Unit 3:  Life on the Edge:  
             Informality in the Urban Setting 
             Instructor's Guide to Activities
Goal
The goals of the activities in Unit 3 are: (1) to explore the range of living conditions experienced by those living and working in Latin American cities including those in the informal sectors of the economy, (2) to question the societal values, political processes, and economic concerns that influence business ethics and concerns about the quality of life in Latin American cities, and (3) to foster a deeper understanding of the urban landscape including the processes, struggles, and life experiences that go into making up that landscape.

Learning Outcomes
After completing the activities in this module, students should:

Choice of Activities
It is neither necessary nor feasible in most cases to complete all activities in each unit. Select those that are most appropriate for your classroom setting and that cover a range of activity types, skills, genres of reading materials, writing assignments, and other activity outcomes. This unit contains the following activities:

Activity 3.1:  Personal Experiences of a Latin American City -- creative writing
Activity 3.2:  The Question of Ethics -- role playing/debate about business ethics, corporate responsibility, and free trade
Activity 3.3:  Delegate to the World Cities Conference -- role playing and creative writing
Activity 3.4:  Visualizing Urban Landscapes II -- A Deeper Understanding -- team work, library research, Internet searches, and poster presentation
 

Suggested Readings
The following readings accompany the activities for this unit. Choose those readings most appropriate for the activities you select and those most adequate for the skill level of your students.

Activity 3.1:  Personal Experiences of a Latin American City

Goals
Students learn about life in Latin American cities through personal narratives.

Skills

Material Requirements Time Requirements
One class period (50 minutes); allow 1-2 days before class for students to read the narratives and prepare their news report.

Tasks
In this activity, students use narratives of urban dwellers in Latin America to prepare a three-minute television news broadcast that portrays life in Latin American cities. Eight narratives are provided in Supporting Material 3.1. You may need to provide others or point students to additional sources. Narratives should represent people from various classes, people of various ages and ethnicity, migrants and long-settled urbanites, and positive and negative experiences.

Provide students with a copy of the narratives and tell them they are broadcast journalists. Ask them to use the selected personal accounts as interview sources and prepare a feature story, as part of a television newscast, on life in Latin American cities. Place a strict three-minute time limit on the report to encourage students to choose selectively among the various accounts, to confront the complexity and diversity of urban life, and to simplify and convey the necessary information. Students must include personal accounts in their reports to create a human interest factor for the viewers. Suggest other sources of information for them to consider in their report (i.e., other books, articles, narratives, or even the Background Information of the module).

During the next class period, divide the class into groups of five or six students. Each student should read her or his newscast aloud to the group. (You may want to suggest that one group member serve as a "time monitor" to insure that the reports fit the time limit.) Allow additional time for the group to discuss the presentations and consider how they differed. The group exchange and discussion allows students to explore the different ways that they made their selections from among the material. Some might portray the difficulties of urban life, some might present mainly positive aspects, some reports might have a theme, and others might try to create balance by presenting two extremes. Ask each group to consider how their personal values affected their presentation and to identify ways in which the information in the narratives were "filtered" into the newscast. Filters include such things as cultural differences, representations in the media, stereotypes, language differences, and life experiences, among others.

Following the presentations, open the discussion to the entire class. Ask each group to share briefly its thoughts about values and filters. Conclude the activity by discussing how people’s values, acting as filters, affect our ability to form opinions and make decisions about people in the cities of Latin America.

Alternative
Rather than a television news report, you can ask students to prepare a newspaper article limited to less than two double-spaced pages. Remind students that this is a human interest piece for the general public.

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Activity 3.2:  The Question of Ethics

Goals
Students explore the process of urbanization and its effects on living standards in LDCs by debating the role of ethics in transnational corporations.

Skills

Material Requirements Time Requirements
One class period (50 minutes) for each option; allow additional time before class for students to read the suggested readings and to prepare for the activity.

Tasks
This activity is flexible and provides several options to choose from including a role-playing activity, a formal debate, or if time doesn’t allow for either of these options, a 15-20 minute class discussion.

Ask students to read the suggested readings (Donaldson 1994; Ballinger 1993; LaBotz 1993) before class so that they have some time to think about ethics and business and can formulate their opinion on whether or not ethics can be imposed on global business. Students will write a short paragraph in response to the Donaldson reading based on the instructions in the student worksheet. They will also develop a list of the advantages and disadvantages to workers and corporations of a code of ethics. This short writing assignment prepares students for one of the options below.

