TEACHER’S GUIDE, CONTEXT LESSON PLAN AND
EPISODE DISCUSSION GUIDE
ABOUT THE EPISODE
Rebel Music: Turkey is one episode of a six-part documentary series that explores the lives of young
people who are using their art and music to ignite social and political change around the world. Rebel
Music: Turkey highlights musicians, photographers, journalists, and students who are using their craft,
voice and art to transform their communities and politics in their country. Gökhan Biçici is a well-respected
independent journalist living in Istanbul who was brutally attacked by police officers during the Gezi Park
protests in 2013. In spite of the many threats leveled against him, Gökhan continues to work hard for
journalistic freedom. He has committed himself to training young journalists to take up the fight and tell
the truth through media. Kazım Kızıl is a rising filmmaker and activist who uses his camera and tape
recorder to document protests and atrocities that are happening throughout Turkey. Kazım does so in
the face of violence and threats from those who stand to lose if his stories make it out into the world.
Tahribad-ı İsyan are a hip-hop group made up of Kurdish and Romani youth from a historic neighborhood in
Istanbul called Sulukule. A few years ago, the Turkish government decided to bulldoze houses there to
make way for new buildings. This trio uses the power of music to speak out about the forced destruction of
their lively community and to empower neighborhood youth to find their own voices. Finally, Juliana Gözen
is a college student. She is the founder of the activist group “Campus Witches,” which is focused on
stopping violence against women in a country where the rape and murder of women is daily news. In this
episode, these brave activists encourage viewers to consider the courage it takes to fight for change.
1
TEACHER’S GUIDE, CONTEXT LESSON PLAN AND
EPISODE DISCUSSION GUIDE
GOALS OF THE LESSON PLANS
FORMAT OF THE LESSON PLANS:
Rebel Music: Turkey invites participants to ask: In what
ways do people risk their lives to defend freedom of speech,
women’s rights and safety, and history in Turkey? The lessons
will help students build a deeper understanding of political
issues related to Turkey, by examining the powerful narratives
of youth in the episode, analyzing various informational and
multi-media texts, and making connections to their personal
experiences. Critical thinking questions and inquiry-based
activities encourage participants to consider the complexities
of journalistic freedom, gender, and political change in Turkey.
THE CURRICULUM INCLUDES
• About Turkey
• Teacher’s Guides
• Context Lesson Plans
• Episode Discussion Guides
(with Extended Learning Opportunities)
All lessons are approximately one hour, although some
may require follow-up lessons to complete the activities.
Context lesson plans should be used before viewing the
episode and are meant to prepare students for the topics
visited in the episode. These plans contextualize the
narratives and topics in Rebel Music: Turkey by providing
an overview of the themes within the episode. The context
lesson plans are not intended to give a detailed history
of the country. Episode discussion guides include
discussion questions, and classroom activities for deeper
understanding. The guides are student handouts that ask
students to analyze and deconstruct messages and
narratives in the episode. Classroom activities help
students summarize the central themes of the episode.
Extended learning opportunities encourage students to
use their knowledge in a way that is personally meaningful,
and engages them with their “community”.
TARGETED AUDIENCE
These lesson plans were designed for English Language
Arts/Literacy in History and Social Studies Common Core
State Standards, grades 9-10 and 11-12. We encourage
educators and facilitators to use these lesson plans with
instructional flexibility, modifying, adapting, and simplifying
as necessary. All Rebel Music episodes are free and online
at www.rebelmusic.com/edu.
