Instructional Task: Unit 6, Cultural Globalization
Grade 9, Semester 2
Instructional Task: Unit 6, Cultural Globalization
Overview
This instructional task helps students develop strategies for analyzing evidence and synthesizing information to
respond to essential questions.
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Students individually write drafts of their articles.
Then teacher reviews their work and provides written feedback in the form of questions to help students
improve their graphic organizers.
At the start of instructional task lesson, students work alone to use teacher feedback to improve their work.
Then students are grouped and engage in a collaborative discussion of the same task.
In a whole class discussion, groups share their learning about how to improve their work.
Students then revise their articles.
Students review other samples of the task and critique them individually, in small groups, and as a whole class.
In a whole class discussion, groups share their learning after discussing the samples.
Students then work individually to add to and/or refine their articles.
Social Studies Goals
This instructional task assesses how well students are able to:
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Respond to the essential question: Can cultures survive globalization?
Standards
This instructional task emphasizes the following evidence outcomes from the Colorado Academic Standards.
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Geography High School Grade-Level Expectation 3: The interconnected nature of the world, its people,
and places.
 Evidence Outcome c: Explain how migration of people and movement of goods and ideas can enrich
cultures, but also create tensions.
 Geography High School Grade-Level Expectation 3: The interconnected nature of the world, its people,
and places.
 Evidence Outcome f: Predict and draw conclusions about the global impact of cultural diffusion.
21st Century Skills: Critical Thinking and Reasoning, Information Literacy, Collaboration, Self-Direction,
Invention
This instructional task emphasizes the following Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and
Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects.
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Writing Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects 6–12
 2: Write informative/explanatory texts, including narration of historical events, scientific
procedures/experiments, or technical processes.
Required Materials
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Students’ articles
Copies of task, Unit 6: Cultural Globalization, for students (pages 7–8)
Transparency or poster of Evaluating Sample Responses to Discuss (page 6)
Copies of at least three different student sample responses for each small group (page 5 for template)—
Select partially proficient or proficient student sample responses (with student names omitted) that provide
students opportunities to critique the work and offer suggestions for improvement.
Adapted from MARS Shell Center, University of Nottingham and UC Berkeley, © 2011 MARS University of Nottingham
1
Instructional Task: Unit 6, Cultural Globalization
Grade 9, Semester 2
Time
Two or three 45-minute classes
Before Lesson
Instructional Task
Teacher prompt for students: You are a reporter for National Geographic magazine, and your editor has asked
you to write an article about the impact of globalization on cultural traditions. Your article must:
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Identify two cultures facing changes because of globalization.
For each of the two cultures, explain how two different cultural characteristics are being pressured to change
by globalization.
Compare how these two cultures have reacted to the pressure.
Answer the question: Can cultures survive globalization?
Introduce the task briefly and help the class understand the task. Have students work individually to write drafts
of their articles.
It is important that students are allowed to complete their article drafts without assistance, as far as possible.
Assessing Students’ Responses
Collect student draft articles. Make some notes on what their work reveals about their current levels of
understanding. Help students make further progress by summarizing their challenges as a series of questions. The
table below lists some ideas of potential issues students may have in their drafts and some ideas of questions to
use in your feedback to them.
Common Issues
Suggested Questions and Prompts
Student has difficulty getting started.
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Student has difficulty identifying cultures facing
change because of globalization.
Student has difficulty comparing cultures.
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Explain the task in your own words.
What do you know?
What do you need to find out?
What are some cultures we’ve studied in this unit?
How has globalization affected these cultures?
Which elements of these cultures are being
pressured to change by globalization?
How are challenges facing these cultures the
same? Different?
How are these cultures’ responses to globalization
the same? Different?
What choices do cultures have in responding to
globalization? What choices did these cultures
make? Why? How are those choices affecting
them?
Adapted from MARS Shell Center, University of Nottingham and UC Berkeley, © 2011 MARS University of Nottingham
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Instructional Task: Unit 6, Cultural Globalization
Grade 9, Semester 2
Common Issues
Suggested Questions and Prompts
Student has difficulty answering essential question.
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Student has difficulty writing compelling article.
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Do you think cultures can survive globalization?
Why and how?
Is it important for cultures to survive globalization?
Why or why not?
What evidence can you use from the two cultures
you’ve compared to help you answer the essential
question?
