by Shelley Wong, Nader Ayish |
Cultural Heritage Project
This lesson plan enables teachers to draw on students’ cultural backgrounds to teach different language skills, as well as the use of on-line search engines. The Cultural Heritage Project follows the LEARN model, which is used by FairFax County Public Schools, in Virginia, USA, to guide teachers in lesson plan development. This model can be adapted to any grade level.
Resource Type: Lesson Plan
Audience: Elementary
Audience Language Proficiency: Intermediate
Duration: 4.5 hours/6 class sessions
Materials And Technology:
Access to Microsoft PowerPoint and the internet.
Objective:
- The student will explore her/his cultural heritage and present her/his findings in a PowerPoint.
- The student will research her/his cultural heritage by creating an interview guide and using on-line research tools.
- The student will identify new information about her/his cultural heritage and include facts in a creative and compelling manner.
Language Skill: Grammar, Listening, Reading, Speaking, Vocabulary, Writing
Content Area:
Social studies, geography, technology, English for specific purposes, English for academic purposes, mathematics, life skills
Procedure:
Link
Reflect
Now and Then
LEARN (Link, Engage, Active Learning, Reflect, Now and Then): An instructional delivery model.
This model is used by Fairfax County Public Schools to guide teachers in lesson plan development. All teachers are expected to use this model as a means of communicating short and long-term lesson planning.
Link
Teacher starts the discussion with questions such as
- How many of you know someone from another country?
- How many of you have parents or grandparents that were born in another country?
- How many of you were born in another country?
- How many of you speak a language other than English?
- Everyone in the US originally came from somewhere else.
- Do you know where you are from?
- Which country(ies)? Have you ever had the chance to visit your country(ies) of origin? “
Engage
Teacher-led discussion as to how to conduct on-line research and generate interview questions. The student will research her/his heritage using a variety of strategies and technology tools and present her/his findings in a PowerPoint.
Active Learning
Teacher-led explanation of how to create an interview guide. Students then create their own interview guide to serve as a template for gathering information from their family. Students work independently researching their cultural heritage using a variety of resources (including online search engines). Information from family interviews and online
research are analyzed and organized into an informative and engaging PowerPoint that is presented to the entire class.
Reflect
The student reflects over her/his experience researching and presenting information about their cultural heritage by writing a letter to the teacher using Microsoft Word.
Now and Then
Teacher concludes the with suggestions such as
- Consider what you learned about your background through this activity.
- Does knowing about your cultural heritage help you better understand yourself and your place in the world?
- Are there benefits to understanding the cultural heritage of your peers?
- Does learning about the cultural heritage of your peers help you better understand them?
- How might you use this new knowledge in your daily life?
Assessment: Any standard rubric that incorporates your specific objectives works fine.
Differentiation:
Having students share their PowerPoint with parents during Back-to-School night or any other opportunity when parents are present.