"Asian Life" Curriculum Unit

8/9/2019 "Asian Life" Curriculum Unit

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Lindsay Kaye Ohlert

Curriculum Unit Project, Spring 2010

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Asian Life Curriculum Unit

Unit OverviewProgram Particulars

Language: English as a Second Language

Program Model: Sheltered English

Class: Social Studies 1b: Geography of the Eastern Hemisphere

School: Hazel Park Middle School Academy, a 7th

-8th

grade campus in the St.

Paul Public School District.

Additional Information: This trimester-long course is intended to address the

human geography of the Eastern Hemisphere, while providing ELLs with

opportunities to further develop their English language and the Social Studies skills

and knowledge that they may be missing due to interrupted or limited prior schooling.

The previous trimester, the students studied the Western Hemisphere. This unit

immediately follows large units on Europe and Africa, and precedes a unit on the

Pacific region. A major course goal is to build the background knowledge necessary to

fully participate in future courses in Civics, Literature and History. The students havejust completed a mini-unit on the physical geography of Asia.

Student Characteristics

Grade Level(s): 7th

/8th

L2 Proficiency: Intermediate (Cappellini, 2005, p. 29)

L2 Literacy Levels: Early to Early Fluent (Cappellini, 2005, p. 31)

L1 Literacy Level: Students range from no practical literacy in the L1 to fullfluency, with a majority of students falling into the Early Fluent Reader category.

Ethnolinguistic Background: Arabic, Karen, Oromo, Amharic, Burmese,

Spanish, Hmong

Context


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familiar with structural conventions that they are able to easily scan texts for particular

pieces of information, when reading aloud most of them tend to focus more on

decoding individual words than on comprehending the meanings of full sentences and

paragraphs, and several do not yet effectively read silently in English.

Several of the students are gifted/talented; one of the students has a learning

disability that affects his ability to process written information.

Informal pre-assessment prior to implementing this unit revealed that most

students tend to view Asia mostly in terms of Chinese and/or Japanese media tropes

and whatever had most recently been in the news; the students who are from Asia

were knowledgeable about their countries of origin and some of their countriesneighbors, but beyond that their views of Asia were similar to their classmates

basically, that Asia is all about anime, martial arts and tsunamis.

Assumptions About What Students Already Know and Can Do

Essential Skills: Make inferences, use high-frequency verbs in the simple

present and simple past tense, differentiate between fact and opinion, circumlocute,

read maps, accurately form and punctuate simple and compound sentences, skim and

scan texts, conduct internet searches, use word processing software; use resources

and context clues to understand unfamiliar words; request clarification; decode

English writing using phonics and high-frequency sight words; work cooperatively;

cope emotionally with language-related frustration

Knowledge: Physical geography of the Asian continent; physical and political

geography of Africa, Europe, N. America and S. America, basic conceptualization of

culture; familiarity with the history and cultures of their countries of origin, including

the effects of colonization

Unit Theme: Asian Life


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access age-appropriate information on websites (3.1); interpret texts by answering

questions, drawing pictures, filling out graphic organizers, taking simple notes (3.2);

make simple inferences (3.2); compare and contrast (3.2); explain and give examples

(3.2); exchange information with peers (4.1); express and support opinions (4.1);

organize ideas logically (4.2)

MN Social Studies Content Standards

Students will use political and thematic maps to locate major physical and cultural

regions of the world (V.B.1.); Students will locate areas of major world religions,

including Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and indigenous religious traditions(V.B.2.); Students will locate and describe major physical features and analyze how

they influenced cultures/civilizations studied (V.C.1.); Students will describe economic

patterns on the surface of the Earth (V.D.5.); Students will describe patterns of culture

on the surface of the Earth (V.D.6.); Students will demonstrate the ability to obtain

geographic information from a variety of print and electronic sources (V.E.1.)

Unit-Level Goals

Essential Questions: What does it mean to be Asian? What is the relationship

between country and culture? What inferences can we make about peoples cultural

perspectives based on their cultural practices and products? What are some common

cultural practices and perspectives in the selected areas of Asia?

Enduring Understandings:

Students will understandthat national boundaries are culturally porous; thatcountries are not culturally monolithic; that Asia is home to people with a hugely

diverse range of beliefs and practices; that cultural diffusion occurs by various

h i d f i i l l i d d i


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course focus on human geography, I chose to focus primarily on the everyday lives of

people in Asia, drawing in bits of history and literature as applicable; larger issues of

politics and government are beyond the scope of this particular course. In an attemptto balance breadth and depth, I chose to focus on one country from each primary

geographic region of Asia: Vietnam from SE Asia, Japan from E Asia, India from S Asia,

