Tower of Babel Lesson Plan

Without warning, my P.E.O.P.L.E writing students started comparing terms they use when communicating with their peers in social settings. The initiator of the conversation commented on the diversity of the campus and the difficulty he perceived would exist if he had to room with someone from a different country. I listened without feeling that I was intruding in their space since they were openly discussing this while delaying the completion of ther writing assignment. People in Madison get "treated" while those in Milwaukee are more likely to get "dissed" or "ribbed" for failing to conform or doing something that's unacceptable. Parties are either "off the hook" or "crackin' " depending on where you live. They laughed at each others terminology and asked for explanations.

"Why do you say someone gets ribbed? What sense does that make?"

"What sense does it make to say someone got treated if they're not sick or if you didn't buy them a candy bar?"

I did not stop the conversation because, for me, it was a spontaneous teaching moment that reminded me of some of the class discussions we'd had regarding empowering students and allowing them to use their own language and have their "Safe Houses." The conversation was, at first, dominated by African Americans. I kept hoping that some of the other students would "represent" by joining in the conversation, but that didn't happen until one thoughtful, or more inquisitive, student asked, "What are you? I mean, what do Indians say? Do you guys say "treated" or do you say "ribbed"?

"I'm from Milwaukee," the addresse replied. "We say ribbed." Chuckle, chuckle from the class.

My precise but abstract idea for a related lesson is to have my students do more cultural sharing, especially about their idioms and traditions. Instead of the usual icebreaking activities, students would be required to find out about their classmates' ethnic origins, backgrounds, and traditions. Since my urban classroom has a truly diverse population, I envision having my students design questions that would elicit culturally enlightening information from their peers. They would then spend time talking to each other, or better yet, participate in whole class interviews. That way, some of the stereotypes and guessing that often takes place due to lack of awareness would be eliminated. One of the objectives would be to eliminate ethnic classifications based on complexion alone. Another objective would be to gain a more indepth awareness of some of the practices and traditions of other cultures. For example, we know about Christmas and Hanukah and Cinco de Mayo. What other holidays and ceremonies are celebrated by other ethnic groups? I would even have each person teach another person or the class a few words and phrases from their native language. We know French, Spanish, German, and Latin, but what about Chinese or Vietnamese, the sometimes forgotten languages?

The follow up writing assignment would be a class profile. To assimilate academic writing, I would have them attach some kind of chart or graph depicting their findings. They would also analyze their findings in their papers. For example, they could take a look at how things are expressed differently, lenght of sentences that say basically the same thing in different cultures, use of colorful or more explicit language, etc.This extended assignment might eliminate some of the Babel like communication and cultural misunderstandings.