Option A: Role play
The goal of this option is for students to convince a decision-making board to adopt or not adopt a code of conduct.

Divide the class into three groups. Two groups should consist of about 10-15 students, and a third group should have no more than five. Designate one of the large groups as representatives of an LDC government and designate the other large group as members of an LDC labor movement. The smaller group serves as the decision-making board made up of board members of an American corporation that operates maquiladoras.

Give each group about 15-20 minutes to outline how they will present their case (although it seems logical that the labor group will argue for adopting a code of ethics and the government representatives will argue against it, part of the fun and learning goal is seeing how students construct their positions and their arguments). Tell each group that they will each have five minutes to present their case to the board and suggest that they appoint a note-taker and a speaker(s). Make sure the labor movement group thinks about what their Code will entail, if indeed they are lobbying for one. Encourage students to be persuasive and creative in their presentation; they can make up an anecdotal story, or create vivid images for the board to think about in order to sway the board members to their side. More importantly, encourage them to "get into" their roles and make it realistic.

While the labor and government groups are discussing their positions, the corporate board members should think about what factors are important in their decision on the matter (i.e., profits, human rights, a good image, etc.).

Allow five minutes for each side to present its case to the board. Encourage board members to take notes during the presentations. After the groups have presented their cases, allow the board five minutes to debate among themselves and to ask the groups any additional questions they have or to negotiate with the groups certain aspects of the pending agreement (i.e., "if we do "x," can you guarantee us that you will ....?") Once the board feels it has sufficiently explored the issue, call for a vote of the board members on whether to adopt the Code. Once the votes are in, and if time allows, ask the board members to state the most important factors that swayed their vote.

 
Option B: A Formal Debate
The goal of this option is for students to debate the merits of imposing a standard or universal Code of Conduct on American foreign corporations.

Because students will have read the articles before class and will have already outlined the "pros" and "cons" of adopting a Code of Ethics, they should be ready to participate in this activity during class. You may want to hand out copies of Supporting Material 3.2 with the readings so that students have a chance to look over the rules and think about the debate format in addition to reading the articles.

Divide the class into two groups (this can be done the night before so students have an idea of their "side" while doing the assignment or, if you want students to know both sides of the issue, divide them immediately before the debate in class). Give students about 20 minutes to discuss their position and arguments. Each group should assign a note-taker and a spokesperson(s). Make yourself available to the groups as they prepare for the debate. They may need help outlining their arguments, thinking of different "angles" to their argument, anticipating what the other side might say in response, or they may have logistical questions.

Next, give each side five minutes to make their opening statements (the "pro" side will go first). Remind the "con" side that they should not respond to the opening statement but rather highlight their argument. After the opening statements, allow five-ten minutes for each side to prepare a response to the other side’s opening statement. Finally, ask each group to present its rebuttal (allow no more than five minutes for each group).

Following the rebuttal, open the class for discussion of the debate. Provide some initial feedback to each group on their performance.

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Activity 3.3:  Delegate to the World Cities Conference

Goals
Students understand the complex relationships among urbanization, economic development, and environmental and social impacts.

Skills

Material Requirements Time Requirements
10 minutes to introduce activity; 3-5 days outside of class for students to write their essays; one class period (50 minutes) for presentation and evaluation of essays

Tasks
Ask students to read the suggested article from The Economist (1996) and to note the role of Latin American cities in the World Cities Conference that was held in Istanbul, Turkey in 1996. After reading the article, students will role play the following scenario.

Each student will serve as the mayor of a Latin American city. You can allow each student to choose his or her city or you can assign students different cities. (If the students did the poster project in Activity 1.4, you may want to assign them to be the mayor of the particular city chosen for that activity.) The mayor has been invited to attend the 1996 World Cities Conference in Istanbul, Turkey. The mayors of the world’s major cities will be in attendance. At the conference the mayor is warmly greeted by the Conference Chair and invited to dinner with the Conference organizers and representatives from major transnational industries interested in setting up investments in cities to support their corporate prosperity. After an expensive dinner sponsored by industry, the mayor is encouraged to take a leadership role at the Conference that starts in the morning. S/he can choose either to make a presentation as the new chair of an ad hoc committee setting policy on developing urban infrastructure or to give the luncheon keynote speech on "Cities Taking the Initiative on Environmental Leadership."

The mayor must make a decision about which opportunity to pursue and write a short presentation. In the presentation, the mayor will identify his/her position on developing urban infrastructure and the urban environment as well as specifying how industry can be involved in this plan. S/he should clarify how the socioeconomic and environmental conditions of his/her city influence the position taken in this presentation. The presentation should be no more than three pages long.

