Teaching in a time of war.

LaGuardia Community College (The City University of New York) is a New York City urban campus located in Queens about ten minutes by subway from Times Square. LaGuardia's logo says "The World's Community College" and this is more than just promotional: LaGuardia enrolls students from one hundred fifty countries, speaking a great variety of languages. Our international students are usually the first ones in their families to go to college (as are the American-born African American, Latino/a, and working-class white students), and often are from countries where the United States has interfered for political and economic reasons, such as Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Vietnam. Consequently, our students tend to be more open to analysis and criticism about The American Dream, the United States' control over the world, and the effects of United States' sponsored war on their own lives. This is not to say that LaGuardia does not have conservative students, but their life circumstances, as well as the experiences of their fellow students, make it easier to introduce and develop progressive political content than perhaps would be possible in a middle-class, predominantly white college or university.

LaGuardia Community College, at the same time, is on the cutting edge of progressive pedagogies and innovative technological experimentation. Our Center for Teaching and Learning (1) annually offers a year-long seminar called Designed for Learning, which I and many of my colleagues have taken during the past four years. In addition, I have participated in the Visible Knowledge Project (VKP) (2) for the past three years. With my interest in politicizing students, and my new knowledge of computer technology and internet possibilities, I asked myself the following questions in conjunction with my work for VKE These questions, although theoretical and for the purpose of helping me define my goals in VKE, have ended up informing my pedagogy and classroom politics for the last few years:

   What do students do when
   receiving a large body of new
   material that conflicts with their
   current values, class background,
   educational status, religion, and
   sexual orientation? How does the
   teacher present and encourage
   students to explore potentially
   threatening material that might
   require a reevaluation of student
   self-image or social/political position?
   How important can writing
   be to help students explore this
   new awareness? How valuable can
   electronic discussions be to help
   students understand that they are
   sharing intellectual and emotional
   conflicts common to many new
   students? How does the teacher
   maintain his or her own position
   on specific issues without unduly
   influencing the students as they
   come to their own conclusions?
   Where do students go to get
   information that will offer them
   an alternative view to what they
   already know or believe?

When the War on Iraq "broke out" in 2003 and then threatened to continue into perpetuity, I had the chance to join my ongoing interest in progressive teaching with my newfound interest and growing comfort with technology-enhanced pedagogy.

It is difficult, and perhaps even counterproductive, to teach about volatile political issues without a context. When I have done so in the past, I began to feel like a proselytizer, with student faces either uncomprehending or simply annoyed that I was straying from the lesson of the day. One way I have avoided this impasse is always to teach with a theme, no matter what the course is. (3)

My current Liberal Arts cluster at LaGuardia Community College readily lends itself to the subject of "Teaching in a Time of War." This cluster called "Truth, Lies, and Videotape" is part of the newly created Media Studies Program, with "Introduction to American Film" and "Media and Society" taught by two professors from the Humanities Department. In addition, the cluster includes my "Composition I" and "The Research Paper" components, which give me seven hours a week of instruction with these same students. I make it clear to my students in the cluster that, in addition to teaching them composition skills and research techniques, the goal of my two courses is also to balance out the powerful influence held by corporate media by presenting the challenges of alternative media. With this said, the students do not expect a "balanced" view but rather an additional view that they are not getting from their televisions or from newspaper headlines.

I have taught the "Truth, Lies and Videotape" cluster twice, first at the opening of the War on Iraq (Spring 2003) and then again last semester (Spring 2004). (4) The first time around in the cluster, as the war was beginning, I wanted students to see how alternative media was giving quite a different version of public response at the beginning of the war than was the mainstream media. I wanted to find out what students already knew and felt about the war, give them alternative media information, and then see how this additional information changed or altered their original writings on Blackboard threaded discussions. (5)

My first threaded discussion of the semester made connections between the war and the students' own educations which, quite frankly, I had not predicted. Here was the assignment:

   On Wednesday, LaGuardia is
   sponsoring CUNY Day, which
   will focus on trying to inform students
   about what is happening in
   the state of New York concerning
   higher education. As college students,
   this will be information
   you need to know as you continue
   your college career and try to
   understand the role that colleges
   play in this country. After hearing
   what is happening at CUNY
   Day, you will return to the
   computer lab, log onto
   Blackboard, and write at least
   one well-developed paragraph
   about what you heard and
   learned. Since we are now
   studying the theme of "class" in
   our Liberal Arts cluster, you
   might want to comment on
   how the CUNY Day discussions
   related to class, or even to
   "ethnicity" or "race," our previous
   two themes.

Fortunately for my class, a number of the CUNY Day facilitators were faculty union members who made numerous connections between the cost of war and the proposed tuition increases. Student responses to this first Blackboard threaded discussion showed the usefulness of war information related to daily and even academic life and contextualized the war on a very personal level. Here are two student responses:

   Also while attending CUNY Day
   I learned just how expensive this
   war of ours really is. I learned that
   the government could send the
   entire LaGuardia campus to
   school at the same price they pay
   for a bomb they drop in Iraq. This
   troubles me because it makes me
   wonder just how much my country
   cherishes me and every other
   ordinary Joe that these increases
   and cuts will effect.

   I think the main theme of CUNY
   Day is very important to everyone--money
   for education, not
   war. I come from Taiwan, so I
   know how the Taiwanese people
   think about the war. They are
   tired about media 24-7 reporting
   the war. They think it's not their
   business. However, after they
   found out that the Taiwanese
   government has to pay more than
   $4 million for the war, everyone
   started to be against the war. I
   think the American people
   should know the facts about how
   much it costs, too. Some
   Americans think everyone should
   follow Bush's lead and attack Iraq
   because the media teaches them
   to do so.

Such student responses represent the kind of personalized political connections I tried to make the foundation of my teaching about the war. As my students were fighting against tuition increases, and then also understanding the billions of dollars the Iraq War was beginning to cost, they truly were learning the cost of war.

The next Blackboard threaded discussion tried to open the students to the idea of alternative media and the differences in points of view about the war that it offered. Here is the assignment:

   In class on Friday, I will give you
   several issues of The Independent,
   an alternative news source from
   the New York City Independent
   Media Center. This alternative
   news source is also available at
   www.nyc.indymedia.org. After
   you have chosen your free copy,
   peruse it at your leisure and choose
   one article you really were attracted
   to and felt you learned something
   from. Try to post your discussion
   on  Blackboard over the
   weekend. In your threaded discussion,
   please write one well-developed
   paragraph and include the
   following: 1. the name of the article,
   in quotation marks; 2. the
   author of the piece; 3. a brief summary
   of the article; 4. why you
   chose the article: what stood out,
   what new ideas or information
   you get, etc.; and 5. do you think
   this article would appear in the
   mainstream media? Why or why
   not?

Although students chose articles from The Independent relating to a number of political issues, the majority of students chose to write about war articles and aspects of the war they were unfamiliar with. Here are some samples:

   In the article "12-year-old on
   War: What Did Us Kids Do To
   You?" by Charlotte Aldebron a
   12-yr. old girl gives a speech on
   why the war in Iraq is so wrong.
   She speaks from the point of
   view of different Iraqi children
   around her age who suffered
   through the first Gulf War. One
   thing that touched me about the
   article was that she was giving
   names of all these kids. It made me
   feel like I knew them. She talked
   about a little boy that lost his
   father, kids being injured because
   of bombs. It was sad. What caught
   my attention was the title. I really
   wanted to know what the little girl
   in the picture had said. This article
   will never be seen in mainstream
   media because it talks about the
   damage the U.S. caused in Iraq 12
   years ago and how it's all happening
   again.

