An Ocean of Paper Teacher Workshop at SQCC

On Saturday 22 June, teachers from across the DMV participated in a teacher workshop titled “Sailing an Ocean of Paper: Teaching Indian Ocean Economic and Social History.” Dr. Susan Douglass, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University, started the workshop with her presentation “Trading, Merchants, Goods, and Means of Travel over Time in the Indian Ocean.” In this interactive presentation, participants learned how to incorporate primary and secondary source material found on the Indian Ocean in World History website (www.indianoceanhistory.org) in to their classrooms. After a quick coffee break, Dr. Fahad Bishara, University of Virginia, gave a fascinating lecture on the origins of the An Ocean of Paper project via skype. In his presentation, Dr. Bishara discussed the interconnected nature of the Indian Ocean economic system and the debt transaction records (waraqat) that recorded these relationships. The workshop concluded with a presentation by Dr. Harrison Guthorn, SQCC, titled “An Ocean of Paper in the Classroom.” In his presentation, Dr. Guthorn walked the teachers through the new An Ocean of Paper database and discussed how best to incorporate these 19th century debt transaction records in to social studies classes. Participants worked through an example lesson plan and answered questions on the details of a curated collection of translated records.