On the due date for the assignment, ask students to exchange papers with someone they don’t know in the class. Give each student five to ten minutes to read his/her classmate’s presentation. Then hold a 15-20 minute class discussion during which you pose a series of questions to the class about the positions taken in the presentations. Use the questions below as a guide:

After the discussion give students about ten minutes to evaluate the presentation they read on a scale of one (low) to ten (high) and to provide written comments. You can decide whether you want the student reviewing the presentation to sign his or her name on the evaluation. Collect each written presentation and evaluation and use both in evaluating students’ work.

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Activity 3.4:  Visualizing Urban Landscapes II:  A Deeper Understanding

Goals
Students explore in-depth the problems facing a specific city in Latin America based on issues discussed in the background information of the module. Students recognize that although all places are inevitably affected by global change, these processes vary by place owing to historical, social, economic, and cultural configurations.

Skills

Material Requirements Time Requirements
Minimum of 2-3 weeks outside of class with additional time during class for groups to meet throughout the 2-3 week period; allow a minimum of one class period (50 minutes) for poster presentations.

Tasks
This activity is intended to build upon Activity 1.4 or to be combined with it as suggested in the Instructor’s Guide for Activity 1.4. If students completed the posters in Activity 1.4, this activity will provide a nice comparison between the more superficial understanding of urbanization that students had at the beginning of the module and the deeper understanding of urban processes and the urban experience that they should now possess. The instructions for this activity resemble closely those for Activity 1.4

Part A: The Posters
Begin by allowing students to select the city they would like to research. Post a list of several cities (make sure they are prominent enough to have sufficient information on them in the library) and let students sign up for the city and group of their choice. North American cities can also be used for the purposes of North-South comparisons. (Students may choose to continue with the cities that they worked on in Activity 1.4.)

On the day that groups are chosen, provide a copy of the suggested reading on making posters (Vujakovic 1995) and suggest that students read it before they meet within groups. Encourage them to consider Vujakovic’s thorough and insightful suggestions. Lastly, suggest that students assign tasks within their group based on their own skills and interests in order to complete their poster by the due date.

Students should be certain that at least three topics from the module text are evident on their posters. This could include the rural sector (what is grown, where it ends up, and who lives there), prominent industries, informal settlements or economy, "women’s work," historical considerations (colonialism and how that affected the city’s location), and/or other major issues facing cities today. The number of topics is up to you.

Give students an idea of how the posters will be graded. The following criteria are provided in the student worksheet and should be used to evaluate students’ work:*

The poster must:

The poster might include: The poster should have: Students should use a variety of sources for their information including the library (books, magazines, newspapers), Internet resources, or meetings with "experts" (e.g., a professor at the university that specializes in the country or city). Remind students that the amount of information that can be displayed on the poster is limited by size/space considerations. The information they find doesn’t need to be extensive, but should be concise enough for the audience to get a sense of what is happening in this city.

The groups will probably require some meeting time during class in order to touch base with each other and to keep everyone on track. However, from the start, let them know this project will require outside-class meeting time.

Part B: The Poster Symposium
A symposium is a great way for students to learn from each other’s research and it gives them a chance to demonstrate what they’ve learned throughout the module. Furthermore, the goal of the activity will be reinforced by seeing the place-specific presentations of each group.

On the last day of class, or on the final day of working on this module, hold a "Poster Symposium" in which students display their posters around the room, answer questions, and point out interesting aspects to students and guests circulating around the room. If you think you will need more time than your class period allows, schedule a special time for the symposium. Invite other students, graduate students, and faculty in the department to attend.

During the symposium, suggest that students break into two teams of two to three people; one team will be "on-duty" at their poster while the other team members circulate around the room and look at the other posters. After 15-20 minutes, the teams can swap duties so that everyone gets a chance to stand at the poster and to see the others.

One way to get students to take their "circulating time" seriously is to set up a ballot box where students can vote for their favorite poster (excluding their own). The vote can be based solely on the overall effectiveness of the actual poster, or the way in which students handle questions. The group that "wins" gets a blue ribbon, special recognition, or extra-credit points (this would be particularly enticing!). See Answers to Activities for suggestions on evaluating students’ work.

Lastly, after the symposium, consider displaying the posters in your department’s display case, the university center, or the university library.


* Adapted from Kneale, P. 1996. Organizing student-centered fieldwork and presentations.  Journal of Geography in Higher Education 20, 1 (1 March): 65-74.

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