Hook, Link, and Think

Hook Lesson Rationale 

The objective of my hook lesson is for the students to create a strong definition of what culture is through their eyes and in their own words. I chose to hook them in this way so they have control of the way they see the word culture. Using a dictionary is great, but I think they will have a better connection if they tussle with their thoughts to create a definition. We would start the lesson with the question: what do you think of when you hear the word culture?". From there we would move into a read-aloud of the What is Culture? by Bobbie Kalman and discuss different examples of cultural characteristics of the groups in the community, region, and even the classroom culture. Students will work in collaborative groups to brainstorm and develop definitions and examples with thinking clouds. At the conclusion of the lesson, the students would come together and combine all of their thinking clouds to create a class definition of culture. This should get them excited to further investigate the cultures represented in the community and region, because they would be investigating based on the definition they created. This hook lesson would be used as a form of pre-assessment to see the students' original thoughts and ideas on the unit topic and how they work collaboratively with their classmates.