TIPS FOR IMPLEMENTATION
There are some subtitles in this Episode. This may be a
distraction for some students. Some ideas for watching the
episode are:
1. Pause the video
2. Watch the episode twice
3. Preview the questions
4. Split up the questions
5. Have students pick the questions which interest them
REBELED AUTHOR
Kate Jorgensen, Educator/Curriculum Developer
Rebel Music’s Tahribad-ı İsyan in Istanbul. (Photo: Rebel Music)
2
(Photo credit: ADEM ALTAN/AFP/Getty Images)
ABOUT TURKEY
Often called the “cradle of civilization,” Turkey has a long, rich history of many great civilizations. It is one of the most
ancient cultures in the world and is uniquely situated at the intersection of three major geographical areas: Europe,
Asia and the Middle East. Bordering Turkey to the west are Bulgaria and Greece; to the east are Georgia, Azerbaijan, and
Armenia; and Syria, Iran and Iraq are to the south. At 314,503 square miles, Turkey is larger than the state of Texas. Turkey
has a population of nearly 74 million people, with an average age of 28.5 years old. Approximately 98% of its citizens
are Muslim.
POLITICS & HUMAN RIGHTS
In the past decade, Turkey has faced significant controversy
over freedom of the press, women’s rights, and the rights
of its Kurdish people. In 2012 and 2013, the Committee to
Protect Journalists ranked Turkey first in journalist arrests,
saying that “widespread criminal prosecution and jailing
of journalists in Turkey” is among the worst in the world.1
Turkey was no longer No. 1 on CPJ’s 2014 ranking due to
the release of several journalists, but the country remained
in the top ten.2
THE KURDISH CONFLICT
Though they make up approximately 20% of Turkey’s population,
Map Source: Getty Images / Lonely Planet Images
Kurdish people nevertheless have long faced entrenched
discrimination, including a ban on their language which lasted for several years and what some have called attempts
at forced assimilation.3 In 1984, the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) began an armed insurgency. An estimated 40,000
people were killed in the conflict before an early 2013 truce was called. Peace talks began shortly afterward, but a full
resolution remains elusive.
WOMEN’S RIGHTS
The struggle for women’s rights has been the subject of demonstrations in Turkey in recent years. Turkey was ranked
125 out of 142 countries for gender equality by the The World Economic Forum in 2014.4 Turkish women were granted
the right to vote in 1934 — only 14 years after American women, and lately the AKP government has eased laws restricting
ladies wearing the Islamic headscarf to give women more freedom of choice in that matter. But in 2014, Turkey’s president Recep
Tayyip Erdoğan said, “You cannot put women and men on an equal footing” because it is “against nature,”5 and he has
called for women to bear at least three children each.6 Meanwhile, violence against Turkish women has been on the rise.
According to the New York Times, almost 300 women were murdered in Turkey in 2014, representing a 20% rise over the
previous year. In early 2015, the murder of Özgecan Aslan, a woman reportedly killed by a man attempting to rape her,
inspired huge protests in Turkey and on Twitter, where it became a worldwide trending topic and inspired thousands to
share their own stories of sexual harassment and abuse.7
ABOUT TURKEY [continued on back]
1
ABOUT TURKEY [continued]
THE GEZI PROTESTS
In 2013, environmentalists protested against one of Istanbul’s precious few public parks being demolished so a shopping mall
could be built. When reports of police torching the demonstrators’ tents spread, Turkish people all over the country took to
the streets not just to protest the treatment of the people in Gezi park, but also to express their concerns about freedom of
expression, government authoritarianism, women’s rights, environmental destruction and more. Amplified by social media,
those massive protests all over Turkey gained a worldwide audience for the people’s voices.
1
Committee To Protect Journalists, “Turkey’s Press Freedom Crisis,” 2012
https://cpj.org/reports/2012/10/turkeys-press-freedom-crisis.php
2
Committee To Protect Journalists, Dec. 2014 Report on The World’s Jailers of the Press
https://cpj.org/reports/2012/10/turkeys-press-freedom-crisis.php
3
The New York Times, “Turkey’s Kurds Slowly Build Cultural Autonomy,” June 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/05/arts/turkeys-kurds-slowly-build-cultural-autonomy.html
4
World Economic 2014 Forum Global Gender Gap Report
http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2014/rankings/
5
BBC News, “Turkey President Erdogan: Women Are Not Equal to Men,” Nov. 24, 2014
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30183711
6
Hurriyet Daily News, “Turkish PM Erdoğan Reiterates His Call for Three Children”
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-pm-erdogan-reiterates-his-call-for-three-children.aspx?pageID=238&nid=38235
7
The New York Times, “Özgecan Aslan and Violence Against Women In Turkey,” Feb. 24, 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/opinion/ozgecan-aslan-and-violence-against-women-in-turkey.html?_r=0
Women in Ankara protest the death of female student Özgecan Aslan.
