Stories as Mirrors & Windows: Cultural Positionality

How does our understanding of culture, when analyzing different text and media sources, encourage us to understand others and ourselves?

Grade Level

3rd - 6th

Subjects

English Language Arts Social Studies/History/Social Sciences

Duration

2 days - 1 week

Mode

Asynchronous Online Face-to-Face Hybrid

Learning Objectives

Students will understand that cultural practices in this context means beliefs, customs, traditions, rituals, and ways of knowing; students understand these aspects of culture sometimes create unity or division among groups of people whose cultural practices may be similar or different from one’s own cultural practices.
Students will understand themes from multiple stories and help us understand similarities and differences in cultural practices, points of view, and our own positionality.
Students will be able to analyze themes from multiple texts in order to learn about similarities and differences in cultural practices and expressions via multimodal representations; students will be able to analyze text themes based on positionality of characters, storytellers, and ourselves, and become more critically conscious.

Cultural Positionality: Stories as Mirrors and Windows

Instructional Rationale

How will you access students’ prior knowledge and incorporate that into the lesson?

This lesson includes a warm up/hook video about culture. At pre-selected points, the teacher asks targeted questions in order to guide the students with how they view and understand the concept of culture. This is intended to help them bring out their current understandings of others’ ideas of culture and their own ideas about culture.

How does the lesson support student learning of the content in a meaningful way?

The lesson helps students understand not only what culture is and how beliefs, customs, traditions, rituals, and ways of knowing are different and similar to their own culture; additionally it will help students understand that these aspects of culture are sometimes used to unite and divide groups of people. This lesson increases students’ awareness of their own cultural positionality, which affects their perspectives of the world. (Here cultural positionality is the status or privilege a group of people from the same culture have in relation to dominant and/or minoritized groups.)

How are you integrating Universal Design for Learning - UDL principles (multiple means of engagement, representation, and action & expression)- into your lesson?

This lesson provides students with the choice of engaging either with their cameras on or off, and it provides multiple means of access to the texts used (e.g., digital written text or audio text). For the activity, students are presented with multiple ways of expression to choose from to report their thinking (e.g., written essay, spoken word recording, graphic diagram, or art project).

What evidence do you have that you are connecting teaching to the CRP tenets (academic success, cultural competence and critical consciousness)?

In this lesson, the learning objectives for students are the same, but there are multiple pathways to access the learning and demonstrate what has been learned. The learning objectives are rigorous and draw from multiple texts, requiring students to analyze three separate texts and examine cultural themes. The objectives focus on cognitive skills such as analysis, evaluation and creation of the performance task. This lesson encourages students to consider positionality of characters, story tellers, and themselves, and, with the end goal of the students becoming more critically conscious.

How are you using technology to enhance and enrich the lesson?

The technology in this lesson will provide an engaging warm-up via a You Tube video. Through multiple means of representation, technology will provide multiple modes of text access by linking the students to digital text and audio texts. Multiple means of action and expression will provide students with the opportunity to communicate their learning using the media of their choice. Breakout rooms will facilitate small group collaboration and teacher scaffolding as needed (e.g., differentiation).

Assessments

Are you using formative or summative assessments or both?

Formative assessments will be used in order to understand student thinking, to inform next lessons, and to provide support needed for content and process with regard to essential questions: how do multiple stories, including our own, help us understand cultural practices as harmonious or divisive; and allow for us to analyze point of view and positionality of the storytellers, the characters, and ourselves?

What is the purpose of each assessment?

The purpose of the performance task is to give the student a real-world activity to choose from in which they can communicate their thinking about the essential questions around positions about culture in this lesson. In many real-world experiences, people either talk, right, diagram or create art to express themselves or take a stance on something. In honor of these real-world applications of communication and expression, students will have similar choices.

How is each assessment linked to UDL, CRP or both? (Please consider generating assessments based on questions above for integrating CRP & UDL.)

The performance task addresses UDL principles by offering multiple means of expression; it addresses the CRP principles by asking students to be critically conscious of positionality in the stories and in their own cultures.

How will you check each student’s level of knowing, understanding or doing related to the learning objectives or outcomes?

The students work will be assessed with a rubric, and will consider how their classmates scored them on the rubric as well.

Formative assessment with teacher and student feedback:

Students will receive feedback from 4 of their peers and from the teacher via a teacher-created rubric.

Modes:

Students will answer the following question using their choice of mode.

Google docs or Microsoft word for written response in essay form
Canvas or FlipGrid to record their spoken answers
3-way Venn Diagram
Picture or art to reflect theme and values through symbols with labels to explain their own cultural tale.

Scaffolding/Support Levels:

Students can choose what type of support they engage with

Peer support: students can work with partners to collaborate if they choose.
Small teacher group: students who need a little extra support can work in a teacher-led group.
Independent work: students can work independently if they choose.

Performance Task:

How do the cultural themes from the three texts help us understand similarities and differences in cultural practices, points of view (lenses/glasses), and positionality of the storytellers or characters, of others and ourselves.

Explain how the characters in the tales are either similar or different from one another and to you. How does this help you understand who you are in relation to others?
How do each of the authors use a different plot and cultural story to teach a lesson?
What are some themes you learned about cultural practices and perspective taking?
Write your own story highlighting one cultural practice and how it is similar or different from others’ cultures.
- What is the theme or lesson that this teaches you and others?
- How does your own positionality affect the way you told the story?
- How might the story be different if told by a person of another culture?

