It's a small world, after all : lesson plan challenge!

A friend of mine, Ken Dimmick, wrote this awesome poem which I just know can be turned into an amazing lesson plan.  But I was thinking, 2 heads are better than one... and 20 heads are infinitely better than 2...

Wanna help me put something together?

How would you use it in the ELT classroom - with business/general adults, teens or kids?  How would you construct the different parts of the lesson, would you use it as an ice-breaker, a supplementary material or the main text?

What would you do to encourage your students to think critically? 

Would you have them research aspects of the poem, get them conversing, what would you suggest to them that they could create as a final step in the process?



Get your thinking caps on, jot down what you think could be done or test out your ideas and then tell us what happened in the classroom - in about a month, I'll collate your ideas and type these up into a downloadable lesson plan to share:

Small World
by Ken Dimmick

I'm wearing rubber and leather sandals from China:
    rubber from Malaysia
    leather from god knows where
        (a cow of unknown nationality.)

My socks are from Bolivia
    woven from Egyptian cotton
        by a Brazilian factory
        hiring out-of-work Argentineans;

My trousers are denim, no longer "de Nimes," but
    constructed in the Phillipines
    of material woven in Mexico
    designed in Paris
    by a gay Italian, who like Madonna
        - the singer, not the saint
    has adopted a child from Malawi but that's another story altogether.

My shirt is from
    The Dominican Republic;
    of traditional Cuban design
    marketed by the Swedish firm: H&M
    yet purchased here in Stuttgart, Germany
        with my Mastercard from Texas.

And I have reason to believe
    that my pants, my briefs, my slip, my "Fruit of the Looms"
    began in a Guatamalan sweat-shop
        although the tag says Malaysia.

My Swiss watch
    fabricated in China
    is attached to my wrist
    by a leather band
    which  
    when still alive
    once swam free
        in Kenya's Lake Victoria.

But underneath it all
I am 100% pure American;
    in my particular case: mostly English genes
        (Celtic, Dane, Anglo-Saxon, Norman-French)
    with Irish and Scottish overtones.

I am the uncle of Africans
    my sister's sons, my nephews
And brother-in-law of an adventurous alliance
between Mexico and Quebec.

Yes, I am
as American as Apple Pie:
    made from the juiciest Japanese apples
    cooked in a crispy crust of Canadian wheat
    Jamaican sugar
    Irish butter and
    Cinnamon from the islands just west of Sumatra

Download the poem here.

Best,
Karenne
image credit: atlas, it's time for your bath by woodleywonderworks


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