A Guide To Teaching Cultural Literacy

Teaching cultural literacy and incorporating it into the classroom can be a merticulous task as well as controversial. Below, I have developed a short guide to teaching cultural literacy with the incorporation of technology.

 

8 Steps to Teaching Cultural Literacy

1.Inform self	Before beginning a classroom unit or discussion on a cultural aspect inform yourself about that culture. Ways to inform yourself are: ·        Research: find examples of the culture that you are exploring. Find information about stereotypes, facts, truths, and lies. ·        Interview: interview some one from that culture that your exploring and ask relevant questions such as: §  What is it like to be in your shoes? §  What  adversities have you experienced? §  What experiences do you have outside of your culture that has changed your life? §  What have you found out about other cultures? §  Have you learned truths about lies that you were told? If any apply? ·        Gather all information and analyze it and plan how you will present and spur conversation on the subject prior to reading. ·        Use media examples
2. Select a cultural text	Select as culturally appropriate text and use 1-2 examples of text. Use fictional and non fictional texts that have differing views and compare.
3. Create reading groups	Create the following reading groups: ·        Text to self ·        Text to text ·        Text to world ·        Opponents of text ·        Proponents of text Each group will….
4. Blog discussion	Incorporate and use a classroom blog or some system of journaling/ tracking student ideas and comments. Blog: use a discussion prompt and have students respond. Also have students write a review about the text. This can be for the text or not for the text.   Example blog Classroom discussion blog
5. Read book	Begin reading the book and set a deadline for when to finish the text. Have students jot down thoughts on sticky notes, comments, concerns or things they have questions about.
6. Finish book	Finish the text and have students write a brief paper based of their reading group.
7. Classroom discussion	After reading the text have students divided themselves up into groups so that one person from each group can share their ideas and have students develop questions for each other.
9. Wrap up discussion	Discuss as a class what they learned about another culture by reading the text and what issues they had with the text, with themselves, comments and concerns.