This Teacher Used The "American Chopper" Meme To Teach A Class On Islamic Studies And It Went Great
"The chopper meme was sort of the logical conclusion."
Matthew Chovanec is a teacher at the University of Texas, where one of his classes is about the rhetoric of Islam in the US.
Last week he gave his students their first quiz on Sadakat Kadri's history of Sharia law. The subject can be pretty dense, especially for students with no background in Islamic terminology, Chovanec told BuzzFeed News. He knew his students were "stressed" about the test.
"So the chopper meme was sort of the logical conclusion," Chovanec said.
"I sort of dramatically started handing out the page, and the students would laugh as they got it," he said.
The results were pretty impressive.
"Get TF out of Syria."
Chovanec said he could barely grade the papers because he was "laughing so hard."
Chovanec's tweet went viral and people loved his idea.
Today I quizzed my students on Sadakat Kadri's history of Shari'a law by having them fill out the American Choppers meme by using one of the theological debates from the history of Islam jurisprudence. Needless to say, they all got A's https://t.co/SopTyq1kg0
They said it was incredibly pure.
Many people just wanted more.
Other teachers said they'd tried the same thing with their students.
He said the reaction to his lesson plan had been "really nice," with lots of teachers getting in touch to say they'd try something similar — or sharing examples of when they had.
"We actually use a lot of social media to track conversations about things like 'Shari'a' and the debates about wearing headscarves," he said.
"People used to give me a hard time about my many attempts to wed Middle Eastern Studies and social media," Chovanec said. "So personally I'm feeling a little vindicated this week."
Chovanec said when he first told his class they were "famous," they were all pretty confused. "Then I pulled up the tweet on the screen and they were like, 'Damn Mr. Chovanec, nice ratio.'"
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Rose Troup Buchanan is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in London.
Contact Rose Troup Buchanan at Rose.Buchanan@BuzzFeed.com.
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