Hello parents, teachers, and supporters! This blog post marks the beginning of our first ever series documenting a full semester of lessons! These lessons were originally developed and taught in the Spring semester of 2018 by Kira Yancey, Julia Sponholtz, and Breaunna Tucker.
We started this semester with a quick overview of anthropology as the study of humans, and established the four subfields of anthropology as Culture, Linguistics, Archaeology, and Physical using the acronym "CLAP" (students “clapped it out”, meaning the class clapped along as we said aloud each subfield). We included a brief description of each subfield, and then moved on to the full lesson covering culture. We then went through a variety of examples of ways in which people “show” their culture, including food, art, clothing, rituals, and holidays, making sure to ask the students for examples before providing them directly. The students did very well in being able to give us examples when asked, even often giving us the exact example we had provided on the slide before being shown. Following this explanation of culture, we introduced the students to our “sister country” for the semester, Spain. We provided them with some factoids about the country and a few different aspects of Spanish culture, such as the heavy emphasis on both immediate and extended family. We introduced them to the idea of different regions of Spain being controlled by powerful families, and from there broke the students up into their reinos (kingdoms) or familias. Each group represented one of three powerful Spanish ruling families: the Castille, the Aragon, and the Navarra. Once in our groups, the students made family trees where they graphed their own families or created a new fictional family with the group members present. Students also established a set of "values" or traditions that they would like to be important in their own family "culture". These included things like kindness, celebrating holidays, caring for animals, or recycling. To end, students decorated family crests with the colors of their familias and symbols representative of the values they chose for their groups. More can be seen of this in the vlog below.
We started this semester with a quick overview of anthropology as the study of humans, and established the four subfields of anthropology as Culture, Linguistics, Archaeology, and Physical using the acronym "CLAP" (students “clapped it out”, meaning the class clapped along as we said aloud each subfield). We included a brief description of each subfield, and then moved on to the full lesson covering culture. We then went through a variety of examples of ways in which people “show” their culture, including food, art, clothing, rituals, and holidays, making sure to ask the students for examples before providing them directly. The students did very well in being able to give us examples when asked, even often giving us the exact example we had provided on the slide before being shown. Following this explanation of culture, we introduced the students to our “sister country” for the semester, Spain. We provided them with some factoids about the country and a few different aspects of Spanish culture, such as the heavy emphasis on both immediate and extended family. We introduced them to the idea of different regions of Spain being controlled by powerful families, and from there broke the students up into their reinos (kingdoms) or familias. Each group represented one of three powerful Spanish ruling families: the Castille, the Aragon, and the Navarra. Once in our groups, the students made family trees where they graphed their own families or created a new fictional family with the group members present. Students also established a set of "values" or traditions that they would like to be important in their own family "culture". These included things like kindness, celebrating holidays, caring for animals, or recycling. To end, students decorated family crests with the colors of their familias and symbols representative of the values they chose for their groups. More can be seen of this in the vlog below.
To see more lessons like this one on Culture, check out our lesson plan pages on Creating Culture, Seeing Culture, or Documenting Culture using Ethnography.
To contact us with questions, concerns, or anything else, go to our contact page.
To see and download the exact powerpoint, lesson plan, and activity used in this blog, you can do so by clicking the links below!
To contact us with questions, concerns, or anything else, go to our contact page.
To see and download the exact powerpoint, lesson plan, and activity used in this blog, you can do so by clicking the links below!
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