Professional Development AP® German Language Schönheit und Ästhetik Curriculum Module The College Board The College Board is a not-for-profit membership association whose mission is to connect students to college success and opportunity. Founded in 1900, the College Board is composed of more than 5,700 schools, colleges, universities and other educational organizations. Each year, the College Board serves seven million students and their parents, 23,000 high schools, and 3,800 colleges through major programs and services in college readiness, college admission, guidance, assessment, financial aid and enrollment. Among its widely recognized programs are the SAT®, the PSAT/NMSQT®, the Advanced Placement Program® (AP®), SpringBoard® and ACCUPLACER®.
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5 Kerstin Helbing Eva-Marie Russo Final Module Project. 31 Kerstin Helbing Eva-Marie Russo Appendixes.37 About the Contributors. 93 Introduction Beauty and aesthetics is one of the six themes of the AP® German Language and Culture curriculum. While we have created the following curriculum module to provide a possible treatment of beauty and aesthetics, the module certainly also addresses issues relevant to the theme of personal and public identities.
The authors of this module do not find this in any way contradictory, but rather consider this to be evidence of the interconnectedness of the six suggested themes. Beauty is a fundamental theme worthy of discussion with our students, as a characteristic not only of individuals but also of all living creatures, as well as objects and ideas. As a perceptual experience, beauty is associated with the provision of delight and gratification, meaning and significance. As a topic of study, there is hardly a field that can be named upon which it does not have some sort of impact, but for the purpose of this module, the topic of beauty will allow students to adopt the role of historian, psychologist and anthropologist, as well as media analyst and cosmetologist; the module therefore has an interdisciplinary approach.
Beauty is a topic fraught with obvious pitfalls, such as the danger of judgment, but this module does its best to adopt a critical stance to this complex issue — not simply praising beauty, neither overestimating nor discounting its manifold benefits. Our goal with this module is to discuss with students the topic of beauty as a relative concept, of which we must be conscious due to its both positive and negative ability to shape and influence our lives. Our focus is on this relativity in all its manifestations — chronological, societal and supranational. The curriculum module begins and ends with the understandings of the students and substantiates these perspectives throughout with the influential contributions to the topic made by authors and philosophers of various centuries and diverse vocations (including a comedian and advertisers), with which students are also made to engage via level-appropriate tasks.
The language of these contributions is scaffolded from less to more challenging; the module begins with words and phrases associated with beauty, expands its focus to include sentence-level discourse and culminates in paragraph-level discourse. The module includes diverse media in keeping with the demands of the included contributions, but also with an eye to maintaining student interest. Its final goal is students’ creation of a “campaign,” which will allow them to redefine beauty based upon their interaction (multiple interviews) with their community and their analysis of these interactions as well as their interpretation of the impact of previously existing notions of beauty (as informed by the module’s input) upon the collected perceptions. 1 A Curriculum Module for AP German Language The curriculum module is designed so that students can • Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of content across disciplines • Demonstrate an understanding of social, historical and/or geographic features of the target language • Engage in spoken and written Interpersonal Communication • Synthesize information from a variety of authentic audio, visual and audiovisual resources, and from a variety of authentic written and print resources • Successfully plan, produce and present spoken and written Presentational Communications Over the course of the module, students will be called upon to describe (incorporating simple as well as extended adjectival constructions), to question, to narrate (using various time and text forms), and to argue and persuade.
The following graphic helps illustrate the various components of this curriculum module. Was ist Schönheit? Was bedeutet Schönheit für jeden einzelnen? • eigene Auffassungen Rund um den • Galerie im Klassenzimmer Globus Verändert sich die Auffassung von Schönheit mit der Zeit? Wenn ja, wodurch und wie? • Galerie • Input vom Lehrer/oder Web • Sprichwörter • E-mail schreiben Schöne Durch die In den Medien Menschen Jahrhunderte Wie sehen schöne Inwiefern wird der Begriff Menschen aus? Schönheit von den Medien • Galerie geprägt? • Interview • Videoclip: Michael • Venn Mittermeier Diagramm • Ausschnitt aus Immanuel Kants „Kritik der Urteilskraft“ Vorteile/ • Märchen Nachteile • Videoclip: Dove Welche Vorteile hat seine/ihre Campaigne Schönheit ihm/ihr schon gebracht? • eigene Auffassungen • Artikel „Ganz schön einfach?“ Final Modul Project Videoproduktion einer Werbecampaigne für Schönheit, wie sie von den Schülern nach der Arbeit an diesem Modul gesehen wird 2 Schönheit und Ästhetik Instructional Activities The instructional activities in this curriculum module are in keeping with the Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century. Examples of how the Standards are met by the suggested activities are listed below.1: Students engage in conversations, provide and obtain information, express feelings and emotions, and exchange opinions. Students exchange, support and discuss their opinions and individual perspectives with peers on a variety of topics, e., beauty and personality.2: Students understand and interpret written and spoken language on a variety of topics.
Students demonstrate an understanding of the main ideas and significant details of a written text from Mittelpunkt B2: Deutsch als Fremdsprache für Fortgeschrittene, a comedy routine from Michael Mittermeier, an excerpt from Immanuel Kant and the radio drama “Aschenputtel.3: Students present information, concepts and ideas to an audience of listeners or readers on a variety of topics. Students write their own proverbs; an e-mail to their best friends describing the appearance and personality of an attractive classmate; and a modern fairy tale, incorporating either a traditional or more contemporary understanding of beauty.1: Students demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between the practices and perspectives of the culture studied. Students identify, analyze and discuss provided visual images of the manipulation of beauty via an advertising campaign.2: Students demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between the products and perspectives of the culture studied. Students identify, analyze and evaluate the perspectives in a German fairy tale.1: Students reinforce and further their knowledge of other disciplines through the foreign language.
Students discuss topics from other school subjects in the target language, including history and worldwide health issues (e., the discussion of such historical images of beauty as foot binding, high foreheads and corsets). 3 A Curriculum Module for AP German Language Standard 4.1: Students demonstrate understanding of the nature of language through comparisons of the language studied and their own. Students seek out German expressions in a German article for vocabulary provided in English. Students learn how to compliment one another in German.2: Students demonstrate understanding of the concept of culture through comparisons of the cultures studied and their own.
Students analyze the connection of beauty with morality in a brief excerpt from Immanuel Kant.1: Students use the language both within and beyond the school setting. Using a survey from a German website, students survey classmates from various grade levels outside of the classroom to gather their concepts of beauty and then record the findings in German. The original survey is advertised but translated for those who do not speak German. Students interview classmates outside of the German language classroom to substantiate their perception of beauty.
Materials and Resources Teachers should review each lesson section carefully before attempting to incorporate it into their individual curriculum. Most sections require no more than handouts and images printed out for student inspiration. Two sections require the ability to use a YouTube video in class. For instructors who lack the capability to show a YouTube video, directions for downloading videos to RealPlayer can be viewed at http://www.com/watch?v=N38goCKVtE8&feature=related.
PowerPoint presentations are suggested over the course of the module, and a video camera and usage of the software programs Audacity/GarageBand are necessary to record the creation of the final “campaign.” It is advisable that students keep all materials produced readily available, as reference will often be made back to already completed work. A thorough treatment of all of the following activities is anticipated to require at least 20 hours of class time. Homework has only been suggested in some instances, as it is impossible to predict existing knowledge and precise activity time measurements for all groups. Instructors must determine for themselves what homework would be appropriate and when it would be appropriate to insert more formal testing.
4 Concepts of Beauty This initial section provides students with the opportunity to gather their thoughts and preconceptions on the subject of beauty, to examine and reflect on their own concept of beauty. The concept of beauty is expanded to the world at large, going beyond the typical concept of beauty as the physical human form. This section thus first permits an acknowledgment of the beauty to be found in nature and society and then focuses students’ attention on the beauty of human beings. The lessons begin with a basic introduction to the topic by means of a brainstorming activity, which allows students to voice all initial thoughts on what is beautiful and then focus these on people as opposed to nature, art, architecture or the like.
The handout (Appendix 1) serves to allow students who require more time to gather their ideas not to be left out of the discussion. If your group requires a definite assignment to ensure that they make a substantial contribution, then be sure to add an exact number of ideas to be listed. The instructor could write ideas elicited from students on the board or could bring a student to the board as secretary. A PowerPoint show should accompany such an introduction with images of people, nature, art, architecture in order to encourage a breadth of contributions.
Suggested images include: Das Schloss Versailles in der Nähe von Paris (http://members.com/m/p/m/1ab469/) Monets Japanische Fußbrücke über Seerosen (http://www.com/artists/Claude_Oscar_Monet/art_reproduction/2526/Monet’s_ Water_Garden_and_the_Japanese_Footbridge.php) Monica Belucci (http://www.com/wallpapers/celebs/monicabellucci/monica_ bellucci_13.jpg) Jean-Marc Barr — deutscher Schauspieler (http://www.com/actor/jean-marc-barr) Die Coromandel Peninsula (Halbinsel) (http://disordered.org/desktop/Coromandel.jpg) 5 A Curriculum Module for AP German Language Students should be asked to address two questions while viewing the images: Was ist schön für dich? Welche Gefühle hast du, wenn du die folgenden Bilder siehst? A YouTube file is also suggested (Bach — Die Brandenburgischen Konzerte No.3 — i: Allegro Moderato http://www.com/watch?v=hZ9qWpa2rIg) so that music can also be a source of inspiration. A discussion based on the ideas captured by students on the handouts should follow the brainstorming session. The anticipated outcome of the first activity is that students discover that they share some perceptions of beauty and differ in others. In either case, the fact that not only people are considered “beautiful,” but also that situations or events can be perceived as “beautiful” will be established by means of this initial activity.
Modification of Activity If desired, the previously described activity can also be done as homework. Students would be required to bring a visual and a paragraph explaining why they find the depicted person, place, object or situation beautiful. This activity would also result in the sharing of a variety of perceptions of beauty based upon the diversity of the students.