NELSON MANDELA
Celebrate Nelson Mandela`s 90th birthday by learning about this extraordinary leader! This warrior f … (more info)
Paperback - $5.95
Cobblestone & Cricket

Teacher's Guide for DIG TM Catalhoyuk

March 2002

Teacher Guide prepared by: Marcia Trainer, teacher on special assignment for the San Francisco Unified School District.

Lesson 1 (approximately one period) Experiential Exercise:
Through a mini-creative writing exercise, students will write about their ideal evening, by describing the food, place, and entertainment. They will then, in groups, analyze a sample(s), to break down how many different jobs were required to put together this "dream event." The goal is to prepare them for understanding the importance of the agricultural revolution in changing food sources and accessibility, thus allowing Early Man to begin engaging in varied occupations, other than the hunting and gathering that required all his time and energy.

Objective:
  • Students will understand the several jobs that support their everyday activities, including meal preparations.
  • Students will engage in a creative writing exercise.
  • Students will, through peer review, critique each others' writing to assess which writing samples were the most engaging, and why.
  • Students will be introduced to the agricultural revolution, and domestication of plants and animals.
Materials: Only pen / pencils and paper are required.

Instruct the students that they will be doing a creative writing exercise, in which they will write a description of their ideal evening. (Caution them that all ideas and writing must be appropriate for the classroom.) Their writing sample will include three components:
  1. their favorite meal,
  2. their favorite location for this event, and
  3. their favorite entertainment.
They should use, in complete sentences, their most vivid, descriptive language so that their fellow students would be able to see, feel, taste, smell, and touch the essential elements of their dream evening. Give them about 20 minutes to do this, although class requirements will vary.

Tell them that you would like to have volunteers read their samples, and that the most descriptive sample, as decided by class vote, will be the basis for a very important lesson they will be working on. Have about four volunteers read their samples to the class. The class then votes on the most descriptive, and describes in constructive language, what about it helped them choose it as their favorite.

Break them up into groups of four students. Assign, or have them select from a hat, one of the following categories that they will use to analyze the dream evening, as a group. These categories are:
  1. Favorite meal (food),
  2. Favorite location (shelter), and
  3. Favorite entertainment (occupations).
Note that you will have duplications of categories by groups. Futher, depending on size, you could duplicate group tasks even more, or you could analyze another student writing sample.

Model what they will do as a full class, at first. Tell them that their task will be to try to imagine and list all the different jobs that were done to create their particular category. To model, use, for example, a McDonald's special meal (though you might want to change this if that was a class selection!). Ask What jobs went into creating the special meal? They will say cook, order clerk, wrapper, etc. Urge them on, until they go several layers deeper, to butcher, farmer, truck driver, etc. This could then be done with the location, McDonald's. The analysis would be done first into construction jobs, perhaps, but should also include security person, custodian, manufacturer of goods, etc. You can continue even further, with entertainment, if necessary.

Have students brainstorm individually, for five minutes, then as a group for five minutes. Begin sharing with the class, writing all jobs on the board, in their three categories. These categories should be broken down even further by primary, middleman, wholesale, and retail.

Explain to them that none of this would be possible without an event that happened over a long period of time which is often called "The Agricultural Revolution." Explain that their lives would not be the same in any way, from how they live to where and how they go to school, without that event. You can define the key terms, or have them do it (see the Guiding Questions for Agricultural Revolution Lesson attachment). You would describe the life of Early Man as a hunter-gatherer. You may want to guide their reflection by using the key questions, which are also attached. It is important for the students to understand that Early Man's life before domestication of plants and animals was occupied entirely with trying to survive by finding shelter from natural sources, like caves, and subsisting on whatever plants and animals he could find.