Uzbekistan from North/Central Asia, and Saudi Arabia from W Asia. I chose Vietnam

both due to my personal familiarity with the country, and because it illustrates many

issues common across SE Asian countries, such as colonial influences and a wide rural-

urban divide. I decided that I had time to do either India or China, but not both, and

as India is the dominant country in S Asia, I elected to forgo China and focus on Japaninstead. I chose Uzbekistan because its location along the Silk Road and status as a

former Soviet republic has filled it with good examples of cultural transfer. From W

Asia, I elected to discuss Saudi Arabia rather than other Middle Eastern countries in

order to bypass certain contentious political issues that would invariably come up due

to my students countries of origin, stated personal beliefs, and current political

events; while delving into these issues would arguably be desirable given ample time,

my own classroom, and students with whom I had a well-established relationship, as a

student teacher new to the school I felt it was inappropriate for me to tackle them.

Unit Level Summative Performance Assessment Task(s) and Other Evidence:

Students will create comic books depicting a person from one of the studied countries

traveling to another of the studied countries, and reflecting on ways in which the

countries are similar and ways in which they are different. Please see the PowerPoint

instructions and the rubric [Appendix A] for more details about this task.

E

vidence


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Culture: Students will identify and describe the characteristics of everyday life in urban

Vietnam.

Learning strategies: Students will use questioning to monitor understanding of writtentexts. Students will use graphic organizers to take notes for use in future lessons.

State Standards Addressed

MN ELP Standards

understand, with repetition, speech delivered at slow to ordinary rates (1.2);

understand target vocabulary in sentence-level discourse (1.2); follow multi-step

instructions (1.2); understand main idea and supporting details of academic content(1.2); infer some implied meanings (1.2); use general and target vocabulary to get

ideas across (2.2); read to obtain information (3.1); interpret texts by answering

questions, filling out graphic organizers, taking simple notes (3.2); exchange

information with peers (4.1); organize ideas logically (4.2)



regions of the world (V.B.1.); Students will locate areas of major world religions,

including Buddhism, Christianity (V.B.2.); Students will describe economic patterns on

the surface of the Earth (V.D.5.); Students will describe patterns of culture on the

surface of the Earth (V.D.6.); Students will demonstrate the ability to obtain

geographic information from a variety of print and electronic sources (V.E.1.)

Time Frame: 45 minutes

Materials/Resources: SmartBoard, projector and laptop; World View: Book Two

(Lubawy, 2001); Hanoi video clip (Lonely Planet, 2009); paper and writing utensils


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vocabulary questions (e.g. What is climate? What are the climates of S.E.

Asia?) and students respond en masse; if the majority are not able to respond

promptly, the class re-reads the paragraph to look for the answer.

Students individually fill out the note-taking sheet that accompanies thetextbook passage.

Students receive the packet of KWL charts [Appendix B]. Teacher projects theVietnam page on the SmartBoard. Students take turns sharing what they wrote

during the bellwork, and the teacher scribes their input into the K column of

the chart on the SmartBoard in recast grammatically correct sentences.

Students copy this into their own charts. The teacher gives the students a fewminutes to think about some questions they have about Vietnam for the W

column, then asks each student to share their one or two most important

questions, and scribes what they say into the chart on the SmartBoard, again

recasting as necessary.

Expansion Phasebeyond activities (15 min)

Students prepare to watch the Lonely Planet: Hanoi video clip *CD-ROM].The teacher calls on a student to find Hanoi on the classroom map of Asia, and,

if no student has volunteered that it is the capital of Vietnam, the teacher

points this out. The teacher informs the students that they will watch the clip

three times, and the first time they should simply watch and think; the second

time they should look at the images, then record observations about

Vietnamese life in the L column of their charts; the third time they should listen

to the narrator and record observations.

After the two viewings, students share their observations aloud, and theteacher scribes them into the chart; students copy classmates information into

their own charts. If a student makes an inference based upon evidence (for


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are able to use the target vocabulary.

Day Two:

Lesson Topic: Cultural Products, Practices and Perspectives in VietnamLearning Objectives

Language:

Content obligatory: Students will form complete sentences in the present tense to

describe scenes and occurrences. Students will use vocabulary such as the verbsconclude and believe and logical connectors such as as and because to make

and support inferential statements.

Content compatible: Students will use classroom vocabulary such as tape and

category to make requests while working collaboratively with peers.

Content: Students will categorize information in a logical manner. Students will make

inferences and support them using factual evidence.

Culture: Students will describe everyday life in Vietnam. Students will drawconclusions about cultural practices and perspectives based upon cultural products.

Learning strategies: Students will use graphic organizers to organize information and

take notes for use on future assignments.

State Standards Addressed

MN ELP Standards

follow multi-step instructions (1.2); use general and target vocabulary to get ideas

across (2.2); describe (2.2); read to obtain information (3.1); make simple inferences

(3.2); explain and give examples (3.2); exchange information with peers (4.1); express

and support opinions (4.1); organize ideas logically (4.2)

Desired

Result

s


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Learning Activities/Tasks

Preview Phaseinto activities (10 minutes)

Bellwork: Name the three countries that have occupied (taken control of)Vietnam in the past. You may use your textbook and the classroom reference

books.

