Author: Windows User
Last saved by: Samantha Veneruso
Company: Montgomery College

Assignment Title: The Prisoner’s Dilemma
Course: International Relations
Author: Jennifer Haydel, Political Science
Summary: This assignment uses a brief and accessible poem to help students understand and apply the Prisoner’s Dilemma.
Integrative Learning Elements: Connection to Discipline, Transfer, Integrated Communication
Other Elements: Quantitative Reasoning in the Disciplines
1) Have students read Greenwell’s poem “Prisoner’s Dilemma” (available at: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1159&context=jhm)
2) Introduce students to the Prisoner’s Dilemma story and its applications to the discipline. For example, in my International Relations classes I introduce students to nuclear arms races through the Prisoner’s Dilemma.
3) Have students explain how Greenwell’s poem summarizes the Prisoner’s Dilemma.
3) Have students write their own poem summarizing an application of the Prisoner’s Dilemma to a real-world issue. 
Potential Extensions/Variations: The Journal of Humanistic Mathematics has a wealth of poetry that explains and connects mathematical concepts. For example the poem “The Math of Achilles” could be used in a mythology course.