When it comes to studying religious identity, many students harbor the major misconception that all members of a particular religious tradition believe the same thing. Of course, this couldn’t be further from the truth: religious traditions are internally diverse, full of both agreement and disagreement, much like any other group of people. Too often, however, our approaches in the classroom fail to capture this understanding, instead resorting to models that treats religious identity as a discrete entity that can be defined by a list of beliefs and practices, thereby compounding the problem.
Not surprisingly, this challenge is particularly acute when it comes to Muslim religious identity. Few of my students encounter Muslims in their day-to-day lives with any assemblance of regularity, which means they are given few opportunities to pluralize their understanding of what Muslims believe, think, and value. All the more so for Muslim women. I have had some success in challenging this idea of a religious monolith in the classroom using a speed dating activity of sorts to begin a unit on gender, sexuality, and Muslim identity. Pairs of students are each asked to read a short essay by a different female Muslim scholar, where they are then asked to “assume” her identity in class as they “meet” each other. When selecting texts, I have found Edward Curtis’s edited volume, titled The Columbia Sourcebook of Muslims in the United States, to be particularly useful, in large part because the included texts represent a wide range of perspectives. In the past, I have assigned the following from the aforementioned text:
At the start of class, I first have students meet in pairs to discuss the text they both read. Specifically, I have them consider the following question: what are three things that your author values/cares about? I encourage them to be concrete. The more specific that can be, the more successful the speed activity will be. After about ten minutes, I bring the students back together as a group and tell them that they are about to get the chance to “meet” a number of other Muslim women. They will have four minutes per date, where they will have the chance to introduce “themselves” and explain what it is that they care about. In order to aid in the organization of their thinking, I distribute a chart that allows them to record the name of their "date", who they are/what they do, things that they are about, and whether or not you think you’d get along. Logistically, I find it easiest to set up the speed dating in stations. Because two students have read each essay, one will remain at their station while the other will rotate, thus ensuring smooth transitions from date to date. Once the rules are clear, I have the students make the initial rotation and the dates begin. I time the activity, noting when two minutes have passed so they have time to switch. After four minutes, they move onto the next pair, and so on until they’ve “met” each person. I find four dates is usually sufficient to get the gist of the activity. Once all their dates are finished, I have the students do a bit of writing, asking them to identify one other woman with whom they think their author would get along and explain why. They write for 5-10 minutes, after which a discussion ensues. Due to fact that each student has essentially repeated the same stump speech for each date, they have a pretty good idea of what their author values, which offers a useful foundation for them to consider how their author might feel about the other individuals under consideration. Students are often quick to note internal disagreements about the hijab, common tensions between Muslims and western (white) feminists, and a general concern about restoring agency to Muslim women. The resulting understandings then are more concerned with teasing out the various issues with which Muslim women are concerned than they are in highlighting a litany of beliefs. I would argue that this approach is not only more sophisticated, better preparing students to tackle real issues that intersect with religious identity, but is also more engaging for the students.
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AuthorKurt Prescott is a Humanities Instructor at Maret School in Washington, D.C. Archives
November 2020
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