I’m helping teach Country Studies again this year and I hope to have a little more direction with the lesson plans. However, for my first class I didn’t want to dive into the material right away (partially because I was asked to teach ten minutes before class started and had no time to prepare). Instead, I asked the students a couple of questions to help me get a better idea of what to focus on this year.

The first question I asked was:

Using a word or phrase, please describe America. Here are the answers:

• Baseball
• Obama
• Soccer
• Basketball
• Hawk
• Statue of Liberty
• Modern
• Money
• Green
• Twin Towers
• Different plants/animals than Ukraine
• iPhone/iPod
• White House
• Hollywood
• Manhattan
• American Army
• Democratic
• 50 States
• Independence
• Very Big
• Well known
• Young Country
• Freedom
• Pictures
• Columbus
• Unique
• Popular
• Developed
• Indians

I didn’t require an explanation. I just wanted an idea. I plan to do this same task at the end of the year to see what has changed.

The second question I asked was as follows: What topics do you want to learn about this year?

• Teenagers
• Traditions
• Communication
• Parties
• Lifestyles
• Places to visit
• Sports
• Cheerleaders
• Economy
• Music
• Movies
• American MTV
• Anime/Comics
• School System
• Political System
• Hobbies
• Family Life/Traditions
• Pop Culture
• Holidays
• New York
• Hollywood
• Interesting History
• Guiness Book of World Records
• American Candy/Drinks
• Interesting Books

So that’s the information I gathered. I thought it was interesting to look at and share.