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Student Reporting

In fall 2018, Brannon Ingram and Elizabeth Shakman Hurd co-taught a “Reporting Islam” course at Northwestern University. It brought together Medill School of Journalism and Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences students with an interest in Islam and Muslims in the United States, U.S. foreign policy, and the politics and practices of reporting on those topics.

reporting-islam.pngThrough a combination of readings, site visits, individual and group projects, and critical writing assignments, the goals of this course were to:

  • Empower students to recognize the pitfalls of how Islam and Muslims are reported and represented in U.S. print media and other formats
  • Innovate new ways of writing about Islam and Muslims that do not replicate the Islamophobic or Islamophilic tropes that dominate much of this reporting.

Student Essays

Avery Van Etten – “Learning at the Muslim Community Center”

Rishika Dugyala – “Downtown Islamic Center hopes expand past ‘pray station’ role, draw young Muslims”

Will Fischer  – “The Trauma of Transition: Adjusting to American life weighs differently on two Iraqi refugee siblings”

Caity Henderson – “Muslim community organization on cutting edge of hunger prevention”

Elisabeth Phillips – “Nothing to Prove, Nothing to Hide”

Hannah Brown – “Community finding their faith at the Morton Grove Muslim Community center”