Introduction
This assignment, a group project, asks your group to do some research via web based news databases to enlighten the class on some moments in Iranian history and provide some background to the discussion on Persepolis and The Hidden Half.

Due Date
On Thursday, February 3 in class discussion at 1:00 p.m. Turn in presentation notes, process summary, and bibliography for each group at end of class.

NCC Competencies
Critical thinking, global perspective, group interaction, strategic problem solving, IT

Objectives
Newspapers are sometimes said to be the first draft of history. For this project, your group will figure out the best way to use online news databases to find historical data. Your group will find facts about Iran to construct a history which will give us some background for the discussion about Persepolis and The Hidden Half, two texts in which most of the action takes place around the 1979 Revolution.

Process
Each group will be assigned a time period and a set of corresponding keywords.

Part 1
Use Pro-Quest Historical Newspapers to see what you can find in the contemporaneous news reports. Keep in mind that the only newspapers Pro-Quest has a historical database for are three major American Dailies. This will have some effect on the coverage these events receive. Experiment with different combinations of keywords and news sources to see which produce the best results. What are the connections between the keywords? From these news reports:

• What kind of narrative can you construct about the way they fit together?
• What are the social relations like within Persia/Iran?
• What is Iran/Persia's relationship with its neighbors? With the rest of the world?
• What is the relative importance given to each of these keywords, dates or events?

Keep track of your citations in your EndNote database!

Part 2
Next, you will look at more recent accounts of these periods. Lexis/Nexis is, among other things, a good source for recent (since about 1977) news reports. Here you will be looking for the way that these histories have been re-told in more recent times. In some cases, your period may correspond more closely to the data in Lexis/Nexis (e.g. if you are working on period 3 or 4.) In this case, just try to uncover as broad a range of stories as possible.

Unless you have a specific research goal, you should always do a GUIDED NEWS SEARCH in Lexus/Nexus and select it for ALL AVAILABLE DATES. If this produces too many citations, you can narrow your search by specific date ranges. Again, you should experiment with using different document types, news sources (use non-western sources if possible, especially if you're in the later groups) and keywords to see which works best and what kind of data each combination produces.

You should also use some of the other news and journal databases within Pro-Quest to look up some of your data, experimenting to find the most fruitful results In looking at these later reports, you will ask the same questions as you did with the earlier ones, but should also note if there is any change to the relationship these later reports give between the keywords or the relative weight each is given in the re-telling of Iranian history. If you manage to find Non-American or Non-Western accounts, do these differ in any of the above ways?

It is also okay to look at other online or print resources to give you ideas for what kind of news searches you could do, other pertinent keywords, etc., but all of the data presented in class should be culled from news sources listed in Lexis/Nexis or Pro-Quest and you need to provide documentation (i.e. a citation) for each piece of data you present. Don't forget to add your citations to your EndNote library.

Part 3
After you have done this, skim through Persepolis to see if any of the historical events, people or other keywords figure at all into the story. Make note of these moments and try to center part of your presentation around how understanding the history behind these moments helps you to better understand the text. If it is possible, take careful notes on the movie and try to do the same for The Hidden Half.

Components
In this assignment you will:

• Facilitate a portion of the discussion of Persepolis and The Hidden Half and contribute your knowledge of Iranian history to the seminar.
• Provide a copy of your group's presentation notes, complete with citations and bibliography to your seminar leader after class. You must have a minimum of four citations for each member in the group.
• Provide a written summary of the process you went through to find the information you did-including problems you encountered and how you resolved them.

Evaluation
The project will be evaluated on how well you/your group:

• Illustrates your ability to research and synthesize information.
• Proves your ability to follow detailed instructions.
• Effectively - and critically - utilizes powerful computerized research tools.