For students: We hope this guide will help sharpen your reading skills and deepen your understanding of this issue’s articles.

For teachers: We encourage reproduction and adaptation of these ideas, freely and without further permission from Saudi Aramco World, by teachers at any level, whether working in a classroom or through home study.

— THE EDITORS

Class Activities

This issue’s Classroom Guide is organized around two themes. The first theme, Standing on Your Feet, focuses on the article “Sisterhood of Hope” and the organization that its subject founded. The second, Stereotypes, explores how advertisers have used stereotypes to sell products and asks you to think about how advertisers might attract consumers without using stereotypes. The Visual Analysis section continues with the theme of stereotypes: In it, you will look at photographs that accompany “Caravan Leaders and Saharan Scholars.” You’ll consider how these photos defy stereotypes and think about why such photos are included in Saudi Aramco World.

Theme: Standing on Your Feet

In “Sisterhood of Hope,” Zainab Salbi describes what Women for Women International does. “We are helping people not because they are victims,” she says. “‘Come here if you want to stand on your feet!’” In the activities that follow, you will have a chance to figure out what she means by that. In the process, you will hopefully come to a deeper understanding of how she and Women for Women bring about change.

What does “standing on your feet” mean to you?

Maybe you’ve heard someone say, “You’ve got to stand on your own two feet.” They might mean it literally—but probably not. “Standing on your own two feet” is an idiom. Idioms are common phrases that can’t be understood literally. Either discuss with a partner or write in a journal some thoughts about what the phrase “standing on your feet” (or “standing on your own two feet”) means to you. If you’ve heard someone use it, you might start there. What were the circumstances? What was the person trying to communicate? If you haven’t heard the phrase, try picturing someone standing on their feet. What does the person look like? What might the person’s appearance symbolize for someone who urges you to “stand on your feet”? What would it look like not to stand on your feet? What might that symbolize? Use your thoughts to write a definition of the idiomatic phrase “stand on your feet.” Then compare it with the definitions of other individuals or pairs. See if you all have more or less the same understanding.

Once you understand what the phrase means, think about a time when you “stood on your feet.” Why did you do it? What was the alternative? What was the experience like? Tell the story of standing on your feet in whatever format you’re most comfortable with. You might write the story, draw it, present photographs, make a video—whatever works!

What does Women for Women International do?

Women for Women International describes its mission this way: Women for Women International provides women survivors of war, civil strife and other conflicts with the tools and resources to move from crisis and poverty to stability and self-sufficiency, thereby promoting viable civil societies.

Working with a partner or a group, go through the mission statement bit by bit and think about what it means. The first part of the mission statement identifies the “who.” Who are the people that Women for Women provides for? The second part identifies what the organization provides them with: tools and resources. And finally, what will be achieved by their doing it?

Thinking about the goal—standing on your feet—what might those tools and resources be? Find out by visiting the organization’s website: www.womenforwomen.org. Read about the program to launch “women on a journey from victim to survivor to active citizen.” As you did with the organization’s mission, parse this statement to think more closely about what it means. Use the following diagram to help you. Under each box, define the term, keeping in mind the context: Women for Women works with women in countries that have been
at war.

Victim ? Survivor ? Active Citizen

Then read on the website what each stage involves, and add the information to the diagram.

Now put the pieces together: What does Women for Women do that helps women stand on their feet? Finally, although the organization helps women, could men benefit from this process, too? Discuss with a partner your thoughts about that.

How has helping women stand on their feet affected Women for Women’s founder, Zainab Salbi?

In the interview in Saudi Aramco World, Zainab Salbi describes how the work at Women for Women changed her. What did Salbi learn about herself as she got to know the women she was working with? What surprised her?

How did Salbi’s work help her stand on her own feet? Read her comments closely. (It’s an amazing story!) Return to your journal and write about what Salbi learned. Then think about a time when you helped someone. Did doing so help you stand on your own feet—even in a small way?

Theme: Stereotypes

“America’s Arabian ‘Cuppa Joe’” provides a look at the way that stereotypical images and ideas about people from the Middle East have been used as a lure to sell coffee. Read the article, and use the activities that follow to explore the stereotypes and why they had the power to attract consumers.

What are stereotypes? Why do advertisers use them?

Define the term “stereotype.” To start, think about ads you have seen recently. What stereotypes do they use? For example, have you seen ads that show women who seem to be concerned most about how they look? Or ads that show men with bulging muscles? Find an example—from a magazine, YouTube, tv or elsewhere. Share it with the class. Then do the following:

• Describe in as much detail as you can how the person or group is represented in the ad.
• Tell what about it makes the representation a stereotype, and what about it might differ from what you consider a stereotype.
• Explain why you think this advertiser chose to use this stereotype in this way. What is it about the stereotype that might encourage someone to buy the product?

Now turn your attention to the stereotypes of Arabs and the Middle East that adorned coffee and coffee products in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Read “America’s Arabian ‘Cuppa Joe.’” As you do, highlight the descriptions of the Arab characters that appeared on coffee cans. Look closely at the images that accompany the article. List the characteristics of the stereotypes that were popular at the time. Then repeat the three exercises above, this time focusing on the images you’ve seen and read about in “America’s Arabian ‘Cuppa Joe.’” As a class, discuss your answers.

Notice as you read that the article gives some hints about why these images became popular when they did. Find those parts of the article, and supplement them with your own knowledge of American history to address this question: What was going on in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that made these images of Arabs appealing to Americans?