   "Homeland Insecurity: INS Steps
   up Registrations & Roundups" by
   Eric Schwartz discusses the new
   requirements of males sixteen and
   over who are from 18 predominantly
   Muslim countries. These men
   must register with the INS or face
   imprisonment or deportation. The
   INS calls this requirement the
   "Special Registration Program."
   During the month of January there
   were 125 arrests nationwide of men
   who registered. The article also discusses
   the 1,000 Iranians that were
   arrested in Los Angeles on Dec. 16.
   It says the detainees, as young as sixteen,
   were strip searched and forced
   to put on jumpsuits without socks
   or underwear. The immigrants were
   then thrown in freezing cells without
   benches or blankets. The article
   also says some of the immigrants
   were hosed down and kicked. I
   chose this article because the title
   stood out. Usually I see "Homeland
   Security" not "Insecurity." Basically
   the entire article was new to me. I
   didn't know immigrants were now
   being required to register with the
   INS. Also I didn't know how many
   of these men were arrested and why.
   I don't think this article would
   appear in mainstream media
   because it speaks badly of one of the
   new steps the country is taking
   when it comes to Homeland
   Security.

These samples represent some very important aspects of the war that students did not know: how wars affect the young and how civil liberties at home are being violated, two ideas about the war completely unreported by the mainstream media at that time.

My next Blackboard assignment asked students to respond to only one article from the alternative press and to look more deeply at how war is presented and who benefits from this presentation.

   Read the article "The Press and
   the Myths of War" from the current
   issue of The Nation, an alternative
   media source we have
   looked at several times this semester.
   The article can also be found
   at www.thenation.com. I want
   you to relate this article to the title
   of our Liberal Arts Cluster--Truth,
   Lies and Videotape--by
   responding to the following questions:
   1. what does Chris Hedges
   say about war itself?. In other
   words, how does he define it? 2. in
   what ways does Hedges say the
   press makes war look good? 3.
   how and why does Hedges say
   journalists become participants in
   the war? and 4. what were the
   main ideas in this article that interested
   you?

   Here are some student responses:

   I agree with Hedges because right
   now with the war on Iraq, we are
   using billions of dollars to destroy
   and then we go back and use
   another billion dollars to build it
   up again.... He said that when it
   comes to war everyone gets
   involved, the military and the
   press. The press makes it look like
   it is a good thing but it is not
   always the case. War all has to do
   with betrayal, betrayal of the
   young by the old, of soldiers by
   politicians. I found it interesting
   that people do get betrayed when
   it comes to war.

   He says the truth about war is covered
   up by 'myths' that are told to
   us by the state, entertainment
   industry, and the press. The press is
   our primary source of the myths of
   war. The myths of war are stories
   that are told us to make war seem
   necessary or inevitable. Hedges
   explains that these myths are
   seductive and empower and ennoble
   us. He says the press turns war
   into entertainment and this is what
   gets so many people's attention.

   When watching the news, you
   don't get "all the footage or pictures
   you want to see. That is why I
   watch the Spanish news. There is
   less censorship in the Spanish news
   than the English news. When I
   watch the coverage of war on regular
   news, I feel like I'm watching a
   reality TV show.

Taken together, the student responses to Hedges' article revealed a range of understanding about the deceptive use of media to make war look good and provide entertainment, including the need to go to alternative, or even foreign, news services for a more complete picture. These increasingly sophisticated responses helped direct me to my next assignment on a very specific example of media cover up and manipulation, the Jessica Lynch rescue. Again, as in some of the previous Blackboard writing assignments, I wanted the students first to write about what they already knew and then to amend their thoughts in relationship to additional reading materials. Here is the assignment:

   One of the big news items that circulated
   in the media early in the
   Iraq War was the rescue of Private
   Jessica Lynch by the U. S. Army.
   Please write for a few minutes
   about what you know or heard
   about this rescue. After you have
   written for a few minutes, I will
   give you two articles about the
   Jessica Lynch rescue. Then please
   write again about what you now
   think about the rescue.

