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Adapting "Danger of a Single Story" in a New School and Setting

Christopher Barber

Greetings, all!

After a lot of paperwork over the summer and some exciting (read: stressful!) moving I am now writing this post from my new apartment in the Nansha District of Guangzhou, China! I've been fortunate enough to take a position teaching Social Studies I and II (9th and 10th grades, respectively) at Nansha College Preparatory Academy, where Chinese students continue their secondary studies in a standards-based and English-immersive environment. This, of course, presents many challenges related to language proficiency, particularly at the beginning of the year (students return next week!).

I've long been a fan of Chimamanda Adichie's Danger of a Single Story talk and have found it to be particularly effective for students to embrace some core concepts of historical thinking. The challenge I find myself facing this year is that it is far too much: at nearly 19 minutes long it isn't really feasible to have the freshman year students watch it and expect them to comprehend much; overall, most will be very new to English and still be in need of much strong scaffolding.

So, with that limitation in mind, I turn to the OER Community: what alternatives or supplements have you used that still accomplish the same ends as Danger of a Single Story with less language fluency demands? Has anyone else been in a similar position before?

   

Parents

  • Congratulations  !  I intend for this response to be helpful but I may be making assumptions that are way off base.  I imagine your students may have a single story to explain you or maybe you don't have a full understanding of them.  You could do something like two truths and a lie.  Maybe do the same with parts of her video, the section about her roommate comes to mind.  What troubles come when we make assumptions about each other?   Maybe students could consider what parts of their story might interest or surprise you.  Or you could share that type of info. about yourself or your colleagues and make a similar point.  I am really hopeful you share what happens.  

Reply

  • Congratulations  !  I intend for this response to be helpful but I may be making assumptions that are way off base.  I imagine your students may have a single story to explain you or maybe you don't have a full understanding of them.  You could do something like two truths and a lie.  Maybe do the same with parts of her video, the section about her roommate comes to mind.  What troubles come when we make assumptions about each other?   Maybe students could consider what parts of their story might interest or surprise you.  Or you could share that type of info. about yourself or your colleagues and make a similar point.  I am really hopeful you share what happens.  

Children