Culture, Day 7 - Class Recap

A big part of American culture is sports. This was taken at the 2010 Holiday Bowl, before Oregon played Oklahoma State, and won! :-)

Dear class,

Today was a work day, with groups looking at different aspects of American culture, through the Culturegrams reading. This was in preparation for the upcoming unit final, which will be a DBQ (Document Based Question) essay. I'll teach more about that in the coming days. Here's the recap for today:

Learning Targets:
Knowledge LT 16: I can explain how culture both reflects and shapes society.

Soundtrack: "Party in the U.S.A." by Miley Cyrus. Selected for today because the in class group activity was analyzing American culture, of which parties are part of social gatherings! Lyrics here.

AGENDA 10/29/14:
News Brief –  Soo
Review Time for School
USA Culturegrams
Work Time

Homework: Read the blog. Bring all culture work so far, completed and ready to use in preparation for the DBQ. That is:

1) Cornell Notes on Culture definitions/iceberg PowerPoint
2) Surface culture worksheet (National Geographic photos PowerPoint)
3) Nacirema writing (neatly written or typed, 200 words minimum)
4) Time for School Notes/Answers
5) USA Culturegram activity (see today's blog)

 Next news brief: Jesus.

News Brief: Soo had the news brief today and selected this story to talk about: CNN.com - China catches 2,440 cheating students in high-tech scam. We found Chia on our world maps (and also talked about various other news stories, both here in the US and around the world) and also watched the VICE News "Beyond the Headlines" clip on YouTube before moving on. Jesus, you have the next news brief!

Review Time for School: We watched the last five minutes or so of the documentary that we did not finish last class, and I went over the questions relating to it, at the bottom of the second page of this worksheet. Please make sure you have finished this!

USA Culturegrams: I split the class up into groups of four, then explained what we were working on. Essentially, it was this handout (a class set, but feel free to use this link online to complete it as homework, if you didn't get to finish in class):

Google Drive - USA Culturegram Reading

Each member of the group was supposed to help by completing one or two of the seven cultural traits that the group chose to do on this worksheet:

Google Drive - USA Culturegram: Summarizing and Analyzing Culture Worksheet

It appeared that the class worked really hard on these, because pens and pencils were flying on the paper! I'm interested to hear about them next class. Please remember to complete the last two questions on the worksheet yourself. Thanks! Again, all of our culture unit work so far will be combined into a collection of evidence, which will be part of the DBQ we are writing (probably next week, in class). See you next class!

Culture, Day 6 - Class Recap

A pagoda in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. This was right across the street from where my friend Clarke lived for a while. Photo taken in 2011.

Hi everyone,

Today was mostly just spent finishing the fantastic Time for School documentary and thinking more about how education impacts culture. Here's the recap for today:

Learning Targets:
Knowledge LT 16: I can explain how culture both reflects and shapes society.

Soundtrack: "Learn to Fly" by Foo Fighters. Selected because of our continuing look at how education impacts culture. Lyrics here.

AGENDA 10/27/14:
News Brief –  Aiden
Time For School
USA Culturegram
Work Time

Homework: Read the blog. Turn in missing/incomplete geography work ASAP. Fully complete Nacirema and Time for School work. Next news brief: Soo.

News Brief: Aiden had the news brief today and chose this story to talk about: BBC.com - Missing Mexico students: Guerrero governor replaced. I also showed this tweet, which looked at election results in Brazil. watched the VICE News "Beyond the Headlines" clip on YouTube before moving on. Soo, you have the next news brief!

Time For School: We finished Time For School 3 today. If you missed class and the handout, here it is:

Google Drive - Time For School Documentary Handout

Again, the point to this was to analyze how we see surface culture and what deeper culture is like in different areas around the world. If you did not have enough time in class to fully answer the three questions at the end, please do so for homework!

Here are both parts to the documentary. I stopped Part 2 when it was clearly done talking about the students.

PBS.org - Time For School 3 (Part 1) Documentary

PBS.org - Time For School 3 (Part 2) Documentary

Really powerful stuff, especially when the students from Africa were talking about their shared challenge of losing parents and still striving for their education.

Thank you once again for your hard work and understanding. I am truly thankful to be your teacher. See you next class!

Culture, Day 5 - Class Recap

Some of our exchange students here at Westview came to talk with our class today about their experience here and their culture back in their country of origin. This is a photo I took on the football field at Westview, later this past summer.

Hi everyone,

I don't know about you, but I loved hearing our exchange students talk about their experiences today! Here's the recap for today:

Learning Targets:
Knowledge LT 16: I can explain how culture both reflects and shapes society.

Soundtrack: "Represent" by Weezer. Selected for today because we were talking about how people in different cultures represent themselves. Lyrics here.

AGENDA 10/23/14:
News Brief – Zachary M.
Exchange Culture
Discussion
Time for School

Homework: Read the blog. Turn in missing/incomplete geography work ASAP. Next news brief: Aiden.

News Brief: Zachary had the news brief today and talked about this story with the class: BBC.com - Ottawa shootings: Soldier killed and city on lockdown. This was a breaking news story, so it will be interesting to follow what happens here. We found Canada on our world maps and then moved on, because I wanted to make sure that we gave plenty of time to our exchange students.

Exchange Culture: We had the privilege of having Geir (from Norway) and Laura (from Brazil) come into our class today and present about culture in their countries. They did such a fantastic job! I appreciated your focus and great questions as they talked. It was certainly interesting for me to learn about, too!

Discussion: After the presentations, there was time for general culture questions (made at the end of last class) for Geir and Laura. Again, I thought this was really interesting and cool to see! Thanks for your participation.

Time For School: The rest of class was spent continuing to watch Time For School 3. If you missed class and the handout, here it is:

Google Drive - Time For School Documentary Handout

Again, the point to this was to analyze how we see surface culture and what deeper culture is like in different areas around the world.

We got about 39:30 in to the following video, if you missed class and need to catch up, or simply want to review it again:

PBS.org - Time For School 3 (Part 1) Documentary

I hope you are finding this interesting and engaging! Have a great weekend! :-)