The teacher corrects the bellwork with the students, reinforcing the timeline ofevents that Vietnam has been variously occupied by China, France and the US

in that order over the last thousand years, with periods of self-determination

between; the country is currently independent.

Focused Learning Phasethrough activities (15 minutes)

The whiteboard at the front of the room is divided into the followingcategories: transportation, family life, economy, food, religion, architecture,

art, recreation, and clothing/style. The teacher gives instructions for the days

activity, telling students that they will be placed in groups of two or three, and

each group will be given a packet of photos [Appendix C] and a pad of post-its.

The students are to write descriptions of the photograph on a post-it andattach it to the photo, then tape the photo under the correct category on the

board. The teacher and students read the categories aloud while pointing to

them, and the teacher checks that the students know the meaning of the

lower-frequency words, such as transportation, architecture and

recreation. The teacher chooses a photo to use as an example, and calls on a

student to describe it; she writes the students description on a post-it, then

asks the class which category it belongs under. The teacher should choose a

photo that could potentially go in multiple categories (e.g. a family on a

motorbike) and ask students to justify their answers (I think it should go under

transportation because they are using a motorbike to travel.)LearningExperience

s


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of their most insightful inferences to share while showing the pictures upon

which they based their conclusions. At this point, the teacher can correct any

inaccurate inferences. Students use their inference sheets to update their KWL chart.

Lesson-Level Formative Assessment Procedures:

Students written descriptions and inferences provide the teacher withvocabulary to directly teach the next day (for example, if a student writes

People in Vietnam are Buddha, this would show a need to teach the words

Buddhist and Buddhism.) Teacher should add these vocabulary words tothe classroom word wall, point them out to students the following day, and

encourage students to use them in future assignments; if there is a lot of

necessary vocabulary, the teacher should modify the following lesson plans to

address this.

The inference graphic organizer sheet allows the teacher to gauge both howwell the students are using the target grammatical form and the quality of their

inferences. The colored post-it notes allow the teacher to judge which groups are

successfully categorizing information according to the targeted concepts and

which need more support in future lessons.

Day Three:

Lesson Topic: Comparing and Contrasting Rural and Urban Life in VietnamLearning Objectives

Evidence


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level discourse (1.2); follow multi-step instructions (1.2); recount events and stories

(2.1); participate in discussions (2.2); use general and target vocabulary to get ideas

across (2.2); describe (2.2); interpret texts by filling out graphic organizers, takingsimple notes (3.2); make simple inferences (3.2); compare and contrast (3.2); explain

and give examples (3.2); exchange information with peers (4.1); express and support

opinions (4.1); organize ideas logically (4.2)



regions of the world (V.B.1.); Students will locate areas of major world religions,including Buddhism, Christianity (V.B.2.); Students will locate and describe major

physical features and analyze how they influenced cultures/civilizations studied

(V.C.1.); Students will describe economic patterns on the surface of the Earth (V.D.5.);

Students will describe patterns of culture on the surface of the Earth (V.D.6.); Students

will demonstrate the ability to obtain geographic information from a variety of print

and electronic sources (V.E.1.)


Materials/Resources: photo cards, tape, Venn diagram handouts, debate position

statement handouts, writing utensils


Preview Phaseinto activities (10 min)

Bellwork: Would you rather live in the country or in the city? Why? The whiteboard is separated into two categories: Rural and Urban. The

teacher asks the class if anyone can define either of the words; if they cannot,e

nces


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groups for advice, or to allow another teammate to take a turn as the debater.

The group may also call a time-out at any time to bring their teammate back

and give him or her some advice. Not all students need to take a turn as thedebater, but all students need to participate and help advise the debater.

The teacher has the students brainstorm ideas for a few minutes, then opensthe debate. If a debater appears to be struggling, or is monopolizing the time,

the teacher should remind the debaters to return to their groups for advice, or

trade places with a volunteer teammate. The teacher should neither force

reluctant students to take a turn as the debater nor allow more outgoing

students to monopolize the conversation. Time permitting, if the student exhaust topic 1, the teacher may have them

move on to topic 2.

Students update their KWL chart using their rural/urban Venn diagram.Lesson-Level Formative Assessment Procedures:

The students accuracy in filling out the Venn diagrams can demonstrate bothhow well they are comparing/contrasting and how accurately they understandthe characteristics of Vietnamese rural and urban life.

The teacher can gauge the students content recall based on the accuracy andfrequency of the students contributions to the debate.

