My Native Town Is Beautiful All Year Round

Lesson Specifics:

Target Age: 16-17 years old

Focus: Critical Reading and Writing

Theme: Civic Education

Time Required: 90 minutes

Objectives:

1. Teaching critical thinking

2. Developing cross-cultural awareness

Evaluation:

1. Ability to work in a group

2. Fluency

3. Accuracy

Supplemental Materials/Handouts:

1. Washington, D.C., the National Capital

2. McSweeney, William T. Critical Thinking

3. Grosa O. Millennium English, 11

Procedure:

1. Introduction of the Title, Theme, Objectives, Means of Evaluation and Home Assignment

2. Warm-up Activities. Designing a Semantic Web

My Native City

Recreation

Family and Friends

Interesting People and Places

My House, Apartment, Neighborhood

History and Geography

Associations

3. Group Work

a) Each student in every group summarizes his/her home mini essays about his/her native town. Other students ask relevant questions, check their guesses by using confirmation checks. (Is this what you are saying? Do you mean? etc.)

b) Group work presentation. One student summarizes all ideas. If he/she is not understood, it’s advisable to use repetitions, gestures, synonyms, whatever comes naturally.

c) The teacher sums up and proceeds to the next stage.

4. Critical Reading

Text “One Page from my USA Diary”

a) Reading the text with the help of “insert” technique.

b) Group discussion.

c) Class discussion during which students find out as much as they can about the topic, map out or cluster interesting ideas, or begin writing in order to be able to do their homework.

d) Teacher’s conclusion. The teacher should offer his/her own opinion about the topic. The instructor should be sincere and open-minded.

5. Home Assignment

The teacher offers writing strategies to help students feel at ease with their assignment. They are expected to write a short survey on the topic “My Native City is Beautiful All Year Round”, comparing the discussions on Kaliningrad and Washington, D.C. with attitudes of different students towards their native city. It is important that a focus on the strategy not be extensive and that the students pay more attention to the meaning of what they write about. They may rewrite and consult as many times as necessary within the given time (e.g. a week).

CRITICAL READING AND WRITING

One Page from my U.S. Diary (June 16, 2002)

Went sightseeing in Washington, D.C. – the heart of the American Experience. Was inspired by the magnificent Capitol Building and Washington Monument. Marveled at the Lincoln Memorial. Spent a splendid hour in the Franklin Roosevelt Memorial. Saw hundreds of Star-Spangled banners all around. Stood by a family, listening to the father reading inscriptions of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address to his small children. Watched people putting flowers along the bottom of the black granite walls with more than 59,000 names to honor dead and missing at the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial. Observed Washingtonians bicycling, playing baseball, and resting near the Potomac River or along the capital’s historic places. Understood that this country still has the validity of the ideals upon which it was built: a sense of dignity and pride, cooperation and shared responsibility, goodwill and idealism.

Discussion Questions:

1. Can you replace the underlined words and phrases with names and places from your city?

2. What do you think about Americans in Washington, D.C. after reading this extract? Did you change your thinking any?

3. What are your ideas about an open-air museum of your city?