(Photo credit: ADEM ALTAN/AFP/Getty Images)
2
(Photo credit: OZAN KOSE/AFP/Getty Images)
CONTEXT LESSON PLAN:
LIMITED JOURNALIST FREEDOM IN TURKEY1
Overview – In this context lesson plan students will analyze editorial cartoons, preview quotes from the episode, and
read and compare various pieces of informational text on journalistic freedom in Turkey. During their learning tasks,
students will consider this essential question, “Are there discrepancies in the freedom of speech/freedom of press policy
and practice in Turkey?” Following this inquiry, students will reconsider a quote from the episode and summarize their
findings to the essential question.
OBJECTIVES
MATERIALS
• Students will read, analyze, and synthesize information
regarding journalistic freedom in Turkey.
• Rebel Music Website
www.rebelmusic.com
• Political cartoons about journalistic freedom in Turkey
COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS
○ Mizah Haber: Turkish Cartoonist website
http://mizahhaber.blogspot.com/2015/01/karikatur
culer-charlie-hebdo-dergisinin.html
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY & 9-10.9 (Grades 9-10). Compare
and contrast treatments of the same topic in several sources.
• Videos on journalistic freedom in Turkey
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12 (Grades 11-12). Integrate
and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in
diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, as well
as in words) in order to address a question or solve a problem.
○ “Journalism in Turkey”, Latifah Al-Hazza, Jan. 28, 2013,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjFOCFPjDxI.
○ “Police, journalists arrested in Turkish opposition
crackdown,” DW, Dec. 14, 2014,
http://www.dw.de/police-journalists-arrested
-in-turkish-opposition-crackdown/a-18128332
KEY TERMS
• Freedom of expression
• Journalism
• Freedom of speech
• Censorship
• Freedom of the press
• Justice
• Various informational texts related to journalistic
freedom and jailed journalists in Turkey
○ (shorter text) “The Turkish media muzzle,” Al-Jazeera,
April 2 2013,
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listening
post/2013/04/201342104340948788.html
Protesters lay on the ground during a silent demonstration against
the assassination of journalist Hrank Dink.
(Photo credit: STR/AFP/Getty Images)
Materials (continued on back)
1
CONTEXT LESSON PLAN
Materials (continued)
PROCEDURE
○ (longer, more complex text) “Turkey’s journalists say
press freedom has declined under Erdogan’s rule,”
Idaho Statesman, May 13 2013,
http://www.idahostatesman.com/2013/05/13/2574712/
turkeys-journalists-say-press.html
1. READ AND CONSIDER FACTS IN THE
“ABOUT TURKEY” TEXT.
2. LAUNCH
○ Any text from the Turkey Press Freedom website
a. Display an editorial cartoon. Ask students to make text
and thematic connections between the cartoon and
the quote from Rebel Music (below).
○ Constitution of the Republic of Turkey [English]:
Article 25 (freedom of thought and opinion), Articles 26
(freedom of expression), Articles 27 and 28 (freedom of
the press)
b.“Journalism is a dangerous occupation in Turkey.”
(Opening Act, Rebel Music)
http://global.tbmm.gov.tr/docs/constitution_en.pdf
c. Watch a recent video news report on limited journalistic
freedom in Turkey.
