LESSON OVERVIEW

Lesson Topic: Defining Culture and the different aspects of culture

Unit Topic: Different Cultures
Subject/Grade Level: First-Third
Lesson Duration [can be longer than a single class period]: 1 hour
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS | Factual, Debatable, & Provocative
Questions
Essential Question(s) for Unit: What is a Culture?
Essential Question(s) for Lesson: What are the different things that
make up a culture? How does culture shape your personal identity?
What is a culture?
OBJECTIVES
SWBATidentifythe
aspectspresentinevery
culturearoundthe
world
SWBATunderstand
thedefinitionofa
cultureandexplain
howitinfluencesthe
livesofpeoplearound
theworld.
SWBATsharetheir
ideasrespectfullytothe
class
SWBATmake
connectionsbetween
theaspectsofculture
andthewaytheylive
theirownlivesinour
schoolCulture.

RATIONALE

ACADEMIC LANGUAGE
DEMANDS
Students will be engaging in
conversations about the
different aspects of culture.
They will also be watching a
video that describes the
elements of a culture. In order
to be successful in this lesson,
students must be either pretaught or asked to think about
some of the vocabulary that is
present when talking about a
culture.
Culture: they way a group of
people act and what they
believe.
Traditions: something that is
passed down through groups of
people could be a belief or an
act/ celebration, clothes, food,
etc.
Belief/religion: something that
you trust is true or exists,
belief in s supernatural being
Values: what you think is
important in your life, what you
think is the proper way to
behave

STANDARDS
SL2.4 Tell a story
or recount an
experience with
appropriate facts
and relevant,
descriptive details,
speaking audibly
in coherent
sentences.
SL.2.1 Participate in
collaborative
conversations with
diverse partners about
social studies topics
with peers and adults
in small or larger
groups.

This unit is all about the study of different cultures, however before
we can teach about different cultures and how they work together
students must understand what a culture is. Students need the basic
framework of the aspects of cultures and how they influence the lives
of people in that culture.
ASSESSMENTS
To assess if students are able to identify the aspects present in every
culture around the world, understand the definition of culture, and
explain why it is important to learn about I will be engaging students
in a pre and post discussion that will be very similar. From student
verbal responses, I will be able to gage whether or not these
objectives have been met. I will keep written records of responses
from each discussion (i.e. written on the white board and personal
notes). From this, I can tell where my students were in terms of these
objectives before the lesson and where they fall in meeting
objectives after the lesson.
To assess if students are able to communicate ideas respectfully and
word cooperatively with others will be assessed through observation
during classroom discussions, both with pairs and full class
discussions and during group work time. Observations will tell us how
well students are able to interact with and communicate with each
other. This will help decide whether or not students will need further
explicit instruction on what it means to be respect and how to work
collaboratively with others.
To assess students ability to make connections to their own lives to
help reinforce the understanding about what makes up a culture
students will complete their own Our School Culture map. Students
will work together to map out our school culture using the different
aspects that define a culture. This assignment will allow us to assess
how well students are able to make connections to their lives in
relation to culture and its various aspects.
Diagnost
ic
Assessm
ents

In the form of a speed dating discussion, students will

be asked what they know about American, culture,
traditions, language, religion, food, values, the way we
dress, and holidays. I will then ask why it might
important to talk about what we know for each of these
words. This will allow me to understand where my
students are in understanding what a culture is, and
what is it made up of and why they are important. I will
need to be very attentive in listening to student
responses, I will then be able to identify the areas of
culture that might need to be taught a little more in
depth.

Formativ
e
Assessm
ents

While students are working in groups to complete their

learning activity, teachers will circulate, to monitor how
well students are able to work with one another and
share ideas about culture respectfully to one another.
Before the lesson is wrapped up, students will be asked
to reflect how well they are able to share their ideas
and work with one another. Students will be asked to
reflect whenever they participate in group work to
monitor student collaborative progress.

Summati
ve
Assessm
ents

StudentswillbeaskedtomakeanOurSchoolCultureMapby
workingtogetherwithagroupof2or3students.Thisassessment
willallowmetoseehowwellstudentsareabletomakeconnections
betweentheaspectsthatdefineeverycultureandourschoolCulture
thatwecollectivelyliveineachday.Afterthisassignment,wewill
comebacktoawholeclassdiscussionaboutwhyitisimportantto
learnaboutcultures,andhowtheyeffect/relatetoourlives.

DIFFERENTIATION
All Differentiations are in general to the age group that ranges from
First to Third Grades.
Students
Developme
ntal Assets

Students in grades one to three will have a wide

range of reading and writing abilities. Students in
first grade might be just at their beginning of reading
and writing instruction, where as third graders might
be more experienced readers and writers. Students
in this age group often have very high energy and
are eager to talk to classmates. This lesson provides
students with the opportunity to express knowledge
orally and with other classmates through structured
discussions.
Duringtheplannedlearningactivity,studentshavetheoptionto
writeinwordsordrawvisualstoexpressthedifferentaspectsof
ourschoolculture.Thiswillgivestudentsalittlefreedomto
choosetheformofexpressionthattheyaremostcomfortablewith.