Following are some "after" student responses:

   It doesn't shock me that the whole
   incident was staged. The United
   States has been known to do things
   to take our people's attention away
   from what is really going on. They
   didn't want to seem like savages for
   killing innocent people in Iraq so
   they needed something to make
   them look good.

   Wow, the whole heroic rescue of
   the Jessica Lynch story would have
   amazed me if it had not been for
   this cluster. For starters, as an
   American when I got news of the
   captured POWs it was heart
   wrenching. The story I heard of
   how she was captured in combat,
   according to the media "it was
   something out of a movie," exactly.

By this stage of the semester there was little doubt among students that the media manipulates, exaggerates, and even purposefully lies in its role as spokesman for the military-industrial complex. The students achieved this awareness not from class discussion, not from any lecturing on my part, but from Blackboard assignments that asked them to write about what they already knew or felt about the War on Iraq, to read alternative media sources to give them a more balanced view, and then to put together their own responses as they came to appreciate that there is vast world of information outside of mainstream media.

My second time around teaching "Truth, Lies and Videotape" was Spring semester, 2004. The War on Iraq was raging, and I began the semester wanting to see where the students were with the war, how the media was shaping the war, and how I could help the students see it from a more balanced point of view.

First days are always hard, especially when they can be three hours long with the same students, as it was with the cluster (7 hours a week in all). So, after introducing the Liberal Arts cluster, I jumped right in with two alternative pieces of media about the war to see how the students would respond.

"Independent Media in a Time of War" (6) is a video of a lecture by Amy Goodman who talks about the need to challenge mainstream media in its presentation of the War on Iraq. The video opens with positive and supportive versions of the war from mainstream media and then goes on to alternate between these images and the images that would be necessary to present a balanced view of the war. Using CNN as an example, Goodman explains that CNN offers different war images to its domestic and its international audiences. Using the Marines' toppling of the statue of Saddam Hussein as an example, Goodman says that the domestic version of this event was simply the statue falling and rising over and over throughout the day. On the international version of CNN, a split screen showed on one half the falling statue, while the other half showed graphic pictures of the civilian victims of the war. When asked why both sets of images were not available for the American audiences, CNN said the war images were "distasteful."

Goodman, of course, makes the point that if these war images of the victims were shown on a daily basis, American attitudes about the war might be redirected. Instead, Goodman says, Americans see video war games, presented by embedded reporters and analyzed by retired generals. As an alternative, she suggests mainstream news services put on their payrolls not only retired generals but also doctors (to describe the effects of the bombs) and peace activists (to show opposition to the war). Without these changes, a balanced view is impossible. To show the one-sidedness of TV news, Goodman says that in the week before and after the war started, CBS, NBC, ABC, and PBS conducted 393 interviews which were pro-war and only three interviews that were anti-war. She says this type of coverage must be challenged. She goes on to describe the Pentagon's attack and killing of fourteen journalists at the Palestine Hotel, how the mainstream media did not respond to these attacks, and how the increasing concentration of media ownership can only produce bias and censorship.

The second video was "Military Myths: Roots," (7) a series of interviews with veterans and recruiters that divides aspects of the military into nine categories: recruitment, education, media, psychology, racism, sexism, sexual orientation, coming home, and alternatives. Veterans from both Vietnam and the Persian Gulf War speak about the promises and disappointments that the military gave them. Veterans of color and working class women and men represent the minorities and the poor who end up in the military and do most of the fighting. Each category about the military gives statistics that enhance how the military's promises of education, equality, and career advancement are not fulfilled.

