Background
The Cultural Plunge is designed to expand your horizons through activities and interactions you may not normally encounter in your day-to-day life. Experiencing facets of other cultures or subcultures can help you to expand your perspectives and possibly challenge some implicit beliefs you may carry about people or groups that are different from you. As you become more aware of the experiences of others, you deepen your understanding of yourself and the communities around you and hopefully spark new interests and relationships.
Instructions
- Articulate your own cultural identity: Define your culture. What is it? What does it mean to be you?
- Plunge - Submerge yourself in an environment different from your own or engage with a person who is culturally different from you.
- Select one potential Cultural Plunge activity:
- Concerts: Attend a musical concert in a genre that you are unfamiliar with.
- Museums: Go to a museum that focuses on racial/ethnic/cultural experiences of people and places.
- Religious: Attend a religious service or event that is not a part of your religious affiliation. For example, you may consider visiting a Muslim mosque, Jewish Temple, Hindu Temple, Buddhist Monastery, etc.
- Historical Site: Visit and tour an identified historical site that has racial/ethnic/cultural significance.
- Drama/Theater: Attend a play or other theater production that has racial/ethnic/cultural significance.
- Foreign Film: Watch a foreign film. The film should be in a language you do not speak.
- Ethnic Neighborhood: Visit a designated ethnic neighborhood, such as Chinatown, Little Tokyo, etc. Take in the sights, sounds, smells, food, etc.
- Interview: Conduct an interview with someone who is racially and ethnically different from you. Create a list of questions you would like to know about the person and their culture.
- Record yourself presenting your cultural plunge video. No imagery, slides, or anything else should be included in this video - just you!
- Recommended: you can record yourself directly in the assignment submission area by selecting “Record Video.”
- Or you may record yourself using any camera, including the one on your smartphone. If you record on your own device, please save your video as a mp4.
- Submit your video AND a written transcript of your cultural plunge video by Sunday. Each of these components is worth 50% of this assignment score.
- If you record your video on your own device, please save as a .mp4.
- Please save your transcript as either a .doc, .docx,.pdf, or .rtf for submission.
Grading
This assignment is worth 25 points and due on Sunday. For more specifics on how this will be graded, refer to the rubric below.