Teacher's Guide for FACES ^® Italy

Objectives:

• to develop appreciation for the Italian people and their culture
• to increase historical and geographical perspective
• to improve comprehension (particularly through the use of such skills as scanning, determining organization, etc.)
• to practice writing skills through a variety of activities, both practical and creative
• to develop and enrich vocabulary
• to participate in small group and whole class activities

For the issue as a whole:

• Begin by discussing any preconceived ideas students have about Italy and the Italian people.
• If you can, find a large map of Italy and place pegs on each location as you discuss them. Similarly, give students maps that they can mark and label after completing information about each city or site.

For "Only in Italy" (pages 6-7)

1. Discuss volcano terminology with students: volcano, lava, subduction, eruption, compound volcano.
2. Provide students with large sheets of paper to be placed horizontally on their desks. Ask students to draw the outlines of four volcanoes: Mount Etna, Mount Vesuvius, Mount Stromboli, and Mount Vulcano.
3. Ask students to place the following information inside the outline of the correct volcano:
   • most dangerous
   • compound volcano
   • emerged from the sea about 40,000 years ago
   • written about by Pliny the Younger
   • buried the ancient city of Pompeii
   • called Lighthouse of the Mediterranean
   • has been showing signs of restlessness
   • caused a tsunami
4. For discussion: Ask students if they would move away from their home and neighborhood if they knew a volcano might erupt.

For "The Sweet Life" (pages 8-12)

1. Read and discuss with students the paragraph about "La Dolce Vita" and then scan the article for examples of both what this term means and why it has not always been all that easy for Italians to obtain.
2. Discuss the differences between the organization of the government in Italy and the government in the United States (begins last paragraph on page 10).

For "Arrivederci, Roma" (pages 14-15)

1. Questions:
   • What is Vulgar Latin?
   • Why could Italians be considered bilingual?
   • How many people speak standard Italian?
   • Why is Italian easy to read and pronounce?
2. Activity: Write a short note to a friend using at least a dozen of the Italian words from page 15. Use at least one music word, one art word, one cooking word, and one greeting word.

For "Mangia" (pages 16-18)

Study (and/or discussion) Questions:

1. Ask students to state (in one sentence for each) why the three statements marked by bullets on page 16 are just that - myths.
2. Ask students to tell how each of the following influenced Italian cooking: Arab invaders, Germanic influence, the Romans.
3. Ask students how Italian cooking influenced other cultures.

For "The Sinking City" (pages 20-23)

1. Ask students to imagine their neighborhood without streets; instead every street - including the one in front of the school and the one in front of their homes or apartment buildings - is a canal. Instead of cars and trucks, all transportation takes place by boat: postal deliveries, bus rides, police business, etc.
2. Next, introduce the problems Venice faces as if those same problems would affect the students' neighborhood. Talk about what might happen in the face of an enormous storm. Then read the first paragraph on page 20.
3. Use a map to point out Venice's unique location.
4. Ask students to skim the article to find out two pieces of information: Why is the city sinking? What is MOSE?

For "The Palio" (30-31)

• Tell students that your class has taken a field trip to Siena to observe the Palio. Each student is to report on what he or she has seen in diary form. Include as many specific sights and sounds as possible. The diary should begin as follows:

  July 1 - Tonight I went to the Palio dinner. It was amazing. (Give details)
  July 2 - This morning to get ready . . .
  July 3 - The race was this afternoon . . .

For "Music in the Air" (pages 32-34)

One idea for interesting kids in opera is to dramatically tell a story of an opera you particularly like and then to play a couple of short excerpts of the music. It is also possible to rent DVDs of many operatic productions and show selections from these. Kids might also like to learn this little "rhyme" which will show off their cultural literacy about Italian opera composers:

Italians go for Verdi,

As well as Monteverdi,

They're crazy for Rossini

And yell, "you're swell, Puccini!"

For "A Passion for Cars" (pages 36-37) & "Soccer Mania" (pages 40-41)

1. Provide students with strips of paper about an inch wide tall and about 8" in length.
2. Assign half the students to the car article, the other half to the one on soccer.
3. Tell students to write every proper noun they find in the article onto the front of a strip of paper. On the back of each strip they are to write why that proper noun appeared in the article about cars/soccer.
4. When they're finished, have students assigned to each story get together and "check" their strips (both to see that they've gotten all the proper nouns and to see if their definitions are correct.)
5. One student is elected to introduce what will be the group's presentation. He or she picks one or two interesting facts from the article (facts that do not make use of proper nouns) to use as the introduction.
6. Next, the car group "presents" to the soccer group. The introduction is given. Then each of the other students in that group reads the front and back of one strip; students continue reading one at a time until all the nouns have been exhausted.
7. Repeat with the soccer group.

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Updated: 11/21/08 10:47 am
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