Although I was waiting for the Blackboard assignment to give my students a fuller opportunity to respond to these two powerful videos, I did have time after each to ask what they learned that was new from these alternative sources on war. In general, students were surprised and shocked by graphic images of war victims in "Independent Media in a Time of War" that they had not previously seen, stunned by the control the media has over the war, and angered that they were only now finding out about these versions of the war. In some way "Military Myths" hit even closer to home since so many of my students have friends and family in the military, have themselves been in the military, or are thinking about enlisting. One student, however, found the video biased because her friend in the military had had a more positive experience. I agreed immediately that the video was biased against the military, but then asked the student if a 28 minute video by the military about recruitment would have been biased. She said "no," and I realized that we needed a serious discussion of such words as "bias" and "propaganda" and how all media products have a point of view. We returned to this discussion throughout the semester.

After this opening discussion following the viewing of the two videos, the written responses which took place over the next two days were additionally rich with insightful responses to what they had learned about the war. Here is the assignment:

   On our first day of
   class in our "Truth,
   Lies, and Videotape"
   Liberal Arts cluster, we
   viewed two videos:
   "Independent Media in
   a Time of War" and
   "Military Myths:
   Roots." Each video
   tries to show how
   mainstream media creates
   a certain image of
   the military and war
   and how alternative
   views of these images
   are necessary in order
   for the viewer to receive
   a balanced view. Please
   write a paragraph about
   what you learned by
   viewing these videos
   that you did not know
   before. Also write a second
   paragraph about
   why you feel you did
   not know these things.

And here are some student responses:

   In the "Independent
   Media in a Time of
   War" video I saw a lot
   of disturbing imagery,
   and a huge difference in the way
   the media presents war to
   Americans and the way war is presented
   in other countries. In this
   video Amy Goodman spoke out
   against the war and how journalists
   and the American media portray
   war. For example, in one part
   of the tape they showed what
   CNN showed the day Saddam
   Hussein's statue was ripped down,
   which was the statue being torn
   down by U.S. marines. Then they
   showed what CNN International
   showed, which was a split screen
   with the image of the statue being
   taken down, and several gruesome
   pictures of some of the innocent
   casualties of war on the other side
   of the screen. The fact that both of
   these reports were from the same
   news company, CNN, shows how
   the media is controlled and is
   sugar-coated here in America, as
   opposed to elsewhere in the world.
   They also talked about how 19
   journalists died reporting on the
   Iraqi War. As an aspiring journalist
   all of this bothered me. I feel that
   Americans have the right to know
   what is happening from all perspectives,
   not just the American
   perspective. It is obvious that the
   reason that the media chooses not
   to show certain things is because it
   is their way of manipulating
   American society, and keeping
   people pro-war.

   Since I spent a large part
   of my youth on military
   bases, I felt that I would
   be more informed than
   I was. I had no idea that
   recruiters were allowed
   to lie, that women were
   being raped, and poor
   neighborhoods were
   being exploited. I did
   not know how insufficient
   the protection
   from chemical or biological
   weapons for soldiers
   was. I thought that
   if we could afford
   sophisticated weaponry,
   then of course we would
   have sophisticated protection.
   I was also surprised
   to learn about the
   lack of psychological
   counseling. I remember
   on the CD a man saying
   that soldiers are returned
   to society after just two
   weeks of counseling. To
   think that our country is
   just putting people back
   into society after they
   served in a war without
   extensive counseling is
   shocking and cruel.
   Outside of certain circumstances,
   ordinary
   people cannot understand
   what it is like to
   have the responsibility
   of taking a human life,
   right or wrong. It must be crushing.
   The reason this information
   would be hidden is obvious to
   everyone. You cannot allow people
   to find out about the inequality a
   soldier suffers, or anyone for that
   matter, and expect to maintain the
   status quo. People will demand
   change. So if you block that information,
   and people remain uninformed, then it is easier
   to control the situation.

