What is Culture? - Weslandia, by Paul Fleishman
Weslandia, by Paul Fleishman
One of the topics that I really wanted my students to understand was the concept of culture and it's different parts. Following the unit on Geography, We spent a day or two comparing and contrasting different cultures and demonstrating how culture changes depending on where we live. That lesson also helped to review the different parts of culture. (Pictures and work from Cultural Geography lesson).
In order to teach my students about building cultures and creating civilizations, I decided to read the book (above picture) Weslandia, by Paul Fleischman. This book tells the story of a boy who learns in school that "every civilization has its own staple crop", and that "seeds are carried by the wind." Knowing these two facts, Wesley, the boy in the story, plows the ground and allows the wind to plant its own seeds. The seeds grow into a new and exciting plant, and Wesley forms his own culture (food, clothing, games, economy,etc.) around the different parts of the plant. At the beginning of the story no one really liked Wesley, but by the end, everyone wanted to be a part of his civilization.
While I read the story and showed the pictures to the class, the students were supposed to listen and fill out a graphic organizer that separated all of Weslandia's civilization into the different parts of culture that he created and changed. After filling out the chart and discussing the story, the students were asked to think about the different parts of culture and answer the following question: "If you were to create your own new civilization, what would it be like?" They were told to draw a picture and write a paragraph to answer the question.
The unit that followed this lesson was on American Indian civilizations. The students then had to research one certain tribe to find information on all the different parts of its culture. This served as a good lesson to introduce the idea and to refer back to when students had a question.
Reflection
I was able to read the book easier because I printed the words out in advance and had them stuck to the back of the book, so I could show pictures to the students while I read. If I would have had the time or the resources, I would have liked to create some type of slide show that could have been projected so that my hands would have been free to work and talk to the students and we could have all looked at the same picture at the same time.
Students were suprized that I would read such a simple book, but ended up liking it a lot. I would even feel comfortable reading this book to high school students. There are several different issues that the book brings up that can be discussed at a mature level.