1) Social Studies teachers should possess the knowledge, capabilities, and dispositions to organize and provide
instruction at the appropriate school level for the study of Culture and Cultural Diversity.
Describe and provide examples of how you have planned, organized and evaluated learning experiences for the
study of Culture and Cultural Diversity. Critically evaluate the extent to which you feel you were successful in
addressing Culture and Cultural Diversity as a social studies teacher. How will you continue to incorporate this
theme within your teaching?
Final Exam Question 1 Response
Throughout both my early field internship and student teaching I have developed lesson
plans centered on culture and cultural diversity. I have implemented several lessons within both
my early field and student teaching. I have created lesson plans reflecting Culture and Cultural
Diversity through lessons on the diffusion of Christianity and the Ottoman Empire during my
early field experience and the Civil Rights Movement and immigration lessons during my
student teaching. These four lessons reflect the importance of culture and cultural diversity.
The lesson on the diffusion of Christianity was a lesson that I created for both my early
field internship and for my NCSS lesson plans. When planning for this lesson I wanted to make
sure students understood the importance and ramifications for the diffusion of Christianity
around the globe during the time of European expansion within global trade markets. I wanted to
show students how religion impacted culture in that due to religion Europeans expanded trade to
other areas around the globe (China, Japan, India, and Africa). This lesson was very effective for
students in showing the impact that culture can have on other regions and other cultures. For this
lesson I had a clear goal created at the beginning when I started to plan so that I could plan
activities and lecture material that supported my goal. I also wanted to create activities where
students would have to note the major impact that Christianity had on the various countries noted
above.
The second lesson that I crafted was a lesson on the Ottoman Empire. This lesson talked
about how the Ottoman Empire destroyed the Byzantine Empire and how the empire drastically
effected areas such as Constantinople (Byzantine Empire’s Capital) and the Ottoman Empire
(Istanbul). During the lesson I talk about how when the Ottoman Empire came in they destroyed
and removed Christian iconography by replacing it with Islamic iconography. This had a
significant cultural ramifications throughout the region in that the Byzantine Empire held Turkey
for a thousand or so years and then another culture stepped in. My primary goal for this lesson
was to show how the Ottoman Empire affected different cultures through their military strength,
technologies, and etc.
The third lesson that I crafted for culture and cultural diversity was a lesson on the Civil
Rights Movement. My primary goal for the lesson was to introduce students to the Civil Rights
leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. I also talked about the issues with Separate but
Equal that was established in Plessy vs Ferguson. My primary goal was to talk about the issues
regarding cultural diversity within America during the Civil Rights Movement and how Martin
Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks impacted cultural diversity.
The fourth lesson that I created was a lesson on how America has changed since the
Cold War. There was a section on the SOL that talks directly about immigration and the issues
that the US has been having with illegal immigration. This was a tricky lesson to build for many
different reasons. One of the major reasons why it was tricky is because I was teaching an ELL
class where many of their families have immigrated from this country. Throughout the lesson I
emphasized that we were all immigrants. I even placed a picture within the PowerPoint of a
political cartoon where it has a large white politician telling these immigrants to go back home
and then on the far right a Native American say all of you go back home. This political cartoon
reinforced the idea that the United States is made up of primarily immigrants.
When I build lesson on culture and cultural diversity I always try to look at my primary
objective or goal first for the lesson when planning. The primary importance for me when
building and creating a lesson on culture and cultural diversity is the idea of multiple
perspectives and points of view. It is important when talking about culture and cultural diversity
that you have various perspectives and points of view built within the lesson plan. For example,
in diffusion of Christianity lesson I did not talk solely about Christianity but I talked about its
impact on various cultures. I also talked though in detail how Christians justified cultural
diffusion.
Culture and cultural diversity is an important topic that I believe should be illustrated in
every lesson. I feel like with culture and cultural diversity that it is important to also engage your
audience or your students who come from not necessarily one cultural background but many.
Lessons on culture and cultural diversity could engage students and motivate them to learn the
material.