Chapter 6: “Anyone Can Learn”: Balancing Assessment, Feedback, and Experimentation

Down the hall from Chris Bond's classroom at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North, Laura Bond is also using a project with her American studies class. This experience, though, is not set in 18th century Europe, but is instead drawn from contemporary issues. More to the point, it is harrowingly familiar to many modern Americans. Students are given a document titled “NSA Memo #986640,” with the large heading, “CHINOOK #67 & #34 DOWN … CRISIS IN HOMS, SYRIA.” What follows is a briefing that is chilling: two American Chinook helicopters were shot down by rocket-propelled grenades fired by “Al Hamza” terrorists (a fictional group, which in the scenario is allied with al-Qaeda). A video has appeared on YouTube, showing an American serviceman who has been taken captive by Al Hamza; the group demands the “withdrawal of U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan and an immediate cessation of drone strikes on sovereign nations,” and if their demands are not met, the serviceman will be executed.