Part of my family's culture is attending Oregon Duck football games (well, maybe not so much for my sister). This is us outside the 2011 BCS National Championship Game in Arizona.
Hi everyone,
Today, we moved on to a new unit: Culture! What an interesting topic. Culture defines who we are, yet we shape and create it every day! Here's what happened today in class (we did a lot, so be ready for a fair amount of reading):
Learning Targets:
Knowledge LT 16: I can explain how culture both reflects and shapes society.
Soundtrack: "Food" by Common and Kanye West. Selected because we talked about what we had for breakfast today, as a part of our culture. Lyrics here.
AGENDA 10/13/14:
News Brief – Nam
What is Culture?
The Lost Boys
Iceberg Reading
Homework: Read the blog. Check your grade in Student VUE and know how to improve it, if possible. Next news brief: Angel.
News Brief: Nam brought in this column (it is more of an opinion piece, but that is fine, as it still deals with a current event outside the United States) for the news brief: NewYorker.com - When Bombs Aren't Enough. We had a quick talk about this story and then also talked about how our weekends were. Thanks, Nam. Angel volunteered (thank you!) to do the next news brief.
What is Culture?: I started this section and new unit by asking what everyone had for breakfast today. The answers were:
Nothing – 10
Cereal – 8
Bread/Toast – 5
Bagel – 2
Yogurt – 2
Apple – 2
Donut – 1
BBQ – 1
Oatmeal – 1
Granola Bar – 1
Eggs – 1
I saw this article last week and thought it was interesting, which is why I asked:
We looked at a few of these different types of breakfast (all of which were certainly better than "nothing" as the high answer - you need to eat before school, everyone!) and identified "food" as an aspect of culture. Then, I passed out this sheet:
I had students guess about what culture is with the top space on the worksheet, then we brainstormed as a class all the different aspects that could go in the second box, of 10 characteristics of culture.
After that, we went through this slideshow of pictures from the National Geographic Photography: Culture website. Here are the photos we went through:
I love all of these pictures because the world is such a diverse and interesting place! I enjoyed the class guesses as to what was going on in each.
The Lost Boys: Next, I showed part of a documentary on The Lost Boys of Sudan. This shows the dramatic differences between the culture in Sudan and the culture in America - something I think we do not think much about at all.
As a counterbalance, I showed this commercial that was made about Lopez Lomong, who was one of the "Lost Boys" and who eventually gained American citizenship, made the US Olympic Team, and carried the American flag into the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing:
I showed these videos to highlight some key aspects to American and Sudanese culture. We will continue to explore cultural similarities and differences of various different cultures during this unit.
Iceberg Reading: Near the end of class, we started going through a reading about culture:
We talked about some more aspects of culture, including the fact that the American school system is obsessed with time and being on time, whereas in other cultures, time is something that is more of a relative concept.
To end class, I showed this video compilation of various people around the world dancing to "Happy" by Pharrell Williams. This was to highlight a similarity of cultures: dancing!
This ended the class for the day. See you next class!
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