   I was unaware that
   retired generals were
   on the payrolls of
   news broadcasts such
   as CNN and
   MSNBC to give a
   one sided story on
   military strategic
   positioning, advancements,
   casualties, reasons,
   and goals. I was
   also unaware that the
   government had control
   of nearly fourteen
   hundred of our
   nation's informative
   radio stations and that the head of
   the FCC was the son of Secretary
   of Defense Colin Powell. I had no
   knowledge of a major protest
   against the war in Iraq, or when
   the protest took place, or the magnitude
   of the protest. I believe we
   weren't given a mainstream review
   of these subjects because it would
   break a barrier of control that the
   government has over general public
   opinion. The nation's opinion on
   global current affairs originates
   mostly from television and radio.
   The government is aware that television
   and radio is a powerful tool
   and will push their influences to
   benefit their ideas to the mass
   majority that are not as informed
   as others.

I offer these extensive student responses to "Independent Media in a Time of War" and "Military Myths" to show how desperately students want information about the war and how useful specific data and statistics can be for helping them develop their writing on this very important topic. The students were connecting these videos to their own lives: the journalism student was disturbed by the death of journalists reporting the Iraq War in "Independent Media" and the "army brat" student was amazed that she had spent so much time around the military without knowing any of the statistics and data from "Military Myths." And considering that these videos and this student writing were occurring during the first week of the semester, I felt free to move ahead more quickly than in the previous semester and give students more alternative media, and particularly alternative websites, from which to view the war.

When possible, I tried to relate antiwar work going on in New York City with our class work. On the first anniversary of the Iraq War, March 20, 2004, I went to the Global Day of Action march and rally (as it turned out some of my students had attended as well) and brought into class the next day mainstream news coverage of the event. The New York Times covered the march on page 14, and that was only the march in Rome, Italy. To compare, we went to the website of one of the organizers of the march, United for Peace and Justice (www.unitedforpeace.org), to find that over 575 protests around the globe involving over two million people marked the first anniversary of the Iraq War with a massive Global Day of Action against War and Occupation. This dramatic contrast of the media treatment of March 20 did not go unnoticed by my students.

To help the students put all this into writing, I designed the following assignment using the External Links component of Blackboard:

Message from a Peace Marcher

   On Saturday, March 20, hundreds
   of thousands of citizens from the
   United States and the
   world participated in
   protest marches
   against the Iraq War.
   Pretend that you were
   on one of those
   marches and explain
   what made you
   decide to protest
   against the Iraq War.
   Submit your message.
   Next, go to External
   Links and check out
   the websites about
   the war. After studying
   the websites,
   modify your message
   and elaborate on why
   you chose to join the
   marchers.

The three websites I asked students to study for this writing assignment were the following:

* Cost of War (http://www.costofwar. com) shows the ongoing cost of the Iraq War and how the money could be used for social needs;

* Iraq Body Count (http://www.iraq bodycount.net/) keeps track of the number of Iraqis killed or wounded in the war; and

* Win Without War (http://www.winwithoutwarus.org/html/new.html# censure) advocates alternatives to preemptive war against Iraq.

Students clicking on to Cost of War gasped as they saw how the thousands of dollars of war money flew by each second. Some students said "shit" and "damn" as the website showed how this money could be spent on such domestic and international needs as preschool, kids' health, public education, college scholarships, public housing, world hunger, the AIDS epidemic, and world immunization. Let's see how these websites helped them write their "Message from a Peace Marcher" Blackboard assignment:

   I attended the anti-war march on
   Saturday March 20 as a means of
   expressing my views on the Iraqi
   war. For a year now this SENSELESS
   and PURPOSELESS act of
   violence has been allowed to continue
   and as a concerned citizen it's
   time for a change. This march is
   one of the most meaningful forms
   of protest since those of the Civil
   Rights Movement. We all know
   there's no definite evidence linking
   Iraq to the 9/11 tragedy; their possession
   of weapons of mass destruction
   and nuclear gases is false. This
   now poses the question "What is
   the purpose of the Iraqi war?" Let
   me enlighten you on the impact of
   this senseless war. As of November
   11, 396 American soldiers have
   been killed in Iraq, over 2,200 have
   been wounded and there are an
   average of 35 attacks daily on
   Americans. This war endangers our
   nation and security by creating
   enemies rather than alliances. In
   Iraq the American soldiers are
   unprepared and vulnerable, the
   country degenerating into chaos
   and the Iraqi people embittered
   and hostile. One of the most
   shocking pieces of hidden information
   was the cost of the war. The
   war costs over billions of dollars
   and STILL growing. This money
   could be used to send 50,000 people
   to college, improve public education
   and its facilities and public
   housing. Each household,
   unknowingly, gives $1,529 to fund
   the stupid war. The only results of
   this war are fear, insecurities,
   deaths, anger and hate. 'We don't
   do body counts' says US Central
   Command on the Iraq Body
   Count website--of course not,
   there's too many to be counted
   especially of the Iraqi people.

