Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra features stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework, or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write an 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: Bombings Renew Fear of War in Algeria, 04/16/07
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june07/algeria_4-16.html

Initiating Questions:

1. Where is Algeria? Can you find it on a world map?

2. What is terrorism?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. Why is Algeria in the news right now?

Last week, bombers killed 33 people and wounded several hundred more in three separate suicide attacks in Algiers, the capital.

The first in the coordinated attacks targeted the office of the country's prime minister, who survived the blast. The other two attacks took place at a suburban police station.

2. Who claimed responsibility for the attacks? Why is this group significant?

An Algerian insurgent group that changed its name in January from the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) to al-Qaida Organization in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility for the attacks in Internet postings.

The group had been part of a bloody civil war against the country's secular government in the 1990s that killed over 200,000 people.

3. When and why did civil war erupt in Algeria?

The civil war erupted after an Islamist political party was denied victory in a 1992 election. The vote was annulled by the country's secular government, with the backing of the military, but supporters of the Islamic party went underground and began fighting the government.

The insurgency began a campaign of violence that included bombings, assassinations and massacres by both the Islamic radicals and government forces, according to human rights groups.

4. Why are last week's attacks significant? What might happen now?

But last week's attacks are the most severe since 2002 and have regional experts worrying that they will upset the delicate balance of power between the military and the civilian government.

"Politically I think the greatest danger is that this is going to set back the process of transformation and reforming the country," analyst Marina Ottaway of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace told Voice of America.

"President Bouteflika has made considerable progress in the last few years in wrestling power from the military and putting it back in the hands of the civilian government. Of course, any return to terrorism, essentially, and to violence, is going to enhance the role of the military again."

5. How did Algeria's struggle for independence begin?

Algeria had been a "department" of France since it conquered the country from the Turkish Ottoman Empire in 1830.

But by 1954 the struggle for independence from colonial rule began under the leadership of the guerrilla group, National Liberation Front (FLN), who justified the use of violence to gain political independence.

6. How many people were killed during Algeria's struggle for independence? When did France grant Algeria independence?

It is estimated that between 700,000 and 1 million people died in the struggle for independence, which ended with France declaring Algeria an independent nation on July 3, 1962.

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. Throughout Algeria's struggle for independence and later civil war leaders on both sides justified the use of violence for political gains. What is the origin of such political thoughts? What do you think? When, if ever, is violence for political change justifiable? Explain your reasoning.

2. Research the country of Algeria. What made it desirable for colonial rule by France? What resources does it have? In addition to this recent violence what problems does the current government face in terms of social issues and development?

3. Who are the Berbers in Algeria? What political goals do they have? What have they achieved? What role do they play in Algerian society?

Write a 300-500 word essay on any of these topics providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra (extra@newshour.org). Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.