What do you think members of each of the two
cultures you’ve compared have to say in answer to
the essential question?
What are some key features of magazine articles?
How can you hook your readers in your
introduction?
How can you use evidence to support your
argument?
What kinds of language can you use to persuade
others of your answer to the essential question?
What do you want your readers to take away?
Suggested Lesson Outline
Improve Individual Solutions to Instructional Task (5 minutes)
Return draft articles to students. Students review their feedback and spend a few minutes rewriting and
improving their articles.
Teacher prompt for students: I would like you to review my feedback on your own for five minutes and use it to
help reflect on your work.
Collaborative Small Group Work (10 minutes)
Organize the class into heterogeneous groups. Ask groups to share and compare their drafts. As groups, their
goal is to learn from each other’s work and feedback to improve their own writing of their articles.
Note Different Student Approaches to Task (10 minutes)
Conduct a class discussion on approaches to improving articles. As part of this discussion, use a document
camera or write on the board so the class can see the groups’ feedback and ideas generated.
Support Student Problem Solving (10 minutes)
Working individually, students refine their articles. As students work, use some questions from the Common
Issues table to guide students who are struggling.
Collaborative Analysis of Sample Responses to Discuss (20 minutes)
Provide each group (same heterogeneous groups as in Collaborative Small Group Work section) at least two
copies of each sample response (page 5) and ask groups to write comments on each. This step allows students
to evaluate a variety of possible approaches to the task, without providing a “correct” editorial. Prompt students
to evaluate and compare responses. At this point, you may display the transparency or poster of Evaluating
Sample Responses to Discuss (page 6), which lists these suggested prompts.
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What did the student do that was effective in responding to the essential question?
What is effective about the article?
How has this student organized his or her article?
Adapted from MARS Shell Center, University of Nottingham and UC Berkeley, © 2011 MARS University of Nottingham
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Instructional Task: Unit 6, Cultural Globalization
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Grade 9, Semester 2
What isn’t clear?
What questions would you like to ask this student?
In what ways could the work be improved?
Plenary Whole Class Discussion: Comparing Different Approaches (10 minutes)
Organize a whole class discussion to consider different approaches used in the samples. How did each writer
organize his or her work? What were the differences? What were the similarities? How did they justify their
responses with specific evidence?
Review Individual Solutions to Instructional Task (10 minutes)
Ask students to examine their action plans in response to the essential question.
Teacher prompt: Read your draft articles and think about your learning during the instructional task process.
Write what you learned about approaches to writing articles. How would you change your articles based on what
you learned?
Final Draft Writing (timing at teacher discretion)
Ask students to use their articles from the previous step to craft final versions.
Sample Responses to Discuss
Individual responses will vary.
Select partially proficient or proficient student sample responses (with student names omitted) that provide
students opportunities to critique the work and offer suggestions for improvement.
Adapted from MARS Shell Center, University of Nottingham and UC Berkeley, © 2011 MARS University of Nottingham
4
Instructional Task: Unit 6, Cultural Globalization
Grade 9, Semester 2
Sample 1
[Insert partially proficient or proficient student sample responses (with student names omitted) that provide
students opportunities to critique the work and offer suggestions for improvement.]
What did the student do that was effective in responding to the essential question?
What is effective about the article?
How has this student organized his or her article?
What isn’t clear?
What questions would you like to ask this student?
In what ways could the work be improved?
Comments
Adapted from MARS Shell Center, University of Nottingham and UC Berkeley, © 2011 MARS University of Nottingham
5
Instructional Task: Unit 6, Cultural Globalization
Grade 9, Semester 2
Evaluating Sample Responses to Discuss
 What did the student do that was effective
in responding to the essential question?
 What is effective about the article?
 How has this student organized his or her article?
 What isn’t clear?
 What questions would you like to ask this student?
 In what ways could the work be improved?
Based on MARS Shell Center, University of Nottingham and UC Berkeley, © 2011 MARS University of Nottingham
6
Instructional Task: Unit 6, Cultural Globalization
Based on MARS Shell Center, University of Nottingham and UC Berkeley, © 2011 MARS University of Nottingham
Grade 9, Semester 2
7
Instructional Task: Unit 6, Cultural Globalization
Based on MARS Shell Center, University of Nottingham and UC Berkeley, © 2011 MARS University of Nottingham
Grade 9, Semester 2
8