   I wanted to be a part of the march
   on Saturday because I think this
   war in Iraq is pointless. There are a
   lot of young innocent soldiers
   dying for nothing. American casualties
   in Iraq are increasing daily
   and President Bush never attended
   a single funeral or memorial for
   soldiers killed in Iraq. I don't think
   he even cares about his people.
   And also why use the United
   States money to kill other human
   beings. Right now the cost of war
   in Iraq is $107,574,680,000 and is
   still counting up fast. You know
   how many people you could help
   with that much money? If there
   wasn't a war, where do you think
   that money goes? We could use
   extra millions for pre-schools, kids'
   health, public education, college
   scholarships, and public housing. I
   think Bush planned this before he
   became a president, to finish off
   his father's unfinished business
   with Saddam Hussein. He did it
   for their own good, not for us.
   Two of my brothers are going to
   the army and I wouldn't want
   them going to that stupid war. You
   know what? We should send Bush
   to one of the combats in Iraq and
   make him realize how unnecessary
   this war is. To the fallen soldiers
   "R.I.P."

From these two student samples, it was clear to me how much more detailed and convincing their writing about the war could be if given some of the contemporary, fast-paced, and clever websites designed since the Iraq War began. As I pursued these anti-war website assignments throughout the semester, I wanted to be sure that students' knowledge of alternative media was both entertaining and could be carried home with them after the semester ended. To that end, I gave two final Blackboard writing assignments. One was the following:

   In your Blackboard discussions,
   many of you have commented on
   the control and power mainstream
   media has over us. In my responses
   to you, I have agreed with you but
   also suggested that there are
   numerous sources of information
   from alternative media. For this
   Blackboard assignment, take a
   look at the External Links, numbers
   6 through 10. You will need
   your sound on to enjoy these.
   First, take a look at all five of the
   websites and choose the one you
   like the best. In your Blackboard
   response, specify which website is
   your favorite and, most importantly,
   why you chose to write about it.

By clicking on External Links, students found the following five websites:

* Dishonest Dubya (http://www.kai curry. com/gwbush/dishonestdubya, html)

* The Lord of the Right Wing (http://flash.bushrecall.org/)

* (Same-sex marriage (http://www. markfiore.com/animation/agenda. html)

* The last presidential election (http://www.ericblumrich.comlgta. html)

* Our history of association with the Iraqi government (http://bushflash. com/thanks.html)

The following student responses to these five websites show the range of information the sites gave and the creative understanding students took from them.

   First of all I got to say that all the
   websites that I saw were really
   good and now that I saw them I
   have different opinions about
   Bush and politics. The first cartoon
   I saw about Bush pissed me
   off because he is one big liar and
   to think I wanted to vote for him
   (please let's get him out of the
   office NOW). Then that other one
   about Florida's voters being felons.
   I mean that is just very low and
   stupid so does that mean we do
   not count. And the last and the
   one I liked the most was the last
   one about how we helped Iraq get
   weapons of mass destruction and
   yet the U.S. got surprised when
   Iraq attacked Kuwait.

