Tentative Gunston Culture Club Syllabus

“Culture Club” Proposal
Gunston Middle School
Arlington, Virginia
Spring 2006

Lisa Rabin

Description:

Professor Rabin and her students of Latin American literature will create and direct a curriculum in critical literacy for an after-school “culture club” in the Extended Day Program at Gunston Middle School in Arlington, Virginia. The program will run for 13 weeks, the equivalent of the spring semester for GMU students, beginning the first week in February 2006.

GMU students will lead Gunston Middle School students in the opportunity to relax and enjoy texts with friends; to look at the highly effective strategies of oral culture normally seen as “outside” standard literacy paradigms (like signifying, regional folk aphorisms, rap and reggaetón); and to create things that may draw upon the culture of language and literacy in students’ home lives (like community ethnographies, biographies of family members, and critiques of cultural and gender representations in the media). GMU students will be integrating skills of “literacy strategies” (summarizing, vocabulary, etc.) into the curriculum in consultation with Gunston Staff and Professor Rabin.

Schedule (tentative):

1st week: Hip-hop music (computer room available): Ron

2nd week: Oral culture (signifying, piropos and slang): Joel

3rd week: Graffiti: Meghan

4th week: Accents and non-standard language in society (Disney films): Chelsea

5th week: History of salsa, and salsa demonstration by GMU Salsa group onTues. or Thurs. : Molly

6th week: Multicultural literature and Latinos in the U.S. (House on Mango Street): Lisa

7th week: Movies, magazines and the representation of gender: Shavon

8th week: Knowledge” and “freedom” on the Internet: Creating webscrapbooks: Lisa

9th week: Comic books and social heroes: Ron

10th week: Watch and critique a film (or part of it) on a famous person: Shavon

11th week: Immigration. Read texts on immigration: Lisa

12th week: Doing ethnographies on immigrants (including interviews of family and/or community members): Katie

13th week: Ethnographies, con.: Katie and Lisa (if needed)