Interdisciplinary Approaches to Consumer Culture

CONTENTS OF CURRICULUM UNIT 12.01.07

  1. Unit Guide
  1. Introduction
  2. Objectives-What content? What skills?
  3. Rationale-Why this content? Why these skills? Why now?
  4. Background
  5. Present
  6. Summative Assessment-How will I know my students achieved the content and skill objectives?
  7. Seeing Through a Critical Consumer Lens
  8. Learning Activities and Strategies
  9. Differentiation
  10. Appendix
  11. Approaches to student inquiry projects
  12. Guide to Helping Students Create Project Websites
  13. How to do this use this unit with information from your own city?
  14. Annotated Bibliography
  15. Endnotes

Present, Past, and Future: Using a Consumer Lens to Help Students Envision a Future

Molly A. Myers

Published September 2012

Tools for this Unit:

Summative Assessment-How will I know my students achieved the content and skill objectives?

End Point

Education philosopher John Dewey believed, "Education is a process of living and not a preparation for future living." 16 This perspective demands that the products of learning are relevant and authentic for the students present lives. This unit is a four-part, year-long curriculum guided by the macro-objective of understanding the story of consumer Englewood's past in order to help re-imagine its future. It will have formal, formative assessments that will measure the preconceptions, mid-conceptions, and post-conceptions of their beliefs and understanding of the neighborhood but will conclude with a larger summative assessment that asks them to apply their learning to a new situation; in this case, to think about solutions to help design a neighborhood that serves the residents.

Working with a Chicago-based organization called Mikva Challenge 17, my students will use parts one through three to build a historical frame through which to see present-day Englewood. From this new understanding, I hope to create projects that help existing community organizations to further promote their efforts to revitalize the neighborhood's residential, commercial, and educational centers from within. 18 This final product will be a team-created website that synthesizes the information from parts one through three into a well-organized and coherent argument about the possible future of Englewood and defending it with information from its past and present. (See appendix for suggestions on teaching students how to make quality websites in content and design)

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