OCR Pilot GCSE Geography: Cultural Geography

We will be exploring some of the issues relating to how places are represented in the media.

1	Introduction to the idea of Cultural Geography What is CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY ? This is very much a scene setting lesson.	Using Tony's PPT and Quiz. Also WIKIPEDIA definition. You will be doing a range of tasks to set the scene about what we mean by culture. Start with a HIGH / LOW culture quiz to identify the areas the pupils are familiar with... Then a look at the nature of Britain, followed by ideas of Multicultural Britain. These have been going down very well with the groups I've used them with. Also a look at SUB culture and COUNTER culture.
2	Types of Culture High Culture Popular Culture Sub-Cultures Youth Culture - can the generations ever understand each other. Dad: "Turn that noise down..." Child: "It's music !" Dad: "In my day...." etc. Teenage Cultural Objects This is an idea from Tony Cassidy, who looked back at his teenage years - the same age as you are. What do you like at the moment ? It's guaranteed that you will not like those things for the rest of your life, although you might feel nostalgic about them from time to time... The idea is to choose cultural objects which represent your favourites: BOOKS, MUSIC, FILM, TV, CLOTHING, GADGET, RADIO, GAMES, HOBBY, MAGAZINE etc... How have the items changed over time ?	Need to look at examples of the different types of culture... We produced a sheet which has some examples of each of these. Tony Cassidy then refined this with a quite remarkable quiz resource. Also worth considering the value that we place on these objects and the commodification of our daily lives. Check out the work of Ian Cook and Helen Griffiths, who we are involved with in the YPG project. CULTURAL OBJECTS task. See the examples on the school network. Check the PILOT GCSE blog for plenty of examples - search for the label "Cultural Objects" Can also produce one from earlier in their lives, and see the changes. Check the BLOG for more on this task.
3	The advertising of food: how does this relate to CULTURE M&S campaign: "This is not just food....." The Cultures of Consumption website is a good one, as is the new FOOD STORIES website.
4	The representation of places: Advertising of place and 'branding' of places... Click to enlarge	Skegness - what exactly did 'bracing' mean ? Does it sound like a good thing to be ? How are places being rebranded ? Good practice for the new 6th form schemes.
5	Globalisation How does it impact on our lives ? What part do we play in the process ? How has that changed over time ? How aware are students of their involvement ?	Reintroduction to Globalisation, which was a Year 9 topic. Once again, Tony Cassidy has produced some wonderful resources that we use (see network)
6	Coca Cola - plenty of stuff here, and thanks to Tony Cassidy once again... This is the focus on Globalisation.	Tony Cassidy's resource is being used here.
7	Assessment As with the other pieces, this will take a creative format. We will be looking at CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY in the context of MULTICULTURAL UK.	Use the PPTs, and then do the tasks, and produce a PERSONAL RESPONSE to the issue.
8	Sharia Law The Archbishop of Canterbury and his comments have arrived at an interesting time for us.	Thanks to Tony Cassidy for an excellent resource once again.
9	NEWSPAPER ARTICLE Need to focus on GLOBAL CULTURE. He has produced a GLOBAL BRANDING quiz and resource that follows. We then need to decide whether we think that there is such a think as global culture. What global culture do you engage with ?	Newspaper: second piece of coursework. Is there such a thing as a global culture ? How does the emphasis of Disney, McDonalds, Coca Cola etc change the world ?
10	MOVIE MAKER : CULTURAL INSTALLATION We are going to produce a group installation, or multimedia piece on OUR PLACE and its cultural links. We will look for examples of multicultural connections. I need to go out and get some pictures of these. Here is a description by Phil Wood, who is one of the people involved in writing the modules for the Pilot GCSE and also a geography educator: "The focus here is on originality and students developing personalised ways of explaining the concepts. The first 2 pieces were individual, but this is a group piece. The CENTRE PIECE of the unit assessment is a group developed MULTIMEDIA INSTALLATION focused on a particular place.	Third piece of coursework and the final task on the course. You'll need some basic guides to Windows Movie Maker if you've not used it before. Luckily Dan Raven Ellison / Matt Brown have produced these for us, and we will use them. The software is loaded on all the machines in the computer room, and we will also be borrowing some video cameras from the PE department as necessary. You have to come up with a contribution to this. This has to come from YOU really and not from me, it's YOUR place after all.... Also some that David Rogers produced for his GeogDocs project. This unit builds on from the consideration of My Place in the Year 10 unit. Also have an example of NOTTINGHAM that was developed by Tony Cassidy.
11	LITTLE BRITAIN and GLOBAL CULTURE Little Britain is all about Britain: "Britain, Britain, Britain" as Tom Baker says in the introduction... David Walliams was on the radio recently, and said they are taking 'Little Britain' to the USA and writing new material for the series. He was excited about doing this as "American culture tends to move all around the world".... We also looked at the idea of whether we are going to move towards a global culture.... http://allcharts.org/music/germany/singles.htm - change the country by clicking the tab on the right hand side of the screen. Take a look at the World, and USA charts - how similar are they ? What about Germany ? Well at the time of writing we discovered that No. 1 in the charts was: "Kuschel Song" Schnuffel Looked it up on YouTube and discovered this classic track... (see opposite) Is this one-nil to the argument against a global culture ?
12	Chinese Subcultures Plenty of online galleries... Plenty of details in the programme on CHINA DESIGN NOW at the V&A in April 2008	http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1636_chinadesignnow/ Urban Subcultures, and a good definition