Kathleen Melville
Prof. Wood
NEH Summer Institute
July 29, 2011
Excavating and Weaving: Exploring Culture and Cultural Identity
Introduction: For my curricular unit, I’m interested in exploring the concept of culture
with my students. I’d like to invite my students to investigate the history and culture of
Mesoamerican people alongside their own history and culture. By the end of the unit, I
hope they will have a deeper understanding of what culture is and how it can shape who
we are. I also hope they will feel more comfortable reaching across cultural boundaries to
learn about people who are culturally different from them.
Essential questions: In planning this unit, I am using the framework of Understanding By
Design developed by Wiggins and McTighe. The essential questions that drive my unit are:
What is culture? What is cultural identity? To what extent does culture shape who we are?
How can we shape our own cultural identities?
Rationale: My students are multicultural. Each of my classes is made up of students from
a range of cultural backgrounds, and each of my students belongs to a range of cultural
groups and exists in a range of cultural contexts (peer groups, school, family, church, etc.). I
know that many of my students struggle to make sense of their diverse cultural worlds. In
some cases, conflicts emerge in part due to cultural misunderstandings (especially between
students and teachers), and in other cases, my students seemed overwhelmed by the
diverse (sometimes contrary) attitudes and practices that are expected of them in different
cultural contexts. For example, students who were raised to value loyalty and were taught
to “ride” (stick up for, physically fight in defense of) for friends have difficulty meeting our
school’s cultural expectation that students show tolerance, be willing to compromise, and
resolve conflicts peacefully. In addition, most of my students hope to cross socio-economic
(and corresponding cultural) boundaries through education. They plan to go to college
where they will no doubt encounter new expectations, assumptions, and practices. By
teaching them to think like anthropologists, I hope to equip them with some tools that will
help them interpret cultural phenomena and meet cultural challenges.
Standards: I plan to teach this unit in my ninth grade Spanish 1 classes. The five
standards for teaching foreign language are elaborated on the
website of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign
Languages (actfl.org). My unit will address the following
standards:
CULTURES: Gain Knowledge and Understanding of Other Cultures
 Standard 2.1: Students demonstrate an understanding of the
relationship between the practices and perspectives of the culture
studied.
 Standard 2.2: Students demonstrate an understanding of the
relationship between the products and perspectives of the culture
studied.
COMPARISONS: Develop Insight into the Nature of Language and Culture
 Standard 4.2: Students demonstrate understanding of the concept of
culture through comparisons of the cultures studied and their own.
Scope/Context: As culture is a particularly rich and complex topic of study, I plan to
implement this unit over the course of the entire academic year in my ninth grade Spanish
1 classes. In the past, in attempting to cover all the countries of Latin America, I have had
to sacrifice depth and quality in studying culture. To remedy this, I plan to focus our study
of culture on Mesoamerica and Mexico next year. The unit will begin with frameworks for
thinking about both culture and cultural identity. In subsequent lessons, students will use
these frameworks to explore and compare Mesoamerican/Mexican culture and culture in
the United States. In a year-long curriculum of eight content-based units (school, food,
clothing, etc), I hope to include at least one lesson on culture in each unit. By continually
revisiting our frameworks and metaphors for culture and cultural identity, I hope to give
students multiple opportunities to practice using these as tools for analysis and to reflect
on the complexity of culture. By the end of the year, I hope students will feel ready to take
on the final assessment – a cultural interview.
Goals/objectives: By the end of this unit, students will be able to:
-
Distinguish between “surface culture” and “deep culture.”
-
Recognize that a person’s cultural identity may have many “layers” that reflect
different cultures.
-
Compare the culture of the people of Mesoamerica and Mexico with their own
culture.
-
Investigate and analyze the culture of someone they perceive to be culturally
different from them.
Assessment: In keeping with the framework of Understanding By Design, I have designed
the final assessment by which I will judge whether or not students have met curricular
goals. Students will conduct a cultural interview of someone they perceive to be culturally
different from them, and in a presentation to the class, they will share their analysis and
compare their subject’s culture with their own. Since the presentation will be in Spanish
(although the interviews need not be), this will also be an opportunity to assess students’
Spanish language skills at the end of the year.