Day Four:

Lesson Topic: Vietnamese FolktalesLearning Objectives

Eviden

ce


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(1.2); infer some implied meanings (1.2); recount events and stories (2.1); participate

in discussions (2.2); use general and target vocabulary to get ideas across (2.2); read to

obtain information (3.1); interpret texts by answering questions, filling out graphicorganizers (3.2); make simple inferences (3.2); explain and give examples (3.2);

exchange information with peers (4.1); express and support opinions (4.1)


Students will describe patterns of culture on the surface of the Earth (V.D.6.); Students

will demonstrate the ability to obtain geographic information from a variety of print

and electronic sources (V.E.1.)


Materials/Resources: paper, writing utensils, folktale packet handouts (Kohler, 2010)


Preview Phaseinto activities (10 min)

Bellwork: What does it mean to be a good person? The teacher explains to the class that folktales are fictional stories, but they

often contain lessons that are considered important by the people who tell

them. The teacher briefly relates the well-known European story of The Boy

Who Cried Wolf, then asks the students what the lesson the moral of that

story is.

Focused Learning Phasethrough activities (20 min)

The class reads the first folktale in the packet [Appendix F] aloud, taking turnsparagraph by paragraph. After each paragraph, the teacher asks the class a

Experi

ences


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the task, and should circulate through the room offering support in doing this)

about the previous paragraph.

After completing the story, the pair answers the questions at the end of thestory.

When all groups have finished, the teacher calls on students to share theiranswers.

Students update their KWL charts.Lesson-Level Formative Assessment Procedures:

Students responses to the reading questions allow the teacher to gauge boththeir comprehension of the story and whether they are accurately making

inferences about Vietnamese cultural values.

The quality and ease of the students questioning during the pair readingallows the teacher to gauge whether students are beginning to be able to

engage in self-questioning without direct teacher guidance.

Outlines of the Subsequent Lessons

Days 5-8: Japan Lesson (E Asia)

Objectives:

Language: Students will use geography-related vocabulary, including names of countries and

ethnic groups, to take notes on factual reading passages. Students will form questions in the

simple past and simple present to set a purpose for reading and listening. Students will use

comparative forms such as more/less+adjective and adjective+er to describe differences

between countries. Students will use a combination of basic interpersonal vocabulary such as

Evidence


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Learning Activities:

Students read the E Asia overview from their textbook, and update the accompanyingnote-taking form. During this reading, they practice self-questioning.

Students fill out the K and W columns of the Japan KWL chart, and continue to updatethe L column after each major activity.

Students watch the video clip on Japanese life (Japan Fulbright, 2007) [CD-ROM] twice,the first time simply watching and thinking, and the second time writing observations in

the L column of the KWL chart. Students share their observations with the class, the

teacher scribes them (recast as necessary) on the SmartBoard, and students copy this

on their own papers. The teacher explains to the class that the most popular religions in Japan are Shinto and

Buddhism. She explains that the class will be talking more about Buddhism later when

discussing India. Students watch the video clip on Shinto (Clearwaters, 2003)[CD-ROM]

three times, the first time simply listening and looking, the first time writing

observations about the images, and the third time writing observations about the

voiceover.

In the computer lab, students do a web quest about important historical, cultural andreligious sites around Japan, including Nibutani (an Ainu village), Mount Fuji, and

Ritsurin Park. For each location, they write a short journal entry as though they had

really visited there, describing what they saw, what they heard, what they felt, and

what new facts they learned.

Students create a Venn diagram comparing Vietnam and Japan. The class does a mini-lesson on comparative grammatical forms, particularly differentiating between high-

frequency more/less adjective and adjective-er forms, and using their Venn

diagrams, students write several sentences comparing the two countries. They then

work in pairs to write a dialogue between a Vietnamese person and a Japanese person

where the two people compare and contrast life in their countries.


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between countries. Students will use a combination of basic interpersonal vocabulary such as

greetings and interjections and content-specific vocabulary to write topical dialog. Students

will use religion-related vocabulary such as Islam and enlightenment to present factualinformation orally to peers.

Content: Students will identify the countries, climate, and basic socio-political facts about

South Asia. Students will compare and contrast. Students will make observations based on

evidence. Students will use internet resources to gather information and publish findings.

Students will interpret and re-tell stories using pictures. Students will skim and scan for

information.

Culture: Students will identify and describe the characteristics of everyday life in India.

Students will describe the religious practices and beliefs of various groups. Students will draw

conclusions about cultural perspectives based upon a peoples folktales. Students will compare

life in India to life in other Asian countries.

Learning strategies: Students will use questioning to monitor understanding of written texts.

Students will use graphic organizers to logically process data and take notes for use in future

lessons. Students will work collaboratively to improve performance on tasks.

Learning Activities:

Students read the S Asia overview from their textbook, and update the accompanyingnote-taking form. During this reading, they practice self-questioning.