Lesson 2: Preparation for Reading: "Dig into Catalhoyuk"

Objective:
  1. Students will be introduced to five indices of culture.
  2. Students will, in cooperative groups, specialize in one index of culture.
  3. Students will, in cooperative groups, read "Dig into Catalhoyuk," looking for evidence of their particular index of culture in the readings of Catalhoyuk.
  4. Students will take notes, listing each example of their own special culture index from the readings, and cite the page number they found it.
  5. Students will, in cooperative groups, create a large poster of their special cultural-index findings in their Catalhoyuk readings, and show them in their group poster, through illustrations, symbols, or descriptions, and will include a title of their culture index on their poster, with a definition of what their culture index involves.
  6. Students will present their poster and their findings to their classmates.
  7. Classmates will take their own notes of the findings of each group, so each student has notes relating to each of the five cultural indices.
Materials:
  1. Notebook paper and pen or pencil for taking notes on the mini-lecture of Five Cultural Indices.
  2. Large sheets of butcher paper for each group to make a poster of its own special Cultural Index.
  3. Colored markers for each group.
  4. Masking tape to tape the poster up during presentation.
  5. "Main Idea and Supporting Details" note-taking sheet for each student to have for each cultural index. One sheet should be completed for each cultural index (5 sheets for each student).
Time:
This can be a 2 - 4 day lesson, depending upon size of class, length of time required to read material, time needed to complete posters, and time needed to present posters and answer questions.

Mini-Lecture:
Tell students that Early Man did not have enough organization in his life to make what we call "a culture." To have a culture, you have be:
  1. organized
  2. into a large and
  3. stable group, which
  4. thinks of itself as belonging to that group, and
  5. which develops certain qualities that show the group's distinctive nature.
You can have the students look up several different definitions of "culture," and write them on the board. Have students identify what is different and what is the same about them. Tell them the idea is hard to define, but many people look to certain measures for identifying a culture. Five of them are:
  1. Geographical Influences,
  2. Economic Patterns,
  3. Social and Political Organization,
  4. Art and Architecture, and
  5. Religion and Values.
We can define each of these ideas briefly:
  1. Geographical Influence: What are the natural features of the land, climate, and plants and animals in which the society lives? These things help influence the characteristics of a culture.
  2. Economic Patterns: These patterns of how a group lives have to do with how that group produces and uses goods and services. Also, as a society becomes better organized to feed and shelter itself, it can diversify its activities, developing specialties in jobs and services.
  3. Social and Political Organization: How do people relate to each other and to their living conditions? Also, how do they organize themselves to keep the group together and functioning, so they preserve and protect the welfare of the group and individuals in it?
  4. Art and Architecture: One of the ways that people express themselves when they have more time away from finding food and shelter is through creating art, music, and architecture. Each of these methods of expression reveals much about a culture.
  5. Religion and Values: What does a culture think is important, and have worth? Often, we must guess; one of the ways we use to guess this is from the art of the culture.
(Special thanks to Lynn Winkler at Eastside College Preparatory School, East Palo Alto, California, for these definitions.)

Tell students that Catalhoyuk is an excellent example showing us how Early Man developed from a Hunter Gatherer society to a culture which had learned to domesticate plants and animals. With that skill, they were freed somewhat from their continuous need to find food, and could then specialize in doing jobs that help define a culture. This is why we did the Experiential Exercise. Now we see that we have learned to specialize in doing jobs that Early Man could never have imagined. (You could ask students which jobs we do now that would be beyond Early Man's imagination. This will help them develop a sense of passage of time.) We could not have gotten to the sophisticated lifestyle we now have, without the strong lessons and experience our ancestors learned from people like those at Catlhoyuk.

Beginning the Readings and Notetaking in Groups.

Modeling what you want the students to do:
You may want to begin reading the articles in DIGTM as a class, and after each section ask students if they can find descriptions about the culture of the people at Catalhoyuk which might fit into any of these categories. Then break them up into groups of no more than four, and assign them an index of culture to read for. (There may be overlaps.) Have them continue to read as a group, and identify for evidence of their special index of culture. (NOTE: Depending on the ability level of the students, I have at times had groups list evidence of other indices that they find, and share their notes with the respective groups. Each group member should then have all notesheets for all five indices.)

