What We Do

The exercises proposed in the “write” section of each lesson plan were designed by a specialist in collegiate Composition and Rhetoric courses who currently teaches at Santa Clara University. They can be used as one of the regular composition projects assigned within a syllabus where the emphasis is placed on working in multiple genres in response to rhetorical needs. Without modification, it would probably best fit into a two-week assignment sequence where the first week is devoted to student research, both in terms of choosing the architect about whom they wish to write and in terms of researching the issue in accordance with the lesson plan, and where the second week is devoted to the composition/revision process. It is suggested that instructors who wish to use Architects of Peace as a class project develop their own assignment sheet, specifying such items as due dates and required length of papers in accordance with an appropriate level of rigor for the individual course.

Twenty eight of the seventy-four portraits included in the original volume of Architects of Peace were of women, ranging from women heads of state to feminist activists. While to some this ratio, slightly better than one-in-three, might represent progress given that issues of war and peace have traditionally been considered a male domain, to others it could indicate that gender equality still has a long way to go in the world arena. Bella Abzug’s essay in this volume states that, “…men support our quest for quality on the more narrowly defined women’s issues but seem much less willing to examine critically the premises of society and governmental decisions in the same way that women are unafraid to do.” How might women examine the premises of society differently than men? Class projects and individual research can be structured around the question of whether women tend to approach the peacemaking process differently than men. Is there any evidence that women heads of state tend to go to greater lengths to avoid war than men in similar positions of leadership?

Seven former heads of states were included in the original publication of Architects of Peace. They are: Benazir Bhutto, former prime minister of Pakistan, the first woman to head the government of an Islamic state; Jimmy Carter, thirty-ninth president of the United States of America; F.W. de Klerk of South Africa, who lifted the ban on the African National Congress; Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the Soviet Union who introduced the reforms of glasnost; Shimon Peres, former prime minister of Israel; Margaret Thatcher, prime minister of the United Kingdom and Europe’s first woman prime minister; and Lech Walesa, Poland’s first noncommunist president after 40 years of communist rule. While each of these former leaders met with considerable success in terms of their ability to influence social policy, they all met with formidable opposition from within their own governments in terms of their political agendas. Divide the class up into seven teams, and assign each team the task of researching the political frustrations encountered by each of these former heads of state, focusing especially on international relations and efforts to build enduring peace. After each team has submitted its report to the rest of the class, identify points of convergence in the findings, and draw conclusions about top-down introduction of change in political systems.