Bill Bigelow

In Bill Bigelow’s A People’s History for the Classroom, Bigelow offers a lesson on terrorism. He opens up the chapter by discussing America’s reaction to 9/11 and how President George W. Bush responded to the attacks on the twin towers. Bush used the words “terror” “terrorism” “terrorists” 32 times in his speech, but never once addressed what that means. Bigelow doesn’t offer us his definition of what he thinks terrorism is, instead he allows his students to reflect upon that word, and come up with their own definition of what terrorism means. Bigelow has students create their own definition, and then they get together into groups to compare definitions. While students are in these small groups they received a handout that has ten real-world acts of …show more content…
Even though students in high school right now where only babies when this happened, they are still close enough to have known someone who was affected by this act of terrorism. I want to use the handout that Bigelow created, because I think it is a great way for students to see a broad scope of terrorists acts without naming any countries or groups of people that they might be familiar with (including the United States). Before introducing this hand out to students they will first draw what a terrorist looks like. After students have drawn a picture, then they will define terrorism. Next, students will work in small groups or with a partner to build a consensus definition of terrorism. After students have collaborated in small groups the teacher will write these definitions on the board. Keeping these definitions in mind of terrorism, students will complete the handout by responding to the three questions that are listed below the directions. Students will complete all ten scenarios in their small