Harvest Festivals

Lesson Plan: Intermediate/Advanced Level

Objectives:

Students will be able to…

• complete two short readings about harvest festivals
• compare and contrast two different harvest festivals by completing a graphic organizer (Venn diagram)
• share information regarding harvest festivals in their respective cultures

Setting the context: Activate prior knowledge and pre-teach new vocabulary

People all over the world celebrate the harvest. Harvest festivals happen wherever people plant and grow food. For many people in the United States, the harvest festival is the fourth Thursday of November and is called Thanksgiving. There are other religious and cultural groups in the United States that have their own harvest festivals, too.

Pre-teach the following vocabulary as part of the discussion:

celebration (noun)

celebrate (verb)

harvest (noun)

harvest (verb)

festival

feast

Possible questions for discussion:

• When is Thanksgiving? Why do many people in the U.S. celebrate Thanksgiving?
• Were you in the U.S. last November? Did you celebrate Thanksgiving?  If yes, what did you eat? Who celebrated with you?
• Do you have a special day or time when you give thanks and/or celebrate the harvest in your culture?

Activity #1: Reading

1. Choose 2 of the 3 readings to use for the lesson. 

• Explain that the students are going to read two short pieces about two different harvest festivals.
• Ask students to locate the two different countries (China, India, or Ghana) on a world map.

2.  Pre-teach the specific vocabulary for each story. Then ask students to read aloud together in pairs.

3.  After each story, come back together and ask students to summarize or retell what they’ve read.   

Activity #2: Completing a graphic organizer

1.  Draw a Venn diagram (two large circles overlapping) on the board. As a group, compare and contrast two things (a car and an airplane, for example). Model the activity and elicit ideas from the students. In one circle, write the unique qualities of cars. In the other circle, write the unique qualities of airplanes. In the area where the two circles overlap, write shared characteristics.

2.  Ask students to take a sheet of paper and draw their own Venn diagram. Alternatively, you could create a blank Venn diagram and make copies, to insure that the graphic organizer is large enough and has sufficient space for writing in the middle section.

3.  Working individually or in pairs, students compare and contrast the two harvest festivals from the readings and fill in their own diagrams.

4. When most students have finished, hand out markers and fill in a large Venn diagram together on the board.

Wrap-up:

Lead a discussion, asking students to compare Thanksgiving and the two holidays they read about. Challenge them to find three ways they are all similar, as well as identifying differences. Ask students to share additional information about harvest festivals in their respective cultures and how they resemble and differ from those already discussed.