Students fill out the K and W columns of the India KWL chart, and continue to updatethe L column after each major activity.

Students perform a picture-sorting activity with photos from India (taken from theTrekEarth wesbsite) according to the instructions from the Vietnam: Day Two activity,


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In pairs, students create a Venn diagram comparing India and Vietnam or comparingIndia and Japan (their choice). (Depending on students performance on the

comparative grammatical forms lesson under the Japan topic, the teacher may want tospend time practicing it again here.) They then write a dialog between an Indian person

and a Vietnamese/Japanese person comparing and contrasting life in their countries.

Then, they key this dialog into Xtranormals video generator to publish their dialog as

a computer-generated animated movie; the teacher shows the completed videos to the

class on the SmartBoard [Rubric in Appendix G].

Formative Assessment: Again, students KWL charts and notes allow the teacher to gauge bothunderstanding of the content and how well students are using graphic organizers. Students

Xtranormal video creations should provide a solid indicator of how well students are

progressing toward correctly using comparative forms, supporting statements with numerous

accurate culture/content facts, and presenting their ideas in a logically organized, coherent

manner, as this assignment is fairly similar to the summative performance assessment.

Days 14-16: Saudi Arabia (W Asia)

Objectives:



simple past and simple present to set a purpose for reading and listening.

Content: Students will identify the countries, climate, and basic socio-political facts about West

Asia. Students will make observations based on evidence. Students will interpret and re-tellstories using pictures. Students will skim and scan for information. Students will logically

categorize topical information. Students will make and support inferences using factual

id


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Students do a photo sort activity according to the instructions from Vietnam: Day Two,including the inferences sheet; as this is the third time theyve done this, they should be

able to complete it in far less than a full class period. Students read their workbook chapter about Saudi Arabia in pairs, then use it to answer

the accompanying true-false questions and graph-reading activity. For each section of

the chapter, they find at least one photo from the previous days photo sort that could

be used as an illustration of the sections content.

Students read the short Bedouin folktale Who Lied? and make inferences aboutBedouin cultural practices based upon the events of the story. They then turn the story

into a comic strip.

Formative Assessment: The teacher can gauge students understanding of the texts and

concepts by examining their notes, KWL chart, inferences graphic organizer, workbook

responses and relevance of the connections between the photos and the text. Students ability

to retell a story using a combination of their own words and pictures can be judged based on

their Who Lied?comic strips.

Days 17-18: Uzbekistan Lesson (N/C Asia)

Objectives:



simple past and simple present to set a purpose for reading and listening. Students will use

comparative forms such as more/less+adjective and adjective+er to describe differences

between countries. Students will use cultural product and practice-related vocabulary such asarchitecture and religion to present factual information orally to peers.


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Students fill out the K and W columns of the Uzbekistan KWL chart, and continue toupdate the L column after each major activity.

In pairs, students go online to the TrekEarth website and search for photos fromUzbekistan. Each pair assigned to find photos from a particular two of the following

categories: transportation, family life, economy, food, religion, architecture, art,

recreation, clothing/style, and social class. Students put their photos on pin drives and

transfer them to the SmartBoard rig; the class comes back together as a full group, and

each pair takes turns showing and explaining their photos to the class, including what

inferences they made based upon them.

Students read the Simple English Wikipedia article about the Silk Road. They thenexamine photos of Uzbekistan taken from the TrekEarth website for evidence ofcultural transfer from the Middle East and East Asia from the Silk Road era, and of

Russian cultural transfer from the Soviet era. They apply color-coded sticker dots to the

photos to mark evidence of transfer red for Russian transfer, green for Middle Eastern

and pink for East Asian (the red and green for obvious reasons, and the pink because

thats the other color I had available in sufficient quantities!), then write brief

paragraphs about where each regions influence can be seen.

Students review comparative grammatical forms.Formative Assessment: This lesson requires students to take many of the skills they have been

practicing in previous lessons to a higher level, using the same grammatical forms, vocabulary,

learning strategies, language tasks and content/cultural information with much less teacher

scaffolding; the teacher can use how independently students are able to accomplish these

tasks to judge whether students have truly internalized the various objectives of this overall

unit.


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Reflections

Implementation of this Unit in My ClassroomI was able to use this unit basically as-written with my 2

ndperiod class during my

secondary student teaching placement. I ended up cutting out or modifying some activities

due to logistical issues, such as students missing class due to a field trip and the computer lab

being occupied, but overall, I was able to put this to practical use.

I am glad I included the picture sorting and analyzing activity multiple times, as it

proved particularly useful both to the students as a learning tool, and to me as a way of

formatively assessing their language skills and content understanding. The questions the

students asked while writing the photo descriptions, and the vocabulary and grammar they

used when writing them, gave me insight into what we needed to practice as a group; for

example, I ended up working on adjectival forms with them, as many students were writing

sentences like This is a Japan language book. They were able to directly apply information

from the picture sorts to their comparative writing exercises, and the pictures sparked


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job unprompted of requesting clarification and further details from the presenters, using the

questioning skills wed been working on in a meaningful, task-based way.

