These essential questions, modified from Let’s Explore Modern Germany and Germany In Focus, are universal.
Purposes:
- Serve as seat cards and discussion starters.
- Demonstrate examples of questions posed in a variety of lessons.
Directions:
Options:
1. Post a question/quote. Ask participants to discuss with a partner.
2. Use as a starter for a broader discussion of the question/quote.
3. Use as a short strategy to preface a specific modified strategy.
Questions/ Quotes
- What makes someone famous?
- What things in your life would you refuse to give up even if your life was threatened?
- Are there circumstances when it is all right to back out on a promise that one has made?
- In what ways have geographic features made a difference in history and people’s lives?
- Can Europe be compared in any way to the United States?
- How might a country such as Germany benefit from being in the European Union? What might the drawbacks be?
- How does knowing something about a language help us learn a culture?
- What does possessing citizenship mean to an individual?
- What does it mean to be German? An American?
- How might buildings and other public sites in a community reflect the values and history of the community?
- What do the memorials and monuments in our capital say about our values and history?
- What criteria are/should be used to designate a national day?
- In what ways do individuals influence the times in which they live?
- How has avid disobedience been used throughout history to effect change?
- How do our past experiences shape our personalities?
- How does a flag come to represent a nation?
- How does this statement “ring a bell” for you?
- A person is only forgotten if his name is forgotten. (Gunter Demnig)
- Tolerance should be a temporary attitude: it must lead to recognition. To tolerate means to offend. (Goethe)
- He who doesn’t know foreign languages doesn’t know his own. (Goethe)
- Every choice has a second-best option which must be given up, and that’s the opportunity lost. (not provided)
