Culture in 3 Acts: Rethinking how I teach culture

This past week during our weekly professional development afternoon, a colleague demonstrated Dan Meyer's "3 Act" math tasks, or math stories. These inquiry based, student driven math explorations seem to be a great resource for flipped classroom models and for the kind of authentic tasks and higher level thinking that the Common Core is now requiring. Thanks to the magic of modern technology, math teachers can now find and share their own "3 Act" Math tasks, with links to prompts, standards and suggested questions.

As a Spanish teacher, I immediately began thinking of my culture lessons in 3 Acts. I already try to hook students with a fascinating image or video related to what we are learning about, and I always encourage guesses, questions, and discussions... but then I usually give them the questions that I want them to answer. If those questions were things they were actually interested in, they were driven by curiosity... and if not, they were driven by the grade carrot on a stick, if anything. In re-imagining these inquiries, I was drawn to the idea of having students drive the inquiry themselves.

I would like to adjust my culture lessons and apply some of the ideas behind the 3 Act math tasks:

• Act One: Introduce the central conflict of your story/task clearly, visually, viscerally, using as few words as possible.
• Leave no one out of your first act. It should be comprehensible to all levels. It should, as Dan Meyers says, get all students "right in the curiosity bone."
• Elicit questions from students, rather than handing them a list of questions.

In my colleague's demonstration, she categorized the questions elicited from students (in this case, teachers) by how much interest each question generates. Teachers can also try to pull out questions that fit with  specific objectives or standards. For culture lessons, I might leave it a little more open ended than in a math lesson, since culture standards are so broad. With that list of student-generated questions, there are some options. We could choose one question for students to focus on as a class, assign different questions to differentiated groups, or have students choose from a few selected questions that will address specific objectives.

• Act Two: The protagonist/student overcomes obstacles, looks for resources, and develops new tools.
• What resources do your students need to answer their questions? What tools do they need? What language do they need to answer their questions?

Teachers can try to anticipate student questions and prepare lists of resources (I often try to create differentiated lists of resources for various language levels and learning styles - I have shared some here on this blog.) However, in authentic inquiries, students need to look for information on their own. I might help students come up with authentic (and not-so-authentic) sources of information. We might brainstorm search terms in the target language. I might introduce Act 1 in the classroom, and then set students loose to answer their questions, in the computer lab or at home.

• Act Three: Resolve the conflict and set up a sequel/extension.
• The resolution should be a satisfactory payoff for students. (In Meyer's example task, he highlights the difference between actually seeing the basketball go through the hoop, and reading in the answer key - "The ball goes in.")
• Have students share the answers to their questions, and their process for finding those answers.

Using the  list of student generated questions from Act 1, and further curiosity generated by their investigations, this could easily open up extension activities and "sequels."

Many teachers are used to handing students questions, along with some set tools and formulas to answer those questions. In flipped classrooms and inquiry-based lessons, it is up to the students to select the tools they need to meet their objectives... and when students generate the questions themselves (after being motivated with a fascinating hook) they will be much more eager to find the answers. As a language and culture teacher, I want to develop independent language learners... and students who can independently find new information about other cultures, fueled by genuine curiosity.

I already am scheming up some new culture lessons in this format... I'm guessing my next attempt will be some inquiries about Semana Santa, perhaps starting with this great video. I'd love to hear from others, and perhaps collaborate on a database of resources. (Math teachers aren't the only ones who can collaborate!)