information above about typical Arabic scarf customs).  Along with permanent markers they could use to draw on the white cloth, we gave them duct tape that they could use for decoration, to provide edging for the scarves, or to stick on yarn for fringe (which is particularly prevalent in the male Arabic scarves).  As always, while all the students start with the same blank canvas, they take their art in totally different and beautiful ways.

The boys in the class pretty much stuck with lines, ranging from the more conventional to the ... less conventional:

The girls had more curves and other images in their scarves:

It was gratifying to see that some of them remembered our earlier lesson about the use of tessellated shapes in Islamic art, and incorporated that into their scarf patterns.

This was an inexpensive project that the students enjoyed; our class, at least, almost always enjoy the chance to be creative.  We also find that we get some of best discussions with this age group when their hands are occupied with something else, and they can talk without everyone looking at them, which makes some of them nervous when discussing more sensitive topics.  Since the topic of dress and appearance, particularly women wearing clothes to hide their attractiveness to men, can be a bit sensitive, this is a good technique for fostering discussion without making young adolescents feel too uncomfortable.

Are Bella and Edward LITERALLY Warping Your Adolescent's Brain?

I found an interesting article in The Washington Post this weekend about a conference at Cambridge University that discussed whether the current trend towards darker themes in youth literature is actually changing teenagers' brains.  You can read it here:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/literature/experts-probe-how-twilight-and.html


This was particularly interesting to me because we have just completed a summer reading program where we read children's literature from the past 50 years in a decade-by-decade sequence.  We noticed how themes, topics, the way various ethnicities or disabilities were depicted, even the art styles, changed between 1960 and 2010.   But I, at least, never considered that the increased violence and adult themes in contemporary young adult literature might be physically altering brain development.


As one of my friends pointed out, classic literature that has been assigned reading for tweens and teens have all kinds of dark themes--murder, war, rape, etc.  But I think they are distinguishing here between "adult" literature--the assigned readings that remain a more intellectual occupation--to contemporary literature that adolescents read on their own with their peers and take in more emotionally as a guide for how they are supposed to be acting/thinking/feeling/dressing, etc.  


So, to look back at the 1960's, young adolescent girls wanted to be like Nancy Drew--smart, conservative, popular, somewhat of a risk-taker...She is an investigative heroine figure, but she also engages in idealized "normal" teenager behavior--has a nice boyfriend (although there is no sexual content at all, of course), dresses properly, does well in school (and uses her intelligence to solve mysteries), drives a red sports car.   Certainly a different role model than Bella, who is a depressed, obsessive, and much more romantic/sexual figure.  Same thing with boys with the 60's Hardy Boys or '50's Tom Swift.  Almost all the major characters in tween boy books these days, if they aren't vampires or werewolves or wizards or whatever, are much, MUCH more violent than in earlier eras (and the vampires and wizard and such are being violent as well).

Now I'm not arguing it necessarily changes adolescent brain synapses- I don't know about that one way or another.  But it is interesting to consider.  And it is interesting to note that Cambridge is having a serious conference on it.