Procedures for Feedback

After students submit their assignments, they will select 4 students, using the wheel of names, who will provide peer feedback.
The teacher will share the students’ work with those 4 students for feedback.
Students will use the rubric Lesson Rubric for providing feedback to peer’s work.
Teacher will assess each student’s assignment with Lesson Rubric and will take into account the peer-feedback as a frame of reference for instructional next steps.

Materials & Resources

Video for Warm-up/hook Activity

What is Culture?

Video

The Keeping Quilt, Patricia Polacco

Video

Ixim: A Mayan story of corn

Video

Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain

Procedures & Implementation

Day 1 (1.5 Hours)

Welcome the students to Zoom or other video conference (check-in with camera, but optional after check-in). Do a quick check in with how students are feeling today (thumbs, cards, etc., noting any students to circle back with later).
Share screen to view YouTube clip as a group.
Tell students that we will watch a short YouTube clip and will pause throughout to briefly discuss the quotes about culture.
Hook: Use a screencast tool to show and screen share: What is Culture? YouTube Video (1:16) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57KW6RO8Rcs
Stop at each quote asking students for examples from their own culture that align with the quotes or resonate. (choose volunteers, no cold calls)
- Quote 1 question:
  - What do your cultural “glasses” look and feel like?
  - Do your friends have cultural glasses that are different or similar to you?
  - Do they see the world differently and/or similarly to you or both? How?
- Quote 2 questions:
  - Does culture unite the world? How?
  - Does culture divide the world? How?
  - How do your cultural “glasses” affect how you think culture unites or divides the world?
- Quote 3 question:
  - What practices does your culture use to bring one another together and “bind them in harmony”?
  - Are there times when you’ve felt your culture has brought you together with others? Divided you from others? When? How?
Give students a choice for how to engage the 3 texts (read or listen)
Provide students with note-taking template with guiding prompts.. Give students the option of how to use form (type in it, hand-write on notepaper, hand-sketch in Wordle fashion, draw quick pictures) to record their thinking.
Have students begin book one via their choice form above independently or in partners.
In 30 minutes, have students join break out rooms to check in with peers on the first book. (teacher pops in rooms to support each group)
Guiding discussion questions for each book:
- Describe the story elements: setting, characters, plot
- Who’s telling this story? Whose voices are valued in this story? What cultural position are they operating from?
- What are the cultural practices in this story as understood through the YouTube video discussion earlier in this lesson? a) Do you think your descriptions of cultural practices differ from your classmates? b) Do your own cultural lenses inform your discussions? How?
- Is there conflict or harmony in the story?
  - How do the characters experience conflict or harmony?
  - How do their cultural practices or values contribute to the conflict or harmony in the story?
REPEAT step 6 for book #2.
Come together as a whole class in Zoom for a whole class check- in and to get feedback on how the assignment went. Explain that tomorrow we will complete the third book and work on the synthesis for all three texts.

Day 2 (1.5 Hours)

Review the previous day’s work and have a discussion about today’s expectations.
Repeat steps 3-6 for the last text in the activity.
Bring the whole class together over zoom to explain Assessment.
Provide students with a choice for how they would like to complete the assessment.

Standards & Indicators

This lesson helps students understand not only what culture is and how beliefs, customs, traditions, rituals, and ways of knowing are different and similar to their own culture; additionally it will help students understand that these aspects of culture are sometimes used to unite and divide groups of people. This lesson increases students’ awareness of their own cultural positionality, which affects their perspectives of the world.

Trajectory

Acknowledged

Engages in discussions and activities around representative diversity and individual differences without grappling with structural oppressions. Culture is externalized and the focus is on the abstract. Minor discomfort may be felt and tensions are largely avoided.

Throughlines

Empowering Families and Communities

Families and community members are key stakeholders in determining the ways materials and resources are accessible, equitable, and inclusive for all students.

Intentional Use of Technology

Technology is used in a purposeful manner that is informed by context and is oriented towards building equitable and inclusive learning environments.

Standards

Social Justice

Justice 13 - Students will analyze the harmful impact of bias and injustice on the world, historically and today.

Diversity 8 - Students will respectfully express curiosity about the history and lived experiences of others and will exchange ideas and beliefs in an open-minded way.

ISTE NETS

Empowered Learner 1c - Students use technology to seek feedback that informs and improves their practice and to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways.

Knowledge Constructor 3d - Students build knowledge by actively exploring real-world issues and problems, developing ideas and theories and pursuing answers and solutions.

Stories as Mirrors & Windows: Cultural Positionality

Learning Objectives

Cultural Positionality: Stories as Mirrors and Windows

Instructional Rationale

Assessments

Formative assessment with teacher and student feedback:

Modes:

Scaffolding/Support Levels:

Performance Task:

Procedures for Feedback

Materials & Resources

Video for Warm-up/hook Activity

What is Culture?

Video

The Keeping Quilt, Patricia Polacco

Video

Ixim: A Mayan story of corn

Video

Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain

Procedures & Implementation

Day 1 (1.5 Hours)

Day 2 (1.5 Hours)

Standards & Indicators

Trajectory

Acknowledged

Throughlines

Empowering Families and Communities

Intentional Use of Technology

Standards

Social Justice

ISTE NETS

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