○ ‘Erdogan claims Turkey has the world’s freest press,’
Adelle Nazarian, The Breitbart, December 30, 2014,
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2014/12/30/
erdogan-claims-turkey-has-the-worlds-freest-press/
d. What do these three pieces of text suggest about
journalistic freedom in Turkey?
3. LEARNING TASK
“Are there discrepancies in the freedom of speech/freedom
of press policy and practice in Turkey?” Freedom of Speech
(policy vs. practice inquiry)
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
• Penguen http://www.penguen.com/
Using various informational texts, investigate and
share the different ways in which:
• Freemuse About Music Censorship in Turkey
• Rebel Music, “Power In The Park: Music of Dissent
and the New Turkish Crackdown”
a. Freedom of speech is present in Turkey
• Freedom House News, Reports, and Updates on
Threatened, Silenced, or Imprisoned Journalists in Turkey
○ Is there any evidence to suggest journalists can
speak freely?
○ Is freedom of speech and freedom of the press
protected under the law in Turkey?
b. Freedom of speech is threatened in Turkey
○ What government policies control and regulate
certain information?
○ What do stories of the imprisonment of journalists
tell us about the importance, and risks, of freedom
of speech?
4. ASSESSMENT
Using the information from the inquiry above as evidence,
explain or analyze the statement, “Journalism is a dangerous
occupation in Turkey.” Assessment can be displayed as a
poster, editorial cartoon, or written text.
Rebel Music’s Gökhan Biçici in a TV newsroom in Istanbul.
2
TEACHER’S EPISODE DISCUSSION GUIDE: TURKEY
Overview - Rebel Music: Turkey highlights brave activists fighting against police brutality, censorship of the press, violence
against women, and gentrification of neighborhoods. The episode asks viewers to consider the courage it takes to fight for
change. Rebel Music: Turkey invites participants to ask: “In what ways do people risk their lives to defend freedom of speech,
women’s rights and safety, and history in Turkey”?
MORE ABOUT THE CAST
Gökhan Biçici
Gökhan Biçici: An award-winning
independent journalist and outspoken
advocate for freedom of expression
in Turkey, Biçici’s experience of being
beaten and arrested in 2013 for
documenting the excessive force
police were using against Gezi Park
protesters ignited his work as a
journalist. He has sinceco-founded
Dokuz8Haber (9/8 News), a citizenoriented news network.
Tahribad-ı İsyan
Juliana Gözen: As a student advocate for
human rights, minority rights and women’s rights, Gözen is an active member
of Kampüs Cadıları (Campus Witches),
an organization fighting for college campuses free of gender discrimination.
Juliana Gözen
Kazım Kızıl
Elif Şahin: A young Muslim woman who
supports the ruling party, Şahin is a university student studying political science in
hopes of making a difference in her community.
Elif Şahin
Fahreddin Özlen
1
Tahribad-ı İsyan: Comprised of members
VZ, Zen-G, and Asil Slang, Tahribad-ı
İsyan (Rebellion of Destruction) is a
group of young Turkish MCs whose
music explores the realities of Turkish
life. Tahribad-ı İsyan’s anger over the
government-sanctioned destruction of
the historic Istanbul Romani settlement
of Sulukule is featured in Halil Altindere’s
“Wonderland,” a video piece now in the
collection of New York’s Museum of
Modern Art.
Kazım Kızıl: Armed with a camera and
a cell phone, Kızıl is a visual activist
who risks his life documenting protests, acts of resistance, conflict, and
social movements, from bombs falling
within 300 feet of him on the ISIS frontlines, to witnessing violent clashes betweeen the police and protesters.
Fahreddin Özlen: Popular on social
media among Turkey’s Muslim youth,
Özlen, a 23-year-old supporter of
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan,
uses his huge presence on Twitter
and Vine, along with his work as a
speaker, to share his perspective and
knowledge.
TEACHERS EPISODE DISCUSSION GUIDE
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
OBJECTIVES
• Students will consider people’s experiences in Turkey and
how it influences the press, activism, and music.