Students
Prior
Knowledge

Students in this age group generally has life

experience that will give them knowledge about
various aspects of a culture such as family, food,
beliefs/ religion, language, and holidays. Day to day
life experiences at school and at home will give
students some sort of knowledge regarding aspects
of culture, even if students have not yet made the

connection that it is what defines culture. Students

will be pulling prior knowledge from their
experiences at school heavily during this lesson. I
will help students activate this prior knowledge in the
very beginning of the lesson through the speed
dating discussion. I will ask students to talk about
what they know about various aspects of culture
using prompt questions. Students will be presented a
word and then they must talk about whatever they
know about that word. This will help students tap
into their prior knowledge and experiences in terms
of culture and its elements. Students will then me
prompted to tap into their prior knowledge by
recalling experiences they have at school. They must
use that prior knowledge in the group activity that
will ask them to create a culture map of our schools.
Students will use their prior knowledge about school
in order to sort their experiences into the different
categories that make up a culture.
Possible
Some students might come with the misconception
Misconcept that your culture is only defined by your ethnicity,
ions
race or, where your heritage is. Although many
times, these aspects play into your culture, there is
so much more to consider when defining culture.
Students will learn this through their school
community culture activity. Students will look at a
small culture that influences their lives greatly,
school. Students will see that even though students
in our class or our school may be from a different
ethnicity or come from a different part of the world
we are all still part of the same school culture. This
moves into the idea that everyone has their own
personal culture that is formed from all aspects of
their life- culture ties into personal identity. This idea
will be visited more in depth during the What is your
Culture Lesson.
Individual
Learning
Needs

Students who struggle with writing will have the

opportunity to draw and verbally explain each
element of our school culture. This will take off the
stress of writing and spelling for students, this way
they will better be able to focus their thinking on the
content. I will be using a video that has minimal

words to read in it, and I will narrate when there are

words but no talking to help students who may
struggle to read.
LESSON CONTENT OUTLINE
Lesson During this unit of social studies we will be learning about
Openi different cultures around the world. Before we learn about
ng
all the different cultures that make up our world, we need
to all have an understanding of what culture is. The
purpose of the lesson is to define culture, and learn about
the different things that make up a culture. We will be
thinking about why cultures are important to learn about.
Our essential questions we all should be able to answer
by the end of our learning activities today are: What are
the different things that make up a culture? How does
culture shape our lives? What is a culture?
To grab student attention the lesson will start with a quick
two-minute video about the different aspects of culture.
To activate student prior knowledge and find out what
students already know the class will be participating in a
speed dating discussion. I will post a work on the board
(each word will be a different element that relates to
culture) and students will have to talk to the person
across from them about everything they know about that
word. Students will rotate and talk to a new person for
every word/prompt. The last question in the discussion
will ask students whether or not they think culture is
something you can only see on the outside of a person or
group of people. (15 minutes)
Learni
ng
Activit
ies

The teacher will post an anchor chart in the front of the

room shows a graphic organizer that helps define culture.
The teacher will explain that culture is the way a group of
people acts in their daily lives and what they believe or
value. The teacher will explain that there are many
different parts to a culture such as beliefs/ religion,
language, food, clothing, family, holidays, traditions,
sports, etc. Everyone belongs to a culture. The teacher
will then pull up a culture ice burg diagram, and explain
that there are many things that help us define culture that
we see on the surface, but there is so many other aspects
that define culture deep down, such as values or what is

seen as polite or respectful. Cultures effect how we go

about living our lives and they influence how we identify
ourselves. The teacher will introduce the idea that our
school community is considered a culture that our whole
class belongs to and lives by. (5 minutes)
Students will break up into groups of 2 or 3 students for
the learning activity. The students will be asked to create
a map that shows our school community. Each group will
be given a graphic organizer and their job is to write in or
draw out each element of culture that relates to our
school culture. For example, for clothing or dress students
would draw the school uniform they all wear to school
each day or for food, if the school always has pizza on
Friday then students would draw a slice a pizza and write
Friday in the bubble. In addition, students will have to
choose one aspect from underneath the ice burg and draw
something that is insider information to our school
culture, a value that we share that a visitor would not see
from the outside. Students will be assessed on how well
their examples relate to the categories of culture and how
well they are able to work collaboratively together. (15
minutes)
We will then come back together as a whole class to
discuss the activity. Students will engage in a think pair
share discussion around why it is important that we learn
about culture. They will create their own definition of
culture in their own words and talk about what they think
is the most important aspects of culture. Students will
also share ideas about how culture affects the lives of
everyone in the world. Students will be assessed based on
their ability to share ideas and the content within the
discussion. (15 minutes)
Lesson We will take the definitions of students who have shared
Closin out and combine them to create our own classroom
g
definition of culture and create a statement of how
cultures influence our lives and identities. Teacher will
introduce the idea that there are many different cultures
around the world that help people define who they are
and guide how they live, we will be looking at different
aspects of different cultures throughout this unit. (5
minutes)

ASSIGNMENTS
Students will be completing a graphic organizer to describe the
different parts of the culture they belong to at school. The graphic
organizer will have categories such as language, food, beliefs,
dress/clothing, traditions, and holidays. Students will be assessed on
how well their examples relate to the categories of culture.
MATERIALS/RESOURCES/TECHNOLOGY
https://smediacacheak0.pinimg.com/originals/1f/cf/16/1fcf162438c3e3a9181b148dcacc61e9.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_dbaugeRh8&feature=share
http://interculturalism.blogspot.ca/2011/03/icebergmodelofculture.html
Teachermadegraphicorganizerthathaspartsoftheculturealreadylabeled.
Markers/crayons/pencils

SELF-ASSESSMENT
The evidence that will help decide if the lesson was successful or not
will come from student responses in their graphic organizers and
during discussion about the importance of culture and how it
influences our daily lives. If students are able to come up with a
definition of culture in their own words, explain how it influences the
way we live, and provide appropriate examples for each element of
culture in the graphic organizer we can claim that this lesson was
successful. If students are unable to explain how culture effects the
lives of people through inquiry around defining their school culture,
we may need to explicitly show examples of how culture influences
the lives of people around the world. We are going to look at aspects
of different cultures around the world in future lessons to teach
cultural elements throughout the lesson.