One thing I ended up modifying heavily with this particular group was the planned

instructional activities on comparative forms; while they definitely needed support in this area,

these particularly students are very good at pattern-recognition, and became bored quite

quickly with grammar practice. We ended up simply making a list of which adjectives and

adverbs went with more/less and which tooker endings, and students used it as a resource

independently when doing their writing.

Meta-reflection

Hands down, the biggest challenge for me in preparing and implementing this unit was

the issue of depth versus breadth, and of avoiding the sin of coverage (King, 2009). The task I

was assigned, of covering Asia, illustrates the not uncommon disconnect between best

practices like Understanding by Design and schools traditional curriculum design. Thankfully, I

was given the leeway to address the topic in whatever way I chose, and so was able to focus on


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from the school. By providing information up-front about which topics we would be examining

over the course of the unit, and what the final project would bewhere we were going and

why (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005, p. 198) I was able to encourage the students to take a more

active role in their education; this driven group of kids often came prepared to class with

insightful questions and additional content information about the days topic, rather than

relying entirely on the teacher to drive the discussion and provide information. The students

love of technology and of collaborative partner and group work provided powerful hooks

(Wiggins & McTighe, 2005, p. 201) to keep them engaged in tasks they might otherwise find

frustrating, such as reading academic English materials and writing informative text. I was able

to organize (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005, p. 220) the unit so that students rehearsed learning

strategies, content and language goals repeatedly with each of the focus countries, until they

were able to use them independently; the students final projects turned out beautifully, with

little to no assistance from me, the teacher I was very pleased to have made myself useless!

One aspect of this unit that I am particularly pleased with was how I was able to tailor


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academic vocabulary and on-level concepts in a format with which they were comfortable,

which reduced the cognitive load of the task (Eggen, 2008) and encouraged them to move

from writing isolated sentences into writing longer compositions. I believe this format could be

considered a transitional step toward more formal writing; had I had more time with these

students, I certainly would have moved in that direction.

Applying CAPRII principals was somewhat challenging to me in this assignment. The

language and learning strategy goals were straightforward enough, but I initially struggled to

differentiate between culture and content objectives, as in this subject area and topic, it

seemed to me that the cultural information was the content. However, in the end I had a

lightbulb moment and realized that the content objectives would be the Social Studies skills

that are transferrable to any related activity, such as supporting inferences with factual

evidence, and the cultural objectives would be the skills and knowledge related specifically to

understanding and analyzing culture, such as describing Shinto beliefs and practices (Center

for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition, 2009). Once I realized this, articulating my


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References and Resources

Cappellini, M. (2005). Balancing Reading and Language Learning. Portland, ME: Stenhouse

Publishers.

Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition. (2009). Content-Based Second

Language Instruction. CoBaLTT Website, .

Clearwaters, D. (2003). Shinto. San Francisco, CA: Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and

Culture.

Eggen & Kauchak. (2008). Educational Psychology: Windows on Classrooms, Eighth Edition.Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Educaton, Inc.

Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund. (2007). Japan 2007. .

King, K. (2009). CI 5631: Second Language Curriculum Development and Assessment.

University of Minnesota. Lecture notes, 9/8/2009.

Kohler, P. (2010). Pocket Tales: Myths & Legends la Carte.About.com,.

Lonely Planet. (2009). Hanoi: Lonely Planet Travel Video. YouTube,

.

Lubawy, S. (2001). World View: A Global Study of Geography, History and Culture Book Two: the

Eastern Hemisphere. Palatine, IL: Linmore Publishing.

Luong, M.C. (2001). Vietnamese Folk Tale. .


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Final Asia AssignmentDue March 5th


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You can work 2nd and 3rd period todayand 3rd period tomorrow. Your comic isdue Friday at the beginning of 2nd

period

no excuses!

First, choose two places (Vietnam, Japan, India,Saudi Arabia, or Uzbekistan)

Then, make a dialogue where a character from

one country goes to visit a character in adifferent country and gets a tour. The characterscompare their cultures. (Include at least 10 ofthese topics: food, economics, religion, clothing,architecture, transportation, art, nature,recreation, climate, history, and social class.)

Spend about 15 minutes looking at pictures ofthe countries on www.trekearth.com to getideas.

Make a comic book based on your dialogue.Make sure the pictures match the dialogue!
http://www.trekearth.com/http://www.trekearth.com/http://www.trekearth.com/


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Asian Cultures Comic Rubric

4 3 2 1

Dialog The conversation is verynatural. The spelling, grammarand punctuation are almost

perfect.