Rebelmusic.com Turkey Feature Story: “Power In The Park:
Music of Dissent and the New Turkish Crackdown”
• Students will analyze quotes from Rebel Music, and texts
related to political change and crisis in Turkey.
KEY TERMS
MATERIALS
• Access to www.rebelmusic.com
• Freedom of press
• Revolutionary
• Activism
• Gezi protests
• Copies of student handout (Episode Discussion Guide)
• “About Turkey” section
• Principles of journalism
• Gentrification
• Tahribad-ı İsyan
• “Principles of Journalism,” Pew Research Center
http://www.journalism.org/resources/principles-of-journalism/
• “The Elements of Journalism,” American Press Institute,
http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/journalismessentials/what-is-journalism/elements-journalism/
PROCEDURE & EPISODE DISCUSSION GUIDE ASSISTANCE
4. After watching the episode, give students an opportunity
to look at the next section: Questions & Activities for Deeper
Understanding. These questions will probe deeper into the
central themes of the episode.
1. Read and consider the text, “About Turkey”.
2. Preview the questions on the Student Handout.
3. Watch the episode, giving students an opportunity to
answer select Discussion Questions.
a. Considering the different perspectives noted in the
episode will help students build a deeper understanding
of the issues highlighted in the episode.
1. The government wanted to build a shopping mall and
people protested against it. In return, the police used
severe acts on protesters and this caused millions of
people to come out in support of the demonstrations.
b. The Internet and social media help journalists upload im
ages in real time so others can connect to current events
instead of relying on television news programming that
may not share those stories.
2. Some groups are protesting violence against women
by resistance dancing, participating in large group
protests and bike rides to raise awareness, and
conducting informational sessions.
c. Have students review the episode and discuss reasons for
and against restriction of the press.
3. “…because there’s a lot of discrimination in our
country.” -Zen-G, Tahribad-ı İsyan rapper
5. Extended Learning Opportunities can be used
as follow up activities or assigned for homework.
These questions and activities ask students to
make connections between the activists, artists,
themselves and their communities.
4. The Sulukule neighborhood was demolished and
“rebuilt for the rich.” The gentrification destroyed the
history, spirit, and culture of that community.
a. There is some variance in the “Principles of Journalism.”
For some resources, see a list of websites in the
materials section.
5. Villagers protested in Yirca because a private
company wanted to destroy their olive tree farms and
build a power plant. Even older women protested and
were beaten. The company destroyed many olive
trees, but ultimately the power plant plan was halted.
The villagers continue to plant trees and stand up for
their community.
b. This interview activity will give students an opportunity
to connect with someone they admire in their community
and re-connect to the ideas presented in the episode.
2
EPISODE DISCUSSION GUIDE - STUDENT HANDOUT
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. List some reasons for, and the impacts of the Gezi Protests. How did the government respond to the protests?
2. How are people fighting against violence against women in Turkey?
3. Complete the quote: “We want to create a sense of brotherhood because…”
4. Explain the controversial changes to the Sulukule neighborhood.
5. Why did people protest in Yirca and what was the result?
QUESTIONS & ACTIVITIES FOR DEEPER UNDERSTANDING
a. Design a Venn diagram comparing the different perspectives on the resistance movements in Turkey.
b. In what ways do the Internet and social media help the “revolutionary journalists” in Turkey?
c. In your opinion, should Freedom of Speech have limits in a democracy? Explain.
EXTENDED LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
a. Research “The principles of Journalism.” Select a news source or journalist to follow and rate their commitment
to the principles of journalism. Compare their actions to the journalists you are familiar with in Rebel Music:
Turkey.
b. A major theme in Rebel Music: Turkey is saying the truth with courage. Identify someone in your life, school,
or community who embodies this quality. Design a list of questions that will help you better understand the
risks and rewards that come with saying the truth with courage. If possible, interview this person and create a
project highlighting key points you learn.
1