Rationale (comments welcome!)

The world is populated with hundreds of thousands of different cultures. Each culture has its own set of beliefs and rules that govern the way its people think and behave. These rules tend to differ from culture to culture and are the dividing factor between groups of people. Most cultures can survive on their own, using the rules and beliefs held within them to lead fulfilling lives. However, as the world we live in shifts and changes, different groups of people are forced to interact with new and diverse cultures. In those situations, individuals have two options: attempt to ignore/destroy whatever is different, or learn to understand/make connections to the different group.

Throughout history, many groups or individuals have chosen to destroy whatever culture is different from their own—Cortez and the Aztecs, Adolf Hitler and the Jews, North and South in the Civil War, Liberals and Conservatives on political issues, Blacks and Whites on Civil Rights Issues—and repeatedly, these decisions have been viewed as terrible and destructive both as they are happening and after the event has occurred. As teachers, we strive to impart the injustice of destroying another’s culture simply because it is different from one’s own. It is this belief that became the main drive behind the unit I have designed on Multicultural Perspectives, and lead me to the conclusion that students need to learn the tools necessary to understand and communicate with those who are different from them. Through this unit, I hope to give students the tools necessary to not only understand themselves and the cultural perspectives they hold, but also to understand the various perspectives of classmates and how to make connections that create a community of understanding and acceptance.

In the first part of this unit, the students will be spending time writing about and understanding the idea of perspective. This will be an important step in the development of the unit. Many of my students will be unaware of their own personal perspectives on many of the issues around them and will not recognize that those perspectives are influenced by their culture. To help students to begin thinking about these issues, I will introduce them to journals as a way of communicating their ideas and thinking about the concept and the different exercises they participate in during and outside of class. The reason I have chosen journals and writing for this section of the class is to help students to create their own personal understanding of the concept of perspective. I will look over these journals periodically to gain insight into student understanding and to help bring common issues to the class that students may have raised in their writing.

Also, since I am attempting to create an environment in which students begin to understand and use tools of communication to help interact with and relate to others, practicing how to write fluently and expressively in the journal format will help students to become more comfortable with writing. Dan Kirby, Dawn Latta Kirby, and Tom Liner support me in this use of the journal stating, “the writer may feel freer in this place where spelling, punctuation, and usage will not be red-penciled…the personal level of the journal makes it a dynamic instructional tool without crossing boundaries of student-teacher roles” (Inside Out 61,63). The use of the journal will be to create an environment of fluency and openness where students can write their thoughts without fear of over-abundant correction. Students will be asked to write about different activities they do in and outside of class and will use their writing to help assist their comments and participation in class discussions where I will help to lead students in developing a class understanding of perspective.

The discussions I lead the class in will also help to create an open environment where students feel as though their comments are appreciated. I believe creating this type of environment is important for my students because they will need to feel comfortable and accepted in order to have a positive and powerful learning experience. In the book Choice Theory in the Classroom, William Glasser explains the importance of creating a classroom community where students feel accepted and able. “To work in secondary school, we have to devise programs in which it will make sense for…groups…to become friendly with each other and work together…This, in turn, will lead all students to do more work and become better friends” (12). I also feel that if all of my students are comfortable and accepted in the classroom, a sense of community will be created. Students will be able to learn from one another, work more collaboratively, and become more accepting and understanding of the many different perspectives present in the class.

Once the students have built a group understanding of the concept of perspective, I will introduce them to the idea of multicultural perspective. To do this, I would provide students with the definition of the term Multiculturalism: “the preservation of different cultures or cultural identities within a unified society” (http://dictionary.reference.com). Using this term, I would start to scaffold student learning of personal multicultural perspective. I would explain to students “a multicultural perspective provides a way of understanding ourselves, encouraging us to look at how our own values and perspectives affect our view of the world” (http://thechp.syr.edu/dfpbmult.htm). Using these definition I would have my students begin thinking about their own cultures and how those cultures manifest themselves in the students actions and responses to different situations. Having students start to make these connections from the material to themselves will make the unit more meaningful and relevant to their lives. I will not be expecting students to understand or create meaning in an environment unlike anything they will experience. The connections will be made directly to their lives making all of the material and understanding useful.

As the unit progresses, students will continue to use journals to help reflect and develop their thinking of the concept of perspective and their own personal perspectives. I would also start to introduce different genre (poems, lyrics, essays and short stories) to help students start to read about and understand perspectives of individuals from different cultures. By using different genre, I would be able to show students different methods of writing about and expressing a multicultural perspective. As students interact with these texts, they will be required to participate in discussion to help grow their understanding of different cultures and their own perspective of these cultures. Students will also be required to create a text in each genre the class studies to help them understand how to write about their own perspective in that genre. Using these different genres will provide opportunity for students to express their own experiences and cultural identities in a form that their classmates will be learning to relate to and understand.

I feel that having students write in the different genres we study is important because it will help them to gain a greater appreciation of not only the genre, but the work that an author puts into a text to help present a certain opinion or idea. This will help students to understand what “good writing” is and what qualities a writer needs to create good writing. Kirby, Kirby, Liner discuss these qualities of good writing in their book Inside Out, focusing on qualities such as voice, imagery, and audience—qualities the students will have to understand and use in their own writing.

The texts that the students create will be presented orally to the group to help the class gain a deeper understanding of each individual member of the class, and to help strengthen the classroom community. In these presentations, student will be practicing the skill of oral presentation, which is also important because it is another tool of communication that students can use to help create understanding and connection between their own personal cultural identity and the cultural identities and perspectives of others. These texts will also become part of the culminating text each students will be required to create at the end of the unit. Therefore, the work that each student puts into the individual texts will help to create a model of the progress of understanding each student has throughout the course of the unit.

In the final portion of the unit, students will use the information they have gained to create a culminating text to express their own personal multicultural perspective. In this text, students will pull together the pieces they have written over the course of the semester to create one fluid multi-genre piece that articulates to others the way that this student looks at and understands the world. This final project will combine all of the information that students have gained and provide them with a concrete representation of the skills they have learned. This final text will also prove, that as a teacher, I have successfully accomplished the goal of the unit and provided students with the ability to understand their own perspectives and provided them with the ability to interact with and understand those with different perspectives (TED 83).

Although I have solid reasons for teaching my students the skills necessary to interact with others in an ever-changing and highly diverse world, some critics might say that my students will not need this diverse way of thinking because issues of race, gender, religion, affectional orientation, class ect. are no longer prevalent in modern America. They may also continue their argument with the fact that many of the students in my community do not continue on to high education and tend to remain in a similar track of life as their parents.

I would counter both of these arguments with the fact that although some may say that there is no longer prejudice prevalent in our society, it is still present. Many of my students experience prejudice in their education, and upbringing based both on location and access. I would also further counter these arguments with the fact that although it is true many of the students in my class will not continue on to high education, that does not mean that these students will not need to know how to interact with and understand those who are different from them. All individuals need to be able to communicate with those who are different from them. The skills and knowledge my lesson will provide are life skills, not just academic skills.