Danielle McGill

The Mighty Mississippi’s Effects on Culture

Grade Level: 7th grade

Time Period: 45 minutes

Description:

Today we are going to begin by defining culture and then talk about how the river has affected and shaped the cultures of the populations living around it. The students will then begin writing a journal entry for their culminating projects about the culture related to their topic.

Materials:

River made out of construction paper
Pictures of logs, Mining/Quarrying, Watkins Company, Native Americans, furs, steamboats, barges, speedboats/jet skis, locks/dams/levees, houseboats, French people (labeled), Polish people (labeled), and/or zebra mussels. (3 from historical society, others from Internet sources)
Tape
Paper
Pencils

Teacher Preparation:

The teacher needs to cut out a river made of construction paper. He/She also needs to gather pictures and have them laid out in the front of the room; there should be one picture to represent the topic of each group. The teacher will also need to become familiar with the information on culture and the cultures of the various groups addressed in the lesson

Goal for today’s lesson:

Today we will touch on several standards.
- We will cover two standards dealing with Minnesota history and will cover these by looking at the affect of the river on Minnesota culture from 1600-1914.
- We will cover a historical skills standard as the students will be analyzing historical evidence and drawing conclusions about culture based on this evidence.
- The other standard that will be covered is a geography standard and this standard will be met by students understanding the importance of the river related to the culture of the areas around it.

Objectives for today’s lesson:

1) The students will be able to define culture.
2) The students will be able to generate ideas about the meaning of the river to cultures throughout time.
3) The students will write a journal entry defining the school culture or peer culture.
4) The students will begin writing a journal entry about culture as though they were people living in situations that relate to their topic.

Procedures:

1) Introductory experience: (11-17 minutes)
a. Explain to students that we are going to be talking about one aspect of their projects about the Mississippi River and building the first portion of their projects.
b. Students will do a think-pair-share activity trying to answer the question: What is culture?
c. To do this, the teacher will present the question to the class and give them a few minutes to think about it and write their thoughts down. Then they will be asked to pair up with their neighbor and share their thoughts. (5-7 minutes)
d. When students discussions seem to be dying down, the teacher will ask that each group choose a representative to come up to the board and write what their group came up with. (2 minutes)
e. Teacher will then go through the ideas one at a time discussing it. (3-5 minutes)
f. Hopefully the students’ input combined will hit the definition right on the dot, but if it doesn’t the teacher should probe for the definition to see if they can generate the answer themselves. (0-2 minutes)
g. Once they have given the main ideas of what a culture is, the teacher should write the official definition on the board and explain what the definition means. (1 minute)
h. The official definition to be written on the board is a shared, learned, symbolic system of values, beliefs and attitudes that shapes and influences perception and behavior. Talk about how it must be studied "indirectly" by studying behavior, customs, material culture (artifacts, tools, technology), language, etc. As you go through the explanation, write the bold words on the board. Explain that it is learned by others and is shared by many people; one person cannot have a culture. It is also patterns of behavior that are mutually formed through processes of social interaction. It is based on symbols and their meanings and therefore is very symbolic. It is arbitrary as it is not based on any natural laws that are external to humans instead it is created by society. Finally, culture is internalized, in other words it is not intentional, but habitual and seems to be the natural actions and/or reactions.
2) Developmental experiences (20-24 minutes)
a. Tape the river onto the chalk/white board. Then ask for one volunteer to come to the front of the room and be the class representative. This representative will take the pictures and with input from his/her peers will put the pictures in order, from the oldest of peoples and activities that relate to the river on the left to the most recent on the right. If they are struggling or have completed the task incorrectly, help through questioning to lead them to the correct answers. They will have gathered enough information on their work day yesterday that they will know the time periods and should only need to work together to put them in sequence. (5-7 minutes)
b. Now have the students think about what they know about each of the pictures (if one of the pictures directly relates to their topic, have them focus on that topic) then have them write about a few of them and what they think that people in the culture of that time and/or situation thought about the Mississippi. If they want to discuss with peers, this should be encouraged to help generate more ideas. When they have thought of at least three things that they hold to be true, have them come to the board and write their thoughts underneath the picture that they correspond to. (10-12 minutes)
c. Then go through the timeline and read their responses and discuss/explain these ideas and if they are valid thoughts. For example, the Native Americans highly valued the river for trading and the people of the area value the river now for water sports. Other examples, people involved in the logging industry valued the river for money and the people built the levees so that we can live near the river for its beauty and convenience. When discussing the impacts on culture, try to incorporate how we see these effects on our culture here in Winona. This is especially important when discussing recent pictures, the steamboats, the Watkins family, and other things that students encounter in everyday life. (5-8 minutes)
3) Culminating experiences (4-14 minutes)
a. The students will take their knowledge of the concept of culture and use it to define their schools culture or their group of friends’ culture. When they are finished they need to hand this in to the teacher. If they don’t finish, they must complete it as homework. For example, what are the norms or habits in the school that people do not think about but do anyways, such as following/not following rules. (4-14 minutes)
b. If students finish early, they are to begin to write a journal entry about culture as if they were a person who would have lived and experienced the culture related to their topic. This is to be assigned as homework. Tell them that this will be a part of their presentations at the end of the three weeks so they should work their hardest on it.

Assessments used during lesson:

Informal-
Teacher will gauge how well students are doing with the concept of culture by observations of their involvement and responses in the activities.
Teacher will gauge who is responding for discussion and who needs prompting as well as the validity of their responses.

Formal-
The students will use their knowledge of the concept of culture to write a description of their school culture or peer culture.
The students will begin writing a journal entry about culture as though they were people living in situations that relate to their topic.

Resources:

Definition of culture. (2007). Retrieved on October 4th, 2007 from http://www2.eou.edu/~kdahl/cultdef.html

Specific Pictures from the Winona Historical Society:

Mining/Quarrying: