Using film as a language of entertainment and an indicator of the wider world, students will expand their awareness of geography, appreciation of different cultures and the common social, political and economic problems they face.
Learning geography helps pupils develop curiosity in, and an understanding of, themselves, other people and places, and the relationships between them. The human race exhibits considerable diversity; diversity in physical appearance, in beliefs and in behaviors. In the course of our lifetime, most of us will encounter only a small fraction of the full range of the diversity manifested in the world. The secondary goal in this unit is to foster an appreciation of this diversity and to come to an understanding of how we may use this knowledge to enhance our lives and to make the world a better place. In exploring these questions we should arrive at a better understanding of ourselves and the world around us. The insights we gain contribute to general knowledge and hopefully to the construction of unique and effective solutions to pressing social problems in the modern world. If we look for answers to the challenges that currently confront us solely within ourselves, within American or Western or industrialized societies, we are only aware of certain kinds of answers. If we look across the entire spectrum of human behavior across all of time we expand our understanding of what is humanly possible and thus expand our ability to act and to shape creative solutions to the problems that face us today. This unit will provide a very limited introduction to this broader spectrum.
This unit acknowledges the central role of language in content learning, while responding to the specific needs of second language learners. It takes into account three national goals developed by Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL): 1) effective communication, 2) achievement in content areas, and 3) achievement in a variety of cultural contexts.
The activities prior to the film will center on creating an awareness of the kinds of assumptions or preconceived notions students hold about people in ethnic groups different from their own and exploring the diversity of attitudes and behaviors within these groups as well as between them. This will be incorporated through a language arts component rich in vocabulary, speaking, reading, and writing; map assignments, data, and statistics and graph readings.
