Here’s an extremely rich article for tracing causes, short and compact enough to be useful for a fairly quick class activity: “Experts Look to Past for Clues to Prevent Famine in Horn of Africa”. In recommending it, I’m taking up the topic of the famine on which I blogged on July 21 and combining it with the topic of cause and explanation from my posting on July 24 on the road death of a child. When we pull examples from the world for student attention, we are not only guiding them toward understanding how knowledge works but showing them at the same time that such understanding is important.
In class, you could ask students to diagram in their own way the causes of the famine identified by the writer, and the causes of those causes. They are not likely to understand very fully the impact of colonialism and the shift to a market economy, for example, but they can certainly trace the contributory roles assigned these in the writing. Then, lest they think that they are being given a definitive explanation, it might be useful to give them then a second short piece, such as a news report from Doctors without Borders (MSF) which includes the background violence and bureaucratic delays.
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are interviews with a range of leading world psychologists explaining their big ideas. For example, the interview with Steve Pinker is challenging but students are sure to find his point of view fascinating.