Activities/learning experiences: Before they feel prepared to analyze the culture of
another person, students will need to practice thinking about culture through a variety of
learning experiences. These lessons will be implemented over the course of the year.
Introductory Lesson: What is Culture? I plan introduce a framework for thinking about
culture by sharing the metaphor of the “cultural iceberg.” As a class, we will read the first
page of “The American Cultural Tapestry” by Gary
Weaver (attached). Then, I’ll introduce some
background on the excavation of pyramids and temples
in Mesoamerican cities and ask students to consider the
pyramid as another metaphor for culture. The assessment will be to choose a cultural
symbol (anything from the “surface” – a holiday, historical figure, type of food or clothing,
etc) and excavate its cultural meaning through interviews, observation, and research.
Introductory Lesson: What is cultural identity?
I also plan to introduce the concept of cultural identity as layered, the product of several
overlapping cultural contexts. We will read the second page of “The American Cultural
Tapestry” and consider the metaphor of a tapestry for cultural identity. In an
accompanying activity, students will identify the different
cultural groups to which they belong and think about the
importance these groups have played in shaping who they are.
Students will create representations of their own cultural
identities using strips of paper that can be “woven” together.
Additional Lessons about Culture and Cultural Identity
Once these two frameworks have been introduced, I would like students to use them to
analyze and compare aspects of Mesoamerican culture and their own culture. Each
learning experience will pair artifacts and perspectives from Mesoamerican or Mexican
culture with artifacts and perspectives on students’ own culture in the United States.
Lesson 1: History and Culture
In this lesson, students will compare historical timelines and consider history’s
relationship to culture. I would present students with a timeline of Mesoamerican history
and ask them to fill in important events on a timeline of American history. From there, we
can discuss which historical events or figures might be associated with each culture
(“surface” culture) and which might have added new “layers” to the cultural identities of
people in each region.
Spanish language connections
- Dates/4-digit numbers
- History-related vocabulary: war, independence, rule, etc.
Cross-curricular connections
- History: Mexican and US historical events, comparative history
Lesson 2: Cultural myths and stereotypes
Students will analyze different myths of the conquest and consider how the underlying
complexities reflect the many layers of contemporary Mesoamerican culture. Then, I invite
them to consider what myths or misconceptions exist about their own cultures.
Spanish language connections
- Conjugating “tener” and using phrases with tener
- Using “ser” and adjectives
Lesson 3: Birth signs and personality
Students will learn about the 260-day divinatory cycle of the Aztecs and the concept of
Nahuales as “spirit twins” that can impact people’s personalities and fortunes. We will
compare these to modern horoscopes (the zodiac divinatory cycle) and consider the
cultural values or practices are embedded in each.
Spanish language connections
- Asking and telling where someone is from (the verb “ser”)
- Describing personalities and likes/dislikes
- Vocabulary for animals/elements of nature
- Interpreting Spanish text (horoscopes) by identifying cognates
Lesson 4: Place names
Students will use Stephanie Wood’s handout “Nahua Glyphic Writing: Syllabic Glyph
Combinations” to interpret and analyze Nahua place names. We will also examine several
Oaxacan place names, considering both the Aztec and Spanish influences. Then, we will
read some excerpts from Pennsylvania Place Names by A. Howry Espenshade, so that we
can compare the way that people have named places in Mesoamerican and in the
Philadelphia area.
Spanish language connections
- Asking and telling where someone is from (the verb “ser”)
- Identifying Nahau and Spanish linguistic elements in both Spanish and English
Cross-curricular connections
- Language Arts: analyzing word parts and roots
- History: interpreting historical texts
Lesson 5: Symbols
Students will examine a variety of symbols from Mesoamerican culture. Then, they will
consider the meanings of several symbols associated with the United States.
Spanish language connections
- Weather vocabulary
- Vocabulary for directions (north, south, etc.)
- Food vocabulary
Cross-curricular connections
- English: symbolism
Lesson 6: Love songs
Students will interpret the Nahua love incantation provided by Prof. Haskett and analyze
the ideas about love and romance that are evident in this primary source. Then, students
will listen to and interpret a contemporary Mexican love song and analyze it in the same
way. Finally, students will choose a contemporary love song from the US, analyze it, and
compare it to the other two songs.
Spanish language connections
- Interpreting a Spanish song
Cross-curricular connections
- History: interpreting primary sources