Introduction
Celebrating in Group: Human expressions of Culture
Human beings are often characterized by using a very diverse way of expressing their cultural traditions, that are passed through generations for years and years. So, you have lots of different ways to celebrate special dates and this varies from countries to countries.
American people all have their celebration dates, some of them which are celebrated as well in other parts of the planet (sometimes even in a different way) and other which are part of American Culture in specific. Some examples would be:
- New Years' Day;
- Memorial Day;
- Birth of Martin Luther King, Jr.;
- Independence Day;
- Halloween;
- Thanksgiving;
- Christmas.
For more information on American Holidays, you should visit: http://www.usa.gov/citizens/holidays.shtml
Task
The task is:
You and your partner are going to choose only one of the topics below (one for each group):
- New Years' Day;
- Memorial Day;
- Birth of Martin Luther King, Jr.;
- Independence Day;
- Halloween;
- Thanksgiving;
- Christmas.
Your assignment is to do a "Culture Video News Programme", in which you are going to explore one of the American holidays above. To do so, you should follow the steps described in the Process tab. The "News" are going to be organized in posters in Pinterest. The aim of this task is making you aware of the similarities and differences of cultural celebrations around the world.
Process
Step 01 - Research
First of all, you are going to research on the web for articles in English (a minimum of five) and videos in You Tube (a minimum of two) about the following aspects of the American holiday you chose to focus on:
- The History of the Holiday;
- If the holiday is celebrated elsewhere in the world, research how different cultures celebrate the same holiday;
- If it's a typical American holiday, research about other cultural expressions in the world that are similar to the one you chose.
e.g. Halloween in United States x Dia de los muertos in Mexico x Dia de Finados in Brazil.
- Traditional Recipes of that particular day;
- Any other information you find interesting.
Step 02 - Posting your selected articles/websites in Pinterest.
You should then, construct a group board in Pinterest, like a collection of articles about the topics above.
Access www.pinterest.com to construct your panels.
Acesss https://www.pinterest.com/purezabio/using-pinterest-as-technology-tool/ and search in my Pinterest page for an article who explains many facts about the Pinterest tool and how to do group boards.
Step 03 - Filming your presentation
Use your collection of articles as resource to construct the "news" for your programme. The two students should play the roles of the anchormen of the programme and should discuss some articles - at least 4 of them, 2 articles and 2 videos, giving their insights and sharing their comments about them. The video should be of a minimum 10 minutes and a maximum of 30 minutes.
Step 04 - Edit your video
Once you have the rough video, it's time to edit it. Be creative and use your imagination - you could add images, sound and even an opening. It's up to you giving your personal touch to your video. You could use Windows Movie Maker or Corel Video Studio Pro X7 or other video editing software to do it.
This is a tutorial in Portuguese for using Windows Movie Maker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H_2_Q8akuA
This is a tutorial in English for beginners users of Corel Video Studio Pro X7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoTJwN2046k
Be sure to search for more videos in order to help you editing your videos!
Step 05 - Online sharing
In a date that will be decided by the teacher, we'll have a video conference through appear.in, in which the teacher will interact with the three groups - and they will show their videos to class on a webconference. The teacher will give you a link in the future at the selected day for presentation - you'll use one notebook for the pair of students and teacher will give the final instructions on the day of the conference. In the end of every presentation, your classmates can ask you questions, make comments about your presentation and give suggestions for further research.
Link for webconference will be posted here in the future.
Evaluation
The Evaluation will occur as follows:
There are 5 points of activities that are going to be distributed like this:
1,5 pt - Pinterest board
2,0 pt - Edited video
1,5 pt - Online Speaking Interaction on Web Conference
Rubrics are as follow:
Evaluation of Pinterest Board
1,5 pt - Students posted a variety of articles, including all topics (History, Cultural Diversity and Traditional Recipes) discussed in Process Tab (Step 2).
1,0 pt - Students posted a variety of articles, focusing on two of the topics demanded in Process Tab (Step 2).
0,5 pt - Students posted articles focusing on only one aspect of the celebration date they chose or Students used another tool to make their poster without asking for guidance/permission on the teacher;
0,0 pt - Students posted articles that don't have relation to the celebration date or Students failed to show on their poster any of the topics demanded in Process Tab (Step 2).
---- - Student didn't make the poster;
Evaluation of Video Editing/Final Product
2,0 pt - Students show a high quality video (good edition and great creativity) and great command on speaking about the topic they chose, demonstrating they associate their boards to their presentation. This shows they've actually read the posts and prepared for the presentation.
1,5 pt - Students show a good quality video (problems either on edition or in creativity), but great command on speaking about the topic they chose, demonstrating they associate their boards to their presentation. This shows they've actually read the posts and prepared for the presentation.
1,0 pt - Students show a high quality video (good edition and great creativity), but not much command on speaking about the topic they chose, demonstrating they read the post in a superficial way and therefore, show they're are not so well prepared for their presentation.
0,5 pt - Students show a poor quality video (problems on edition and no creativity whatsoever) and great command on speaking about the topic they chose, demonstrating they associate their boards to their presentation, but with too many speaking mistakes or speaking proficiency below his level (intermediate).
0,0 pt - Students show a poor quality video (problems on edition and no creativity whatsoever) and no command on speaking about the topic they chose, demonstrating they didn't read their boards or prepare properly to their presentation, with too many speaking mistakes or speaking proficiency below his level (intermediate).
----- - Students don't present their video; Students are not present in the day of the presentation and don't justify their absence.
Evaluation of On line Debate
1,5 pt - Students show respect for the others' presentation, pay attention to it and therefore, are able to talk about what they learned from their classmates and make valuable and positive criticism on their classmates' work, using all or great part of words according to his/her speaking proficiency level (intermediate).
1,0 pt - Students are a bit dispersed, showing respect for the others' presentation, but paying less attention to their classmates video assignment, but even so, they are able to either talk about what they learned from the classmates or make valuable and positive criticism on their classmates' work, using all or great part of words according to his/her speaking proficiency level (intermediate).
0,5 pt - Students are a bit dispersed, showing respect for the others' presentation, but paying less attention to their classmates video assignment, but even so, they are able to either talk about what they learned from the classmates or make valuable and positive criticism on their classmates' work, even though, he/she is using few words according to his/her speaking proficiency level (intermediate).
0,0 pt - Students fail to show respect for the others' presentations and to pay attention to the classmates' video assignment, failing to talk about what they learned from the classmates and make disrespectful and/or negative criticism on their classmates' work, using language that does not match his/her speaking proficiency level (intermediate).
---- - Students don't make comments of any sort; Students are not present in the day of the presentation and don't justify their absence.
Any doubts about the rubrics above or any situation I may have missed, feel free to contact me! I'll be happy to correct the rubrics.
Conclusion
With this task, I hope you learn a world of new experiences and knowledge about other cultures. It is important to know about a foreign country culture, because learning about their positive, negative and even, weird aspects (to us) of it, makes us reflect about our own culture. And being able to do so, reinforce positive habits of our culture and rethink negative aspects of it, helping us to select what of our culture (and other culture as well) is actually going to make part of own "individual cultural baggage".
What is inside "your baggage"?
Great studies!
Credits
This webquest was done by Marcelo Franco, biologist and English teacher. You can contact me by the following e-mail: