Social Studies 10-4: Living in a Globalizing World
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What Do You Think?

Activity: Expressing Ourselves

Formative Assessment

Throughout this suggested activity, you will support students in achieving the following skill that is the focus for assessment:

The following formative assessment opportunity is provided to help students unpack and develop the focus skill for assessment. Feedback prompts are also provided to help students enhance their demonstration of the focus skill for this activity. Formative assessment support is not intended to generate a grade or score.

Formative Assessment: Assessment for Learning Opportunity

Examine Ways Canadians Express Their Identities

Involve students in peer coaching to provide and receive feedback about the comprehensiveness of their examination of the ways Canadians express their identities and protect and promote their cultures and identities. Use the feedback prompts below to provide structure in guiding students through this formative assessment opportunity.

Feedback Prompts:

How well have I:

  • described distinct and unique ways that Canadians express their identities?
  • described ways that Canadians protect and promote their cultures and identities?

These feedback prompts can be posted on an interactive white board or bulletin board, or incorporated into a feedback tool that can be copied for student use. Samples of tools created for a similar skill within a different formative assessment context may be found in the Social Studies 10-4 Formative Assessment Summary PDF. 

Linking to the Summative Assessment Task

  • As students examine ways Canadians express their identities through the suggested activity Expressing Ourselves, they will have completed the first portion of the Summative Assessment Task: What Do You Think? 
  • Students should consult the assessment task and the assessment task rubric  to ensure that they have provided the information required.
  • Encourage students to use the feedback received during the formative assessment opportunity to make enhancements to their work in progress.
  • If necessary, continue to use the feedback prompts from the formative assessment opportunity to coach students toward completion of a quality product.

Students describe ways Canadians express their identities by examining strategies for constructing a unique Canadian identity and ways of protecting and promoting our identities as Canadians.

Instructional Support

A number of possible tasks are provided in this suggested activity. It is not intended that you work through all of the tasks, but rather select those tasks and resources that will best meet the learning needs of your students. The focus should be on ensuring that students have the background and support to be successful with the skill that is the focus for assessment (examine ways Canadians express their identities).

Setting the Context for Learning

Examine Ways Canadians Express Their Identities

How do Canadians express their identities in ways that are distinct and/or unique?

  • Brainstorm with students ways that Canadians express their identities, whether it be through symbols, institutions, music or sport. Encourage students to reflect on which representations can be found elsewhere in the world, and are a result of globalization, and which representations are uniquely Canadian.
  • Prompt students to consider whether all people will identify the same symbols or not. Discuss with students how we can have a collective identity as Canadians but also have an individual identity as a Canadian or as part of other collective identities within Canada; e.g., Acadian, Inuit, Québécois(e), Cree, Métis, Albertan, Maritimer, Westerner.
  • For students who require further structure as they approach this concept, consider providing categories of ways people can express their identity, such as language, religion, spirituality, the arts, clothing, relationship to the land and/or traditions.

How do Canadians protect and promote their cultures and identities?

  • Examine methods that the Government of Canada is using to ensure that uniquely Canadian ideas and talent are not lost in the globalization of entertainment. Assign student pairs to explore the government strategies revealed in the following list:

    Chapters 4 and 7 of Living in a Globalizing World contain background information that may be useful for you. Specific reference pages are identified below in parentheses.

  • Provide students with an opportunity to share with the whole class what they have learned about these measures and organizations. Conclude with a discussion on whether students believe these efforts by the government are effective in maintaining distinctly Canadian content.
  • Examine with students the challenges faced by cultural groups that are losing their language; for example, the Métis (pp. 66–68) and Inuit (pp. 62–64) people of Canada. Encourage students to consider the consequences of not actively promoting and protecting a language in danger of becoming lost.
  • In their previous educational experiences, students may have encountered the story of Shawnadithit, a Beothuk woman who was considered to be the last of her people. Not only is Shawnadithit's story pertinent because of the loss of the Beothuk people and culture, but also because of the loss of the Beothuk language, which could provide insights into how the people lived. Prompt students to examine the importance of language as a part of culture, and why concerted efforts need to be made to preserve language (see pp. 109–111).
  • Encourage students to begin to consider the question that is the focus of the summative assessment task:
    • Does Canada have a unique culture and identity, or have we, as Canadians, allowed globalization to shape our cultures and identities?
  • Ask students to begin to formulate their position, using the information they have gathered to support their thinking.

Suggested Supporting Resources

Textbook References

Student Basic Resource—Oxford University Press, Living in a Globalizing World:

  • Pages 24–25 Our Individual and Collective Identities
  • Pages 26–28 Globalization and Identity
  • Pages 29–33 Maintaining and Promoting Identities Show more
  • Pages 34–35 The Traditional Art of Ta Moko
  • Page 52: Explore the Issues, Questions 1, 2, 3, 4
  • Pages 54–57 Challenges of Globalization to Identities
  • Pages 58–59 Assimilation and Franco-Albertans
  • Page 60 Explore the Issues, Questions 1 and 2
  • Page 61 Responses to Challenges to Identity
  • Pages 62–64 The Marginalization of Inuit in Canada
  • Pages 66–68 Accommodation and Integration
  • Page 68 Explore the Issues, Question 1
  • Page 69 Chapter Summary and Reflection
  • Page 70 Global Opportunities for Canadians
  • Pages 72–77 Opportunities for Identity
  • Pages 78–80 Responses to Opportunities for Identity
  • Page 81 Affirmation of Identity and Francophone Schools
  • Pages 82–83 Cultural Revitalization
  • Page 84 Global Connections, Questions 1 and 2
  • Page 85 Revitalizing Creole Languages, Questions 1 and 2
  • Pages 86–87 Chapter Summary and Reflection
  • Pages 91–93 Language Laws and Education Rights
  • Pages 94–97 Cultural Legislation and Revitalization of Cultures and Languages
  • Pages 98–99 First Nations, Métis, and Inuit in Canada: Cultural Revitalization
  • Pages 283–284 Conduct a Thorough Discussion

Student Basic Resource—McGraw-Hill Ryerson, Exploring Globalization:

  • Page 19 To What Extent Does Globalization Shape Your Identity?
  • Page 25 Tattoos and Piercing
  • Page 29 Slang, Jargon, and Collective Identity Show more
  • Pages 32–33 The Struggle of the Lubicon Cree to Affirm Their Identity
  • Page 59 Points of View (Cultural Diversity – detecting bias in sources)
  • Page 60 Inuktitut in Danger
  • Pages 61–62 How Do Some Forces of Globalization Provide Opportunities to Affirm and Promote Identity?
  • Page 63 Cultural Revitalization in Bolivia, and Profile: Evo Morales—Peace with Social Justice
  • Page 97 Cultural Revitalization—Challenges and Opportunities

Teaching Resource—Oxford University Press, Living in a Globalizing World:

  • Pages 15–16 "I Am Canadian!" Rant
  • Page 17 Global Geography
  • Pages 27–28 Our Individual and Collective Identities Show more
  • Pages 30–31 Michif: Growth, Decline, … and Growth?
  • Page 32 Riel's role
  • Pages 33–34 Affirming Language ... Affirming Culture ... Affirming Identity (group work)
  • Pages 47–49 A New Mix: Hybridization
  • Pages 65–67 Activating Background Knowledge and Activity 2: Analyzing Identity Challenges for the Inuit
  • Page 71 Explore the Issues (student page 68; potential layout for chart answers)
  • Pages 100–101 Promoting Languages and Cultures
  • RM 4.2 Alberta's Cree Peoples: An Investigation of Culture and Language (can be differentiated; see suggestions on pp. 61–62)
  • RM 4.3 Multiculturalism Policy of Canada
  • RM 5.1 The 245-year-old Grudge (Acadians)
  • RM 5.2 Acadian Identity  

Teaching Resource—McGraw-Hill Ryerson, Exploring Globalization:

  • Reproducible 1.2.7 Globalization and Cultural Revitalization
  • Reproducible 1.4.1 More to the Story—Endangered Languages
  • Reproducible 1.4.2 A Common Language Show more
  • Reproducible 1.4.3 Predicting Likely Outcomes: Endangered Languages
  • Reproducible 1.4.6 Nunavut Officials Told to Learn Inuktitut or Iqqanaijaaqajjaagunniiqtutit
  • Pages 116–117 Teaching and Learning Strategies

Web Resources

Web Links for Online Sources:

Knowledge and Employability Studio:

Videos:

Distributed Learning/Tools4Teachers Resources:

Critical Challenges:

Stories and Other Media (e.g., films, stories/literature, nonfiction, graphic novels)

  • Bon Cop, Bad Cop (film, 2006, Alliance Atlantis, Erik Canuel [Director], 116 minutes)
  • Hank Williams First Nation (film, 2005, Peace Country Films, Aaron James Sorensen [Director], 92 minutes)
  • Niezen, Ronald. A World Beyond Difference: Cultural Identity in the Age of Globalization. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2004. (book for teachers) Show more
  • Paulicelli, Eugenia and Hazel Clark (eds.). The Fabric of Cultures: Fashion, Identity, and Globalization. New York, NY: Routledge, 2009. (book for teachers)