Students were asked to formulate and express any ideas, language and stereotypes associated with particular community groups which would form the foundation of their Part B component - namely creating a community publication.
Students were also given a taste of tertiary lectures and concepts, when they were presented with a lecture on culture, its formation and how language constructs it.The notes from the PowerPoint were taken from a university cultural studies text book.
The main concepts from the culture PowerPoint were as follows:
}In language, we use signs and symbols – whether they are sounds, written words, electronically produced images, musical notes, even objects – to stand for or represent to other people our concepts, ideas and feelings.
}‘Culture’ is one of the most difficult concepts in the human and social sciences and there are many different ways of defining it
}Culture is used to refer to whatever is distinctive about the ‘way of life’ of a people, community, nation or social group.
}Culture can be used to describe the ‘shared values’ of a group or of a society.
}To say that two people belong to the same culture is to say that they interpret the world in roughly the same ways and can express themselves, their thought and feelings about the world, in ways which will be understood by each other
}Members of the same culture must share sets of concepts, images and ideas which enable them to think and feel about the world, and thus to interpret the world, in roughly the same ways. They must share, broadly speaking, the same ‘cultural codes’ or ‘cultural knowledge’.
To elaborate on this, a sequence from the movie The DaVinci Code was shown.
Students were given time to source Internet publications for their community group in order for them to define a selection of terminology along with developing a discourse for their community group.
Students were finally given a document on inclusive language in order to develop an awareness of language and vocabulary choices within their own publications.
This document can be found on the 'Get Work' drive on the school network.
Reminder that the community investigation Part A task will be due this Friday August 3rd.