The Poster.
After students have finished the articles and taken notes, they can begin creating the poster. It must have:
  1. A Title: That would be Catalhoyuk, and their special index of culture, such as "Catalhoyuk: Economic Patterns."
  2. A Definition: Of their particular Cultural Index.
  3. Eight to twelve selections of evidence for their particular cultural index, whether as a description, symbol, or illustration.
The Presentations.
Each group presents their poster and describes their special cultural index and their findings about Catalhoyuk, from reading DIGTM. As they present, the rest of the students take notes, and write questions they want to ask. I tell students they are graded on both asking and answering questions, to engage both the students and the presenters.

These notes will be used to create the Culminating Project, a Dodecahedron of Catalhoyuk.

Lesson 3: The Culminating Project: A Dodecahedron of Catalhoyuk.

Time:
Two to four days.

Objective:
  1. Students will assemble their knowledge of all the five cultural indices and how they are exemplified in the culture of Catalhoyuk.
  2. Students will complete the page called "Wonderings and Wanderings," reflecting on what they have learned.
  3. Students will display these thoughts and their respective illustrations on the various 12 sides of the dodecahedron to represent key points of what they have learned of Catalhoyuk.
  4. Students will create an acrostic poem for "Catalhoyuk" on one side of the dodecahedron.
  5. Students will pick one picture that best illustrates to them what they like about Catalhoyuk, and a sentence about why they picked it.
Materials:
  1. Template for each side of the dodecahedron (12 for each student, plus many extras for mistakes.)
  2. Page of "Wonderings and Wanderings" for work done to each of 12 sides.
  3. Stapler and tape.
  4. Pen and pencils.
  5. Colored markers or pencils.
  6. Scissors.
The Project:
Have students complete the page "Wonderings and Wanderings" and instruct them to include each of the five indices at least three times in completing the page, so that they will have some choices when they do their culminating project. To complete this page, they will use their notes taken from the presentations, and they can re-read the magazine for further information. These "Wonderings and Wanderings" will then be used to complete the dodecahedron.

Instructions to create the Dodecahedron:
There are 12 sides to a dodecahedron, and when it is assembled, it sort of looks like a soccer ball with many flat sides.
  1. Students will pick two examples of each of the cultural indices from their notes on Catalhoyuk to make two different sides of the dodecahedron. These examples will be picked from their "Wonderings and Wanderings" page.
  2. This means that they will have a total of 10 sides, with all five of the indices of culture represented twice. Each side will include an illustration and small description taken from their "Wonderings and Wanderings" notes.
  3. There will be two more sides left to complete. They are:
    1. An acrostic poem of "Catalhoyuk." Example:
      Catalhoyuk
      Ancient city
      Turkey was its location
      Art of animals and geometric shapes covered their walls
      Living 9000 years ago
      Houses were entered through an opening in the roof
      On sheep and goats, they were dependent
      Young people must have taken care of the animals
      University of Pennsylvania archaeologists excavated the dig
      Konya Plains was where they found the Scirpus Rhizomes needed for making roofs, baskets, clothes and food.
    2. A drawing about Catalhoyuk, and a sentence that describes why they chose that illustration to be an example of the culture.
Special Note on Making Dodecahedrons:
Students must cut out the circle shape, not the straight sides. The sides are to be folded, to create a shape with five sides, and flaps on the underside. The flaps will be stapled together as close to the folded line as possible, to create the soccer-ball shape. At a certain point, you will have to tape the sides, because a staple is too awkward. Be sure to fold exactly at the flat ends, and make sharp folds! Some students may have trouble doing this, while other students love the challenge. I let those latter students help the others having difficulty. You can tie a string to it, and hang it from the classroom ceiling.

Access the notetaking sheets for:
Site Map • About Us • Awards
Home   Back   Print
Cobblestone Publishing, Division of Carus Publishing Company

30 Grove Street, Suite C, Peterborough, NH 03458
1-800-821-0115 • FAX: 603-924-7380
©2005 Cobblestone Publishing | Privacy Policy | Terms and Conditions | Link To Us

Updated: 7/23/08 06:27 pm
Log In