Sample Assignment

Continuing my fictional geography teacher-self, I have created a "Cultural Image" project. Below is the assignment write up that would be given to the students. It lacks a certain amount of specifics because it would need to be relevent to today's topics, but the general concept and assignement stucture is there.

Cultural Image

We’ve all seen the clips: “Wildfires rage in California…” “Thousands feared dead in Indonesian earthquake…” “Four feet of snow blankets Buffalo…” “Palestinian militants bomb Israeli outposts…” Each of these stories gets their 30 to 90 seconds of coverage with dramatic images brought to us on the TV or webpage we are viewing. We are shocked, saddened, surprised…and then it’s over. The story bleeds into another story and new images fill the screen. But what is going on just off screen? Have you ever been misrepresented? Only had a part of your story told? Somewhere in the middle of all these questions is where the study of media and geography collide with cultural portrayals.

Goals: Analyze how the media portrays world cultures and events. Consider the media’s motivations and how our understanding of places and cultures is shaped in relation to these portrayals. Then, create a portrayal that is complete. You will tell the story of a PEOPLE and a PLACE—not an event.

Project: Create a multi-media presentation with images (pictures or video) with no text or spoken audio. Your project may take whatever form you prefer (use whatever program you wish), and must be a fair and accurate representation of a culture residing in a specific geographic area. Your final piece will be a ‘modern song’ (not older than 10 years) that will accompany your images.

Project Steps (Each will be checked for completion)
1. Choose a major world event not older than 1 year
2. Watch 3 to 5 clips of that event from the internet or TV media
3. Write 10 words that describe the CULTURE, the PEOPLE , and the GEOGRAPHY as portrayed
4. Research the region to find out “the rest of the story”
5. List 10 words that describe the CULTURE, the PEOPLE, and the GEOGRAPHY as you now know it
6. Collect Images and create your multimedia document that represent those 10 words
7. Create your multimedia document with the images (total of 2-4 minutes)
8. Select a modern song as the soundtrack and layer it into the document

On presentation day, you will show us one clip of the world event. We will list 3 words (as you did in step 3). Without introduction, we will then watch your presentation and write down 3 words at its completion. Discussion will follow.

A reflective paper will be due at the completion of this project, but it will not be assigned until all the presentations have taken place.