   Well, after reviewing the sites I
   chose the anti-samesex marriage
   cartoon site because as a homosexual
   male this topic may eventually
   become an issue in my life, if
   somewhere down the road I meet
   the right person and want to get
   married. I would most definitely
   want all of the rights that opposite
   sex marriage unions get. Honestly,
   at this point in my life marriage is
   the last thing on my mind, and
   I'm not necessarily sure that I'd
   even want to get married, but I
   think that for those people who do
   want to get married, they should
   have every right that straight people
   do. Isn't this the country where
   everyone is supposed to be equal? I
   think what the cartoon was trying
   to convey is that same sex couples
   are just as normal as straight couples.
   That's why they show the two
   males at breakfast eating at the
   table, with the "Home Sweet
   Home" poster and the couple's
   portrait. I (and every other human
   being gay or straight or bisexual)
   should be entitled to the union of
   marriage.

As with previous student responses, these two students were enlivened by the websites: one wrote with genuine anger about the disenfranchisement of Florida voters in the last election and the connection of the United States with Iraq and weapons of mass destruction; the second "came out" as a gay student.

My goal throughout any semester of the "Truth, Lies and Videotape" Liberal Arts cluster is not only to help students build composition skills and research techniques but also to help students understand themselves and their world better by becoming more media literate, especially alternative media literate, and for the last two semesters, war literate.

Let me conclude by returning to the series of questions I posed at the beginning of this essay. LaGuardia Community College students, and I suspect all students, want to know the truth about their world, its power relationships, and its oppressions, especially if these realities so directly affect the students' lives as in a time of war. Over my years of teaching, my need to politicize students increasingly has grown, but my desire to directly confront students with threatening material has diminished. Instead, as a language teacher and specifically a writing teacher, I allow the printed material of the alternative press or the controversial website to convey my message against war. The new technologies of the internet and such interactive methods of writing as Blackboard threaded discussions provide the excitement that helps keep students engaged. My role is to provide antiwar materials, create appropriate and hopefully creative and stimulating assignments, and let students work through their new ideas through writing. I am by no means removed from the classroom, but I am learning to allow my role as a writing teacher and a media teacher to introduce and develop progressive political content.

NOTES

(1) LaGuardia Community College's Designed for Learning website is http://faculty.lagcc.cuny.edu/ctl/df l/default.htm.

(2) For more information on VKP, see Larry Hanley's "Educational Technology and Academic Labor in Radical Teacher No. 63. Also see VKP's website at http.//crossroads.georgetown.edu/v kp/about/.

(3) In Basic Writing courses, I have centered a theme around the quilts of Faith Ringgold and the political activities her quilts represent (see RT # 64, Fall 2002, 44-45). I prefer teaching Composition courses within LaGuardia's Liberal Arts clusters, learning communities with theme centered interdisciplinary marriages of four courses, two of which are always Composition I and The Research Paper.

(4) Had these two semesters not been taught during "A Time of War," I would have taught my usual focus in the cluster centered on the themes of ethnicity, class, gender and race as compared and contrasted over a kind of "Then and Now" hundred years difference in the United States as revealed in E. L. Doctorow's novel Ragtime ("Then") and Virginia Cyrus's anthology Experiencing Race, Class and Gender in the United States ("Now"). How media helped to shape these four themes, both "Then and Now," is of crucial importance to the cluster. With the addition of "Teaching in a Time of War," I taught the same material, if perhaps in less time, and added the ways that the Iraq War related to the themes of ethnicity, class, gender and race, and the ways mainstream media distorted the war and alternative media exposed it.

(5) Blackboard is an educational computer technology on which all components of any course can be posted. So far, the only parts of Blackboard that I use are the Announcements, Discussion, and External Links sections. I post assignments on the Discussion Board, students write responses, and then I can respond to each student and students can respond to each other.

(6) "Independent Media in a Time of War" is produced by Hudson Mohawk Independent Media Center (www.indymedia. org). For more information, all 1-212-431-9090 or visit www.democracynow.org.

(7) "Military Myths: Roots" (28 minutes) can be ordered from The War Resisters League (www.warresistersleague. org).