Lesson 2:

Aim: What are the typical cultural taboos and social etiquette in China, the Dominican Republic, and the United States?

Instructional Objectives: Students will be able to navigate the Internet for the source information on typical cultural taboos and social etiquette in China, the Dominican Republic, and the United States; integrate the facts they learn from one another; practice note taking skills.

Materials: computers with Internet access, notebooks, and pens.

Do Now: Go to your inbox to check if you have an e-mail reply from your teacher.

Homework review: Read your essay to your partner and correct each other's writing errors.

Motivation: Have three or four students volunteer to read to the class the e-mail they have received from their teachers. (This takes about five to seven minutes.)

Instructional activities:
1. Navigate the Internet for more information about cultural taboos and social etiquette in China, the Dominican Republic, and America.
2. Take notes for informational writing. Students will find the following sites helpful.

    Cross-cultural understanding:
    http://infolane.com/k12/missionvalley/cultural.html
    This site discusses eye contact, social distance, gestures, touching, smiling, voice volume, and etc. among the mainstream US culture and many other cultures.  It reminds us that we all have similar looking gestures and cultural-specific customs and traditions-they often mean the opposite or something unintended to one of another cultural background.

    What is a taboo? Taboos in America/China/Finland/Korea:
    http://ruthvilmi.net/hut/Project/IWE/Journal/report_taboos.html
    This site explains how we can consider taboos and the various examples of taboos in different countries.

    Hispanic cultural awareness:
    http://globalnh.com/export/services.html?clickid=8&table=categories 
    This site tells us what cultural taboos we should avoid with illustrative examples.

3. Students highlight the important points from their notes.
4. Have three or four students volunteer to read three important points from their notes to the class.
5. Summarize some typical cultural taboos and social etiquette on the board.
6. Assign students to produce a report of informational writing titled "Cultural Taboos" with the source information from their notes and the reply from the teachers they e-mailed before.

1st paragraph : introduce the controlling idea.
2nd paragraph: describe some typical taboos and social etiquette.
3rd paragraph: Write one or two detailed examples about the taboos described in the second paragraph.
4th paragraph: restate the controlling idea.

Homework assignment: To draft a report of informational writing titled "Cultural Taboos".