| Unit | Community Building for Elementary Classrooms |
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| Lesson Name | Learning from Differences, Celebrating Our Cultures |
| Grade Band | Elementary (3-5) |
| Required Materials |
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| Standards / Competencies |
SEL Core Competencies:
ELA Standards: Listening and Speaking, Reading Social Studies Theme: Individual Development and Identity |
| Recommended Time | 45 mins |
| Essential Question | How can we celebrate our unique identities here in our class? |
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| Learning Objectives | Students will be able to recognize and celebrate their cultural identities and their differences. |
| Activating Prior Knowledge |
Explain that we are going to read a picture book about a student preparing for Multicultural Day at school. Ask students some combination of the following:
Show students the cover of the book. Invite them to observe the title and the cover art. Ask them what they notice in the illustrations and what they think the title might be referencing. |
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| Core Instruction | Begin with a read aloud of I Can Be All Three by Salima Alikhan ( video read aloud here) and Noor Sofi. Pause on the page where the protagonist asks Julian and Yan. “Are you three too?” and ask students what they think the protagonist is asking, why the “you” is italicized, and what the protagonist might be thinking and feeling at this moment. The conversation will likely include responses such as, “The protagonist realizes that she’s not the only multiethnic or multiracial person in her class,” and, “She may feel more connected to her classmates,” or words to this effect. |
| Wrap-up | After the read aloud, invite students to draw or write about an aspect of their cultural identity that they want to share with the class. Examples may include a drawing of a prayer shawl, or a written description of a favorite family recipe, or a cartoon about going to visit relatives in another country. Invite students to share their creations with the class (or with partners or small groups). If possible, display their contributions in the classroom. |
| Learning Beyond Classroom Walls | Many schools have “international night” or “multicultural night” events and this lesson, along with this read aloud, would provide teachers with a way to introduce the concept and the intent of those events in an inclusive, nuanced way. This lesson might also serve as a vehicle for students to organize their own class- or school-wide cultural sharing event or family program. |
| Supplementary Resources | We Still Belong by Christine Day (and accompanying teaching guide from the publisher), which focuses on a Native protagonist (part of the Upper Skagit community, though not tribally enrolled herself, which is a source of tension for her) who has plans for celebrating Indigenous People’s Day at school (with Native and non-Native peers). This would be a perfect read aloud for grades 5-8 (potentially grade 4, depending on the class). |
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| Instructional Content Adaptations |
Mini Lesson (15 mins): Read aloud: I Can Be All Three by Salima Alikhan and Noor Sofi and discuss students’ identities and what they might bring/make for Multicultural Day if they were a student in the class in the story. Teachable Moment (8 mins): Class discussion: Explain that we all have many aspects of our identities. One of those aspects is culture, and our cultures may include languages, traditions, celebrations, foods, clothing, or other special practices. Teachers may give examples from their own culture and invite students to do the same. Questions the teacher may ask may include: What cultures do you belong to? Do you speak other languages at home? What traditions are important to your family? Diverse Learning Profiles Some students may need help with the abstract idea of “culture” and may not know what to create to represent their own cultures. In these situations, sentence stems, such as “For special occasions, my family likes to eat ___, wear ___, sing ___, go to ___” may be useful. For emerging readers, using pictures instead of words may be appropriate, and modeling with your own pictures may be more engaging and meaningful for these students. For students who are able to dive into this content more deeply in a social studies class, teachers may invite them to research the history of particular traditions, using databases or other reliable resources (print and/or digital), or to use maps to explore the geographic origins or migrations of their families. For an extension opportunity in an English class, a teacher may encourage interested students to write their own narrative nonfiction essay about a particular aspect of their culture. If you are going to do a Multicultural Day or similar celebration in your classroom, it is critical to think about the concept of the cultural iceberg, including what is seen versus what is unseen. No students’ cultures should be reduced to a food, an article of clothing, or a particular festival. In discussing students’ contributions to the discussion as well as what they create as a response to the story, the teacher should reinforce that these are merely visible symbols or representations of a culture that represent a part of someone’s cultural identity, rather than the whole. Consider reading this ASCD blog post, “ Beyond Food, Festivals, and Flags” as you prepare for this lesson or any related multicultural celebrations or programming in your classroom. |
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