The conversation ismostly natural. The spelling, grammarand punctuation mostly

correct.

The spelling, grammarand punctuation are goodenough for the writing to be

understandable.

Spelling, grammarand/or punctuationmistakes make the writing

hard to understand.

Cultural

Information

The conversationaddresses two of the Asian

cultures we studied.

The conversationincludes totally accurate

information about 10 or

more of these elements:

food, economics, religion,

clothing, architecture,

transportation, art, nature,

recreation, climate, history,

and social class.

There are many details. The characters compareand contrast all the elements

they discuss.



The conversationincludes mostly accurate

information about 8 or more

of these elements: food,

economics, religion, clothing,

architecture, transportation,

art, nature, recreation,

climate, history, and social

class.

There are some details. The characters compareand contrast some elements.



The conversationincludes somewhat accurate

information about 5 or more

of these elements: food,

economics, religion, clothing,

architecture, transportation,

art, nature, recreation,

climate, history, and social

class.

The characters compareand contrast a few elements.

The conversationaddresses one of the

Asian cultures we studied.

The conversationincludes information

about some of the

elements of culture, but

there are manyinaccuracies.

Presentation The drawings match thedialog.

The drawings accuratelyshow the cultures.

The drawing and writingis very neat.

The drawings mostlymatch the dialog.

The drawings mostlyaccurately show the culture.

The drawing and writingis neat.

The drawings somewhatmatch the dialog.

The drawings somewhatshow the culture.

The drawing and writingis readable.

There are drawings.


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Name:

Date:

VIETNAM KWL CHART

KNOW WANT TO KNOW LEARNED


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Name:

Date:

JAPAN KWL CHART



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Name:

Date:

INDIA KWL CHART



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Name:

Date:

SAUDI ARABIA KWL CHART



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Name:

Date:

UZBEKISTAN KWL CHART



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Name:

Date:


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photo credit:http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/photo1180622.htm
http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/photo1180622.htmhttp://www.trekearth.com/gallery/photo1180622.htmhttp://www.trekearth.com/gallery/photo1180622.htmhttp://www.trekearth.com/gallery/photo1180622.htm


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photo credit: http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/photo1006862.htm


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photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mozilla_dood/500328483/


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photo credit: Lindsay Ohlert


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h di Li d Ohl


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Photo credit:http://blog.lib.umn.edu/victor/hereandthere/Images/Vietnam02%20Sa%20Dec-4.jpg
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/victor/hereandthere/Images/Vietnam02%20Sa%20Dec-4.jpghttp://blog.lib.umn.edu/victor/hereandthere/Images/Vietnam02%20Sa%20Dec-4.jpghttp://blog.lib.umn.edu/victor/hereandthere/Images/Vietnam02%20Sa%20Dec-4.jpghttp://blog.lib.umn.edu/victor/hereandthere/Images/Vietnam02%20Sa%20Dec-4.jpg


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Photo credit: http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/photo1156589.htm


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CONCLUSIONS ABOUT LIFE IN VIETNAM

Use the photos to make inferences about Vietnamese life and culture. Make sure yousupport your inferences with facts. You may use the following formulas to do so:

Based on the pictures of Catholic churches and Buddhist pagodas, I conclude thatChristianity

and Buddhism are the most popular religions in Vietnam.

Because I see that Vietnam has many rice paddies, I believe rice is a staple food in Vietnam.

TRANSPORTATION

FOOD


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ARCHITECTURE

RECREATION

ART

CLOTHING/STYLE


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You are Vietnamese. You are the older sister (Chi). You and your

younger brother (Em) live together in the country. You really want to

move to the city, but only if your brother agrees with you. Convince

your brother that moving to the city is a good idea.

You are Vietnamese. You are the younger brother (Em). You and

your older sister (Chi) live together in the country. You do not ever

want to move to the city. Convince your sister that the country is a

great place to live.

You are still Chi It is three years later and now you want to emigrate


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TWO VIETNAMESE FOLK TALESBy MC Luong and Peter Kohler (adapted under fair use for non-commercial educational

purposes)

A TigerHere is a story about a fisherman who cared for his old mother. Every evening he would cast his

nets into the river, and every morning he would collect the fish that had been caught in them, and

that is how they lived.

One morning he discovered that one of his nets had been torn open and was empty of fish. That

day he repaired the net and in the evening cast his several nets into the river as usual. The next

morning he was alarmed to discover that allof his nets had been ripped and twisted, and there wasnot a single fish in any of them!

He carefully repaired all the nets, and set them out in the evening. But the next morning he came

upon the same dismal scene of torn and empty nets. This same situation occurred day after day

after day until, seeing that his dear mother was weakening from lack of food, he decided to spend

an entire night hiding in the shadows beside the river and to capture whomever was responsible for

destroying his nets.

The next morning the fishermans body was found, lacerated and lifeless, beside the flowing river.

