Ainslie McLees
Journey in Africa
ENSP 645
Summer Seminar 2009
Lesson Plan: A Cultural Immersion Festival
Objectives:
1) To provide students a research experience;
2) To provide students a communal presentation experience;
3) To provide students with an experiential introduction to certain aspects of African
culture
Grade:
This cultural festival may be used as a pre-reading or culminating activity associated with
English 10 reading of Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Global Studies 10 Africa Unit,
and French 1 and 2 units on francophone Africa.
Resources and Preparation:
Teacher will provide a list of cultural aspects with several research sites on the internet
or in printed media for students to use in preparation for festival day.
Students will complete research on their topic and prepare a poster illustrating their topic.
Students and teacher will collaborate on obtaining additional materials for festival
presentations.
All students in the class will bring in one give-away item for the marketplace.
Materials:
Computers for internet research
Printed media on research topics
Posterboard and markers for presentation posters
For Festival:
Give-away items for the marketplace
Chocolate-covered coffee beans
Pineapple juice
Gourd cup, if possible
Yams, cooked
Mats for wrestling
Drums
Video player for clips of dancing
Materials for mask creation
Timeline for project:
Research/discussion over 2-3 block periods
Set up and festival in 4th block period
Preparation Note:
Reserve laptops, as needed
Prepare rubric for presentations
Collect printed materials for posters
Have students bring in items for “marketplace”
Description of Festival:
In large classroom with adjoining hallway and adjacent to the photography darkroom,
students will set up stations for their particular cultural aspect including their poster and
a hands-on experience for participants.
Each student will be responsible for completing their research, producing their poster and
then on festival day presenting their findings to visiting students. The emphasis of the
presentation should be on the relationship of the cultural aspect to the academic
disciplines listed above. If used as a culminating activity rather than a pre-reading
activity, direct links to the text of Things Fall Apart should figure in the
presentation.
Description of Aspects and Stations:
Hospitality
Host/hostess will greet visitors and invite them to sit on one of the chairs arranged in a
circle. Ideally, greetings will be in Yoruba or Ibo. The tradition of the kola nut as an
object of hospitality will be explained and a chocolate covered coffee bean will be passed
among the guests and back to the host/hostess. Each visitor will then be given an
individual chocolate covered coffee bean to taste (in place of Kola nut).
The next host/hostess will introduce the tradition of the palm-wine and its production. A
gallon milk-jug of diluted pineapple juice should be placed in the center of the circle during
the presentation.
Students will be offered a small cup of palm-wine in order around the circle after having
had it explained that usually it would be served in a hollowed out gourd cup (ideally an
example will be available to demonstrate) and everyone would drink from the same cup.
(For health reasons, individual paper cups must be used in this demonstration).
The hosts and hostesses will explain the procedure for circulating from the circle to the
next stations, which include a presentation on yam cultivation and a cooking demonstration
including a food tasting.
For the cooking demonstration, the poster should demonstrate traditional cooking methods
(fire) and include a recipe that each student may take home for a yam dish.
Sports
The importance of wrestling in Things Fall Apart as a means of establishing power and
becoming a hero will be the focus of this station. The poster should include information
the students find about wrestling in Africa and compare African style wrestling with
martial arts. An arm wrestling station will allow students to establish their hierarchy of
“top wrestler” in a continuing run-off competition throughout the festival. Students may
return to this station more than once and compete against different arm-wrestlers.
Performance
Throughout the festival there will be drumming CDs playing to help create the ambience.
Drumming station: The research reflected on the poster for this topic should include
types of drums, rhythms and uses of drumming within the Ibo, Yoruba and at least one
group of francophone Africa (Bambara, Peule, Guro, Baole, etc.) The station will offer
visitors the possibility of playing a drum.
Dance and chanting/singing station: This station will include a video clip of African dancing
accompanied by chanting, with a poster showing the traditional forms of African dance
(communal circle, solo within the circle) and ideally several steps that are easy to execute.
Visitors will receive a brief presentation and then the opportunity to try a few steps,
after watching video.
Masks Station: Poster will depict typical Ibo and Yoruba masks as well as those of
francophone African groups for the purpose of comparison and contrast. Emphasis should
be on the fact that the mask is the entire costume, not just the head piece/face covering.
The importance of traditional masks as a means of communicating across physical and
spiritual worlds should be highlighted. Visitors will have the opportunity to make a mask
(using paper plates & markers; raffia for several skirts/ anklets with bells).
Adjudication/Legal Proceeding: A poster depicting the communal nature of legal
proceedings in the traditional African cultures with an emphasis on maintaining balance and
compromise in reaching consensus will inform students of the steps in adjudication. In
advance, students will write problems to be adjudicated. The students manning this
station, dressed in a mask costume, will then have the visitor draw an offense written on a
piece of paper from a basket. Other visitors will be invited to be part of the community
listening to the adjudication of the offense. This station makes a good transition to the
language cluster.
Language
Ibo and Yoruba Languages: Students will research history of these languages (when did
they become written languages? What are their distinguishing characteristics?) as well as
pulling the Ibo words used in Things Fall Apart. A good source is a 2 minute video on
YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS7Sq3zwTo0.
Proverbs: Students will find African proverbs with explanations of their meanings, or
their equivalents in English (and know what they mean). Their poster will illustrate 10
proverbs. Students visiting this station will be given several key words and asked to write
a proverb in the African style (noticing the emphasis on practicality, nature, action).
Praise-singer: Students will find examples of praise-singing (griot) used in African
countries and ask their visitors to write comparable expressions of praise. Good examples
may be found in the first scene of Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman. For
language teachers, this is a particularly good exercise in comparatives and superlatives.
Marketplace
This station will require more space than some others. Students will have brought in used
items (give-away items) in advance. The items should be displayed on paper or blankets on
the floor, with some items displayed on tables (food items, especially). Several students
will need to be merchants manning the different areas of the marketplace.
Bargaining Station: Emphasis should be on the importance of understanding bargaining as
an extended process that establishes a relationship between buyer (what is the item
worth to you?) and the seller (what is the item worth to you and what is your relationship
with this buyer worth to you?) The price agreed upon is a compromise. Students will
always start the bargaining process with greetings exchanged between seller & buyer,
followed by buyer suggesting an item to the buyer. The buyer may decide to look at
another item, but should never insult the item proposed.
Two students will demonstrate bargaining techniques and allow visitors to practice with
critiques of their performance, before proceeding to the marketplace itself. Visitors
must remember never to bargain on food prices.
Market: Visitors will approach, greet and express interest in items. Sellers will bargain
back and forth until a compromise is reached. If none is reached, buyer should try
another vendor. Emphasize to students that they should keep the bargaining going for 2-3
minutes (this seems long to them).
In the Oracle’s Cave
The “priestess” of the Oracle’s cave will have written out predictions for the future on
individual slips of paper (like in fortune cookies). The oracle’s cave will be the school
darkroom. Visitors will enter alone, not knowing what is inside. The priestess will speak in
a disguised voice (a chanting CD could be playing in the background) as she predicts the
visitor’s future.
Follow-up Discussion:
Individual teachers will discuss the experiences the students had at the festival and what
they learned, either as a pre-reading/pre-unit experience or as a culminating activity. It
is imperative that any misconceptions or misinterpretations of the experiences be cleared
up during this discussion.