Caitlin OMeara Lesson Plan: December 2 Grant Middle School: ELA Grade Level: Seventh Grade.

Learning Context: Students have been reading, writing, listening, and speaking about various cultures as a part of the weeks culture theme. They have listened to a guest speaker discuss Burkina Faso, read about Thailand and African praise poetry, and have worked with a TIMES Magazine article about the Lost Boys of Sudan. Objectives and Understandings: -Students will be able to identify how to read non-traditional texts for information. -Students will gain new perspectives on various cultures. -Students will compare and connect to cultures that differ from their own. Essential Questions: Why is learning about other cultures important? How do my own perceptions influence the way I think about the world? Rationale: Students need to learn that various sources of media that they come across everyday can be interpreted as a text and offer information. Students therefore need to have access to a variety of modes in which to learn about culture such as videos, photographs, maps, and childrens literature. Students will benefit from recognizing how different forms of text that they frequently come in contact with can offer them information by giving them a sense of all the knowledge out in the world to which they simply need to pay attention. Learning about so many other cultures will also open up their eyes to the different types of people and places that exist and can promote in them tolerance and openness. Critical Literacies: Students will read, write, listen, and speak in order to learn about other cultures and critically think about their own perceptions. Background Knowledge and Skills: They will also need to have experience studying other cultures so that they can compare new information to prior knowledge. They also need the proper reading and writing skills to understand the material and draw information from it. Standards:
NY- New York State Standards Subject: English Language Arts (1996) Learning Standard 2 : Language for Literary Response and Expression Students will read, write, listen, and speak for literary response and expression. Students will read and listen to oral, written, and electronically produced texts and performances from American and world literature; relate texts and performances to their own lives; and develop an understanding of the diverse social, historical, and cultural dimensions the texts and performances represent. As speakers and writers, students will use oral and written language that follows the accepted conventions of the English language for self-expression and artistic creation. Level : Intermediate

Key Idea : Listening and Reading Listening and reading for literary response involves comprehending, interpreting, and critiquing imaginative texts in every medium, drawing on personal experiences and knowledge to understand the text, and recognizing the social, historical and cultural features of the text. Performance Indicator : Read and view texts and performances from a wide range of authors, subjects, and genres Performance Indicator : Recognize different levels of meaning

Motivation: Students will be able to work in different stations throughout the period, thus giving them a chance to move around and work with something different every few minutes. Students will also have a chance to be exposed to various cultures around the world and learn something new about each and every one of them. Procedures: -RAP: Journal -Students will move in between various stations throughout the room. Each station will have a different type of text to work with and will teach them about a different culture. Students will spend seven minutes at each station before moving onto the next. While at each station, students must answer questions based on whatever is at their particular station. The stations will consist of: -a video -pictures -a map -a childrens book -country mottos (35 minutes) -Students will transfer their praise poems they wrote onto construction paper and decorate them however they would like. (15 minutes) Differentiated Instruction: Students will be able to work with all types of text so that they can practice gaining new information in a variety of ways. This method will help students who struggle with reading or writing by giving them a strategy with which they can extract information from any type of text. ESL students will also benefit from working with pictures and maps so that they can practice writing by working with different forms of text with which they may be comfortable. Also, all forms of learners; auditory, visual, and kinesthetic will be able to work with a text that is specific to their form of learning. Materials and Resources: Video, pictures, map, childrens book, list of country mottos, questions for each. Time Frame: fifty five minutes Assessment: Completion of all questions will be graded out of 100.

Station One: Video A) What country do you think is considered the happiest country in the world? (Take a guess). B) How is Denmarks culture different from American culture? C) What parts of Denmarks culture do you think Americans might benefit from? Station Two: Pictures A) Based on the pictures, what inferences can you make about the culture of Japan? B) Based on the pictures, what inferences can you make about the culture of Hawaii? C) Draw a picture that you think represents American culture. Station Three: Mottos A) Match the country with its motto. B) Which motto do you most relate to? Why? C) Create your own motto that you live by. Station Four: Maps A) What is the difference between the landscape of Chile and the landscape of Brazil? How might their different landscapes affect their culture? B) What inferences can you make about the culture of Australia based on this map? Focus on the surrounding waters. C) Looking at the map, where in Australia would you most like to visit? Why? Station Five: Folklore (page 123) Read the folklore from India aloud with your group and answer the questions. A) What lesson does this folklore teach? B) Considering the folklore, what kind of values do you think are important in the Indian culture?