How might advertising sell products without using stereotypes?

Stereotypes seem to appeal to consumers. If they didn’t, advertisers wouldn’t use them. But are they necessary to sell things? To conclude your work on this theme, choose any product that you like, and try to make an advertisement for it that doesn’t use any stereotypes. (Keep in mind that, as “America’s Arabian ‘Cuppa Joe’” says, stereotypes can be expressed in words as well as images.) You can make your ad for any medium—print, the Internet, tv, radio. But whatever form your ad takes, remember that it has to appeal to people, to convince them that your product is worth buying. Share your ads with the class. How successful were you?

 

Visual Analysis

If you got all your information from the world of advertising, you might believe that all women were young, thin, smooth-skinned and dressed in style. “Caravan Leaders and Saharan Scholars” includes some photographs of women who don’t fit that stereotype at all, and whose faces reveal the beauty of a far different life.

Start with the portrait of Tahira mint Al-Khatabi. What do you notice about her face? What do her features suggest to you—about her age, where she might live, what her life might be like? How do her clothes contribute to your sense of her? And her expression?

Now consider the image as a photograph. What effects do the color and lighting have on your sense of her? Why do you think the photographer chose to show her in reddish light? She could, after all, have shown her in any light she wanted to. Yet she chose this for the photograph, and the magazine’s editors liked it enough to chose it to print large. To help you think about the answer, imagine different kinds of lighting, and imagine that her face is not half in shadow. What effects might different coloring and light have on your sense of the woman?

Finally, is this image stereotypical? How does it differ from images you might see in different magazines? Why do you think that the editors of Saudi Aramco World decided to include this photograph, and to use it at the beginning of the article?

For another example, look at the group of women at the top of page 10. Write a one-paragraph description of this photograph. Consider the people you see: Who do they seem to be? How are they dressed? What are they doing? Consider, too, the effect that the photo has on you as a viewer. What feelings does it evoke? What in the photo causes those feelings?

Getting back to stereotypes, how does the depiction of the women in this photograph contradict the stereotypical ways that women are frequently shown in magazines? Again, why do you think these photos are included? Add to your description of the photograph another paragraph in which you answer this question: What is the value of showing these women in ways that defy stereotypes?

 

JA10 Standards Alignment
McRel Standards

Sisterhood of Hope

Geography

Standard 6. Understands that culture and experience influence people's perceptions of places and regions

Standard 10. Understands the nature and complexity of Earth's cultural mosaics

Standard 11. Understands the patterns and networks of economic interdependence on Earth's surface  

Standard 13. Understands the forces of cooperation and conflict that shape the divisions of Earth's surface

Standard 16. Understands the changes that occur in the meaning, use, distribution and importance of resources

Caravan Leaders and Saharan Scholars

World History

Standard 19. Understands the maturation of an interregional system of communication, trade, and cultural exchange during a period of Chinese economic power and Islamic expansion

Standard  29. Understands the economic, political, and cultural interrelations among peoples of Africa, Europe, and the Americas between 1500 and 1750

Standard  31. Understands major global trends from 1450 to 1770

Standard  36. Understands patterns of global change in the era of Western military and economic dominance from 1800 to 1914  

Standard  37. Understand major global trends from 1750 to 1914

Standard  45. Understands major global trends since World War II

Geography

Standard 10. Understands the nature and complexity of Earth's cultural mosaics

Standard 11. Understands the patterns and networks of economic interdependence on Earth's surface  

Standard 16. Understands the changes that occur in the meaning, use, distribution and importance of resources

Night Sky Arabic

Geography

Standard 9. Understands the nature, distribution and migration of human populations on Earth's surface   

Standard 10. Understands the nature and complexity of Earth's cultural mosaics

World History

Standard 23. Understands patterns of crisis and recovery in Afro-Eurasia between 1300 and 1450

Standard 27. Understands how European society experienced political, economic, and cultural transformations in an age of global intercommunication between 1450 and 1750

Standard 29. Understands the economic, political, and cultural interrelations among peoples of Africa, Europe, and the Americas between 1500 and 1750

America’s Arabian “Cuppa Joe”

Geography

Standard 6. Understands that culture and experience influence people's perceptions of places and regions

Standard 10. Understands the nature and complexity of Earth's cultural mosaics

U.S. History

Standard 16. Understands how the rise of corporations, heavy industry, and mechanized farming transformed American society  

Standard 17. Understands massive immigration after 1870 and how new social patterns, conflicts, and ideas of national unity developed amid growing cultural diversity

The Rise and Fall of Alexandria

Geography

Standard 4. Understands the physical and human characteristics of place

Standard 9. Understands the nature, distribution and migration of human populations on Earth's surface

Standard 10. Understands the nature and complexity of Earth's cultural mosaics

Standard 11. Understands the patterns and networks of economic interdependence on Earth's surface   

Standard 12. Understands the patterns of human settlement and their causes

World History

Standard 13. Understands the causes and consequences of the development of Islamic civilization between the 7th and 10th centuries

Standard 23. Understands patterns of crisis and recovery in Afro-Eurasia between 1300 and 1450

Julie Weiss is an education consultant based in Eliot, Maine. She holds a Ph.D. in American studies. Her company, Unlimited Horizons, develops social studies, media literacy, and English as a Second Language curricula,and produces textbook materials.