Teachers Guide: A Lesson Plan for Introducing Muslims to Non-Muslims
Session Three: Knowledge and Awareness
The Day’s Theme: Though Islam has only recently received widespread media attention, Muslims have been living in North America since before the founding of the U.S.
Objectives: To help students understand the long history of Muslims living in the U.S. and to “meet” some individual Muslims. By the end of the lesson students will:
- Experience comments and stories of Muslims as they talk about their faith
- Identify demographics of Muslims in the world and the U.S.
- Reflect on the history of Muslims in America.
- Computer with high speed access and a video card
- LED projector with screen and sound capability, depending on the size of your group
- Copies of the timeline of history of Muslims in the U.S. from ChangeTheStory.net.
- 3X5 cards or small slips of paper for each class member
- Newsprint and markers
1. Review the timeline of Muslims in the U.S. from ChangeTheStory.net. Also, review the map of Muslims in the world and watch again the opening video and all the interviews from the Meet Your Neighbor portion of ChangeTheStory.net. Then watch False Impressions , I Am an American Muslim, and Baseem Is Trying on ChangeTheStory.net. Become familiar with the content of all these videos and ask yourself how they make you feel.
2. Download the timeline and make enough copies for everyone in your class.
3. Once the class has gathered, invite everyone to see the opening video of ChangeTheStory.net. Ask how seeing these videos impact the way members of your class feel about Islam and Muslims in America (allow sufficient time for discussion). Write new revelations on newsprint.
4. Show the map and invite students to call out the name of a country to see the percentage of Muslims in each nation. Are there any surprises?
5. Then pass out 3X5 cards and ask members of your class to write down the date when they believe Muslims first came to the U.S. Collect the cards and write the individual answers on newsprint. Ask the class to vote on which answer they think is closest to the truth. Tally their votes.
6. Pass out the timeline from the ChangeTheStory.net. How close were the answers on the newsprint? Note familiar events from American history and what was happening with American Muslims at that time.
7. Some key facts to keep in mind are: some Muslims were enslaved for economic reasons, some came to the U.S. as political refugees, and some fled to the U.S. from conflict zones. Many African American Muslims come from indigenous Islamic movements in the U.S. Most Muslims living in the U.S. are not Arab, and many Arab Americans are not Muslim. Most American Muslims trace their origins either to South East Asia (India or Pakistan) or Africa.
8. There is no census on the number of Muslims (or any other religious group) in the U.S. The number of any religious group is estimated using various methodologies. Depending on the methodology used, the number of Muslims is estimated from 2 million to 8 million. The range most frequently quoted in the media is 4 to 7 million.
9. Ask the students to break into small groups and discuss what they know about their own family’s story of coming to the U.S.
10. Using the timeline, have students in the group chart the arrival of their families next to what was happening in the history of Muslims in America at the same time.
11. View False Impressions, I Am an American Muslim and Baseem Is Trying from ChangeTheStory.net. What do these short films teach us about Muslims in America?
