Africa: Impression Busting

I have to apologize for my lack of updates--it's been a busy two weeks! I promised to write a post about our "Impression Busting" activity and here it is...

When we started the Africa unit, I asked students to come up with impressions or stereotypes of Africa based on a handful of children's books we read in class. They did an awesome job with it, but I didn't want the activity to end there. 

As a follow-up to our initial impressions, which ended up being very general, I wanted the students to "bust" their impressions after reading new information about Africa. Essentially, we were going to act like the investigators on the television show Mythbusters, except a lot less flashy! We even watched a Mythbusters clip about Africa to get in the mythbusting spirit. 

I chose three impressions that the students came up with to focus on. As students read, they were to find information that made that impression true or false and record it under the "nuanced understandings" section of their charts. Finally, they decided if they could bust one of the impressions. If they could prove the impression wrong, they wrote "busted" underneath the impression.

Ultimately we decided that we couldn't say Africa was mostly desert or that Africa was always hot, but we thought that Africa did have a lot of different plants.

BUSTED!

National Junior Honor Society

This afternoon I had the pleasure of watching four of my students be inducted into the National Junior Honor Society. I'm so proud of their hard work. Kinachra, Ivanska, Vanessa, and Isidro, you deserve to be recognized for joining such a wonderful organization.

It was a privilege to watch you as your families and peers honored your achievements. I can't say enough good things about you guys. :)

New "Translate" Feature

Translate!

Some of my students have commented that their parents can't read English and wanted the blog in Spanish, so I'm happy to introduce the new "translate" feature at the top of the blog. Just click your language from the drop down menu, and you can read the blog in Spanish (or Haitian-Creole, or German, or French, or anything!)

:)

Africa Vocabulary

Vocabulary

This unit's first vocabulary quiz will be on Monday, May 21st for all classes. As I promised in class, here are the vocabulary words and definitions:

trench-a deep furrow into the ground

consist-to be made up of

fertile-rich in the substances plants need to grow well

tributary-a smaller river or stream that flows into a larger river

cycle-a series of events that happen regularly

starch-a food substance found in potatoes and other vegetables

elevation-the height of land above sea level

plateau-an area of level land raised above the surrounding land, with at least one side with a steep slope

Vocabulary Stories

To practice these words, students wrote a short story about either Justin Bieber, a carnival, or the mall. They were required to use at least six of the vocabulary words in their stories. Some of the results were pretty interesting...

Here's AJ's story:

"I saw Justin Bieber eating a starchy potato. I don't like him, so I pushed him down a trench. Then he climbed out of the hole and I pushed him back in. It was like a cycle. It was getting boring, so I took him out of the hole and I pushed him off of a plateau. Then he landed in a tributary and flowed away. I grabbed him from the river and put him in the dirt. Now he's making it fertile."

Anonymous wrote:

"I was in Washington D.C. and I was digging a trench. I was at a high elevation, so the trench was deep. I got water from a lake that was part of a tributary to a larger river. I filled the trench with water. I noticed that there was Justin Bieber eating a starchy potato on some fertile land. I was on a plateau so I ran up to Justin, pushed him in my trench, and I sealed the trench up so he could not get out."

Maggie's story:

"Once upon a time I saw Justin Bieber. He smiled and did a hair flip and said, "hey." He looked like starchy potatoes. Then he began the cycle. Every I saw him, and "hey," he always said. Finally I had enough. I threw a bottle at his head.It consisted of fruit punch. Then I dragged him down the elevation of a deep trench and from there threw him in the tributary. And so was the end of bad singing!!!"

Disclaimer: These stories are in no way an expression of how my students REALLY feel about Justin Bieber. Unfortunately, this unit's vocabulary words led them to create very strange, somewhat violent stories. I promise, none of the students really want to throw Justin Bieber into a trench...

More to come this weekend! 

Remember to study!!!

Africa's Vegetation Regions

Vegetation Regions of Africa

This week, after writing some very excellent vocabulary short stories, (more on those tomorrow), and doing some "Impression Busting" (more on this tomorrow, too!), the students used their textbooks to complete their own vegetation maps of Africa. 

One of the impressions the students had about Africa was that Africa is mostly desert--hot and dry everywhere. Although we "busted" that initial impression during our impression busting activity (kind of like the television show Mythbusters), I wanted the students to see that Africa is a diverse continent, so the students drew a small picture illustrating the details they found about deserts, rain forests, and savannas.

Here are some hardworking students in 3rd period:

And these very happy ladies from 7th period showing off their zebra striped savanna drawings:

And a completed assignment:

That's all for tonight. I'm excited to share the vocabulary stories and "Impression Busting" activity tomorrow! 

Team Trivia Winners

Congratulations to the Australia and New Zealand Team Trivia WINNERS! 

And 8th period, please forgive me:

Nicolas, Rodtravian, Carion, Sebestian, and Sean (Sibley)

Awesome job guys!

Impressions of Africa

An Introduction to Africa

This week in World Cultures we covered a lot of ground--the students took a vocabulary test and a quiz over Australia and New Zealand, we got into new teams to work on team trivia and "impression gathering," we did some team building, we practiced a new vocabulary strategy called "echo vocabulary," and, finally, learned about the four major regions of Africa. It was definitely a busy week. 

As an introduction to Africa, the students read a children's book about Africa in their teams. Each student wrote their own impression of Africa based on the book, and then they each shared their impressions to come up with a "team impression." 

Here are some things they were looking for in the stories to help them along:

Then the students shared their team impressions with the class and we wrote them on the board:

Then the students answered the following prompt: "If you could write one sentence that describes what children's book authors want to teach children about Africa, what would you write?" They shared their responses on the board:

 Here are some individual impressions of Africa (and the children's books we read):

Janisa: "It's harsh because when people stand up for rights they get beat down."

Da'Monique: "It's hard. African people's lives aren't easy like ours."

Norma: "The authors are trying to teach us that Africans are grateful people that believe and do many cool things."

 

  

Rubi: "My impression is the little kids are working hard to get food to eat and to built shelter to live in."

Sha'Kina: "I think Africa is a hot place because of the clothes they wear."

Molea: "There are many different religions and jungles, forests, plants, trees, and grasslands."

Muler: "Life in Africa is really hard because most people there have to farm to get food and they have to work hard and they are poor."

Isidro: "Africa has many people and stories."


And finally...


As a follow-up assignment, the students took their sentence that summarized all of the stories and narrowed it down to one or two words they could use to describe their impression of Africa. They posted their word on a map of Africa which we will return to at the end of the unit. Hopefully by the end of the unit their impressions will change!


4th period's impressions:

More soon!