To the villagers, this was clearly the work of a tiger the most frightening of animals! They walked

the forest paths in fear.

The fisherman's mother grieved for her only son, and visited his grave daily. One evening, lost in

grief, as she was returning home from the graveyard she came upon a tiger. Distraught as she was,

she challenged him fearlessly: "Are you the one who killed my son? What am I to do now? I shallsoon die of sadness and hunger." The tiger just stood there, rather humbly for a tiger. "Will you

provide for me? Will you do for me as my son did?" The tiger nodded his head, but the woman


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funeral. During her funeral the forest was filled with the roaring of a tiger.

It was a tradition in all of the villages for people to gather on the thirtieth day of the last month of

the year, bearing offerings for the spirits of their ancestors so that they might spend time together

again. The villagers noticed and admired that on that very day each year, the loyal tiger returned

with an offering of wild game in memory of the old woman.

How does the mother change in this story? How does the tiger change?

Based on this story, what are some important values in Vietnamese culture?

The Little Colt

Once upon a time there was a kind farmer who was very generous and never refused to help hisfellows in need. One day, the kind farmers neighbor Lc came to him and asked to borrow a sack of

bean seeds because after a terrible fire had devastated his crops. Lc promised to repay him as

soon as he was able to. "Of course, my dear Lc, I'll give you the seeds you need," said the kind

farmer, "and take your time about repaying me, I do not need it right now."

Lc thanked his neighbor profusely and carted the heavy bag of seeds away. Before replanting,

though, he went to a nearby village to buy farming tools and was attacked on the road by bandits

who robbed and killed him and hid the body. The farmer, hearing no more of Lc, thought that Lc

had just taken his bag of seeds and moved to another farm and had no plans to ever repay him.

"W ll th t' lif " h h d d t b t hi b i l


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soon became a legend in the village and offers to buy him poured in, but the farmer would not part

from this animal, who had become his favorite pet.

But one day the colt fell sick, and steadily grew weaker. Several horse doctors came and tried tosave him, but the colts health would just not improve. Desperate, the farmer called in one of the

monks at the pagoda to come and see if this was the work of evil spirits. After a few prayers, the

monk looked strangely at the farmer and asked "Does the name Lc mean anything to you?"

"Why, yes," said the farmer. The colt had raised his head and looked at him sadly. "Lc was that guy

whom I loaned some seeds to and who disappeared shortly after.

The monk nodded sagely. "He never intended to go off without repaying you," he said, "Now, for

this colt, here's what to do to cure him. Once he's well, however, I advise that you sell him

immediately." The farmer did as he was told. He gave the colt the medicine the monk had given

him, and the colt got better, so the farmer sold him in the village.

As the farmer was walking home with his money, he suddenly stopped in his tracks. He realized that

the money from the sale of the colt was exactly the price of a sack of bean seeds! He then

understood that Lc had died before being able to repay him and had been reborn as the colt, toclear all the debts he had left behind in his previous life. The kind farmer smiled and sent a fond

thought to the soul of the departed debtor Lc, wishing him wealth, happiness and peace of mind in

his next incarnation.

What kind of person is the farmer? Make a character web!


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XtraNormal India Video Assignment Rubric

4 3 2 1

Dialogue The conversationsounds very natural.

The dialogueexpresses emotions, such

as humor, romantic

feelings, excitement, etc.

The conversationincludes accurate

information about Indian

food, economics, religion,

clothing, architecture,

transportation and social

class. There are manydetails.

The characterscompare and contrast

Indian culture with

Vietnamese and/or

Japanese culture.

The conversationincludes some greetings,

goodbyes andinterjections.

The conversationincludes accurate

information about at least

five of the following:

Indian food, economics,

religion, clothing,

architecture,

transportation and social

class. There are somedetails.

The characterscompare and contrast

Indian culture with

Vietnamese and/or

Japanese culture.

The conversationincludes a few greetings,

goodbyes or interjections. The conversationprovides mostly accurate

information about at least

four of the following:


religion, clothing,

transportation,

architecture, and social

class.

The characters

compare and contrast

Indian culture with

Vietnamese and/or

Japanese culture.

The conversationprovides partly accurate

information about at leastthree of the following:


religion, clothing,

transportation,

architecture, and social

class.

There is an Indiancharacter and a Japanese

or Vietnamese character.

Video The spelling andpunctuation are almost

perfect, so the program

can speak correctly.

The characters makemany actions that fit the

conversation.

The spelling andpunctuation are mostly

correct, so the program

can speak mostly

correctly.

The characters makesome actions that fit the

conversation.

The spelling andpunctuation are good

enough that the program

is understandable.

The characters makesome actions.

The spelling andpunctuation is good

enough that the program

can be understood

sometimes.

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"Asian Life" Curriculum Unit

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