Activity: Select Your Superpower

Welcome!

If you had one superpower, what would it be? 

Why did you choose that power?

Come up with an action that shows your superpower.

Share with the group, and have everyone in the group practice that action (we’ll use this for a game later).

Think + Learn:
Group Agreements

In these workshops, we’re getting curious about ourselves and our world. It takes a lot of bravery to share who we are with each other, to talk about our feelings, to admit when we don’t know something or made a mistake. It can even take bravery to ask questions.

Let’s do our best to respect each other’s bravery, identities, and experiences.

Click through the slideshow to read guidelines to help us do that, or click here to watch a video that explains our group agreements.

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Game: Would you rather?

Depending on your group, you can either make this into a game or use it as a conversation starter.

• If you choose a game vibe, you could read the questions, then have participants walk, hop, skip, etc. to various sides or corners of the room for one choice versus the other.
• If you choose a conversation format, you could call on individual participants to explain why they made their choice.

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Think + Learn:
What is culture?

Take a few minutes to read through this slideshow.

Think + Learn: Understanding different parts of culture

Read through this slideshow.

This material was modified and adapted from the “Levels of Culture” diagram found in Zaretta L. Hammond’s book, Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students

Read:
Bad Guys by Aaron Blabey

Before you start thinking about your own family culture, we are going to practice making a culture tree for some characters in a book.

First read this book.

Feel free to choose a different book for this activity, but we have done an example of a culture tree using this particular book content below.

Activity:
Make a culture tree for The Bad Guys

Once you’ve stopped laughing, we are going to think about the culture of the Bad Guys and the “Good Guys Club.”

Talk about the answers to the questions and if you want, write them down on the blank tree. Once you’re done, click through to see what we came up with for the Bad Guys + Good Guys Club culture tree. We bet that you came up with some things that we did not! Or maybe you disagree – that’s okay too.

Think

Do we know everything about the Bad Guys? How would we be able to fill in more of their culture trees?

Are there any mirrors, windows, or doors for you from the “Bad Guys” or “Good Guys Club” culture?

Make: Create your own family culture tree

Now you get to think about your own family’s culture!

In this activity, you will create a poster that shows some of the things that make up your family culture.

• On each leaf, write or draw something about your family’s “Hello my name is” culture.
• Next to, or inside, the trunk write or draw some things that describe your family’s “This is the way” culture.
• Next to, or on, the tree roots write or draw some beliefs, unspoken rules, or other parts of your family’s “roots” culture.

Here are some questions to help you. You don’t have to answer every question. The questions are here just to help you think about your family’s culture.

Think + Learn:
Each of us has a culture

Share your family culture trees with each other.

Want to see some of ours?

Do you notice any mirrors, windows, or doors as you hear about each other’s family cultures?

Game:
How well do you know the Avengers?

Is anyone a fan of the Marvel Avengers? We’re going to play a game where you can test your knowledge (and yes, you are correct – Falcon and Okoye are not technically Avengers).

If the Avengers characters are new to people in your group, take a few minutes to learn about some of the characters. You don’t have to use all of the characters below – feel free to select a few.

(FYI you have to be a subscriber to watch the Marvel 101 videos in these links below; after you click each link, skip the video and read the descriptions about the characters below the video).

• Depending on the size of your group, break into teams. If you have multiple families with various levels of Avengers knowledge, try to assign one “expert” to each group.
• Print & cut out the markers and fold them in half so they stand up. If you have different favorite superheroes, you can draw your own symbol for that superhero on the blank markers. Here’s a blank game board to fill out.
• Next, tape together or unfold your game board (or use the slideshow below if you want to do this activity as a discussion instead of a tabletop game).
• The board is full of facts or character traits about various Avengers.
• Read each bubble and decide which character or characters fit that description. Place that character’s marker on the board. It’s okay to put multiple markers on the same bubble.
• Do the best you can – you probably won’t be able to place a marker on every bubble. You can place some question markers on the ones that you don’t know.
• Work for 5-10 minutes.

Listen + share

• Talk together about the answers you came up with.
• Were there any spots that you did not know? Is there anything that surprised you? Did you learn anything new about the Avengers?
• What do you think the purpose of this activity is?

So…we could make a culture tree for the Avengers (feel free if you want!). The Avengers share some of the same values, priorities, and traditions because they are a part of “Avengers” culture. But each individual Avenger also has their own character traits, individual histories – plus other cultures that they are a part of.

Just because we know some things about Black Panther, Iron Man, and Black Widow because they belong to the Avengers, we don’t know everything about them. We simply can’t know everything about a person based on their membership in a single group. Being a part of one culture doesn’t mean that we know the whole person.

We started out talking about our family cultures, but each of us are part of many cultures – imagine a forest of different cultures.

Take a look at the examples below – then fill out your own forest of cultures!