Traditional, Family, and Personal Stories That Link Us to “Home”

Lessons

  1. Characteristics of Traditional and Family Stories
  2. Connecting Stories to the Land, Waterways, Plants, and Animals of a Region
  3. Finding Our Own Family Stories and Their Connections to a Specific Region
  4. Adapting, Revising, and Writing Our Own Stories to Represent Changes to Our Cultural Group or Family or Self and Environmental Changes (i.e. Climate Change, etc.)

New Jersey Student Learning Standards

  • RL.7.1. Cite several pieces of textual evidence and make relevant connections to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
  • RL.7.2. Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text.
  • W.7.3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences.

Materials:  All materials in Google Classroom:  Choice Board (see illustration below) and associated links including story docs and PDFs, audio/video versions of stories, Google Drawing to create maps, docs with analysis questions; also, long bulletin paper for chalktalk.

Vocabulary: oral tradition, myths, legends, folktales, origin stories, moral, personification, cultural beliefs, geography, setting, biodiversity, ecological niches.

Essential Questions

  • How do traditional/family stories reflect the belief systems and ways of life of the cultures in which they originate?
  • How do traditional/family stories give me a sense of my own identity and a connection to the geography, plants and animals who live in that location?
  • How do traditional stories link me to generations past of my family and to other people from the same region?
  • How might traditional stories evolve or change with new experiences such as when people from one culture migrate somewhere else or experience a hardship or triumph? How can new experiences create new stories for a group or culture?
  • How might traditional stories evolve or new stories emerge to reflect changes in the environment such as climate change, environmental degradation, declining biodiversity?
  • How can we create our own stories to show our sense of belonging to a particular place, its people, landscape, buildings, animals, plants, and other features?

 

Objectives 

  • The learner will demonstrate (TLWD):  comprehension by identifying geographical features and native plants and wildlife mentioned in a story; analysis by discussing how those features give us a sense of the land the culture considers “home.”
  • TLWD comprehension by defining how each story shows characteristics of a traditional story and explaining the morals or lessons taught.
  • TLWD comprehension by understanding that cultures and a sense of “home” are directly connected to regional characteristics such as native plants, animals, landscapes, waterways, buildings, etc. perhaps by creating illustrations/animations to go along with oral stories.
  • TLWD comprehension by understanding that plants and animals have ecological niches and that regional stories often mention the typical animals and plants from that region or personify them perhaps by planting gardens following the “directions” from interview excerpts from “Buffalo Bird-Woman’s Garden.”
  • TLWD application/synthesis by modifying a traditional or family story to reflect current political, social, migration events or changes in their cultural group or to their family or self; by modifying story to reflect environmental changes including climate change, environmental degradation, altered patterns in plant or animal world.
  • Supplemental:  TLWD understanding of the ways fashion, music, dance, art can take traditional themes/patterns/methods and update them to reflect current trends, challenges, and victories.
  • Pre-Assessment:  Brief Google Forms survey to check for prior knowledge on myths, legends, folktales, etc. as well as knowledge/pre-conceptions of Native Americans and Native American ways of life stories, etc.

 

Entry Questions

Google Question Discussion—What place do you consider home?  Where do you go to feel a sense of belonging?  What makes this place so special and unique to you?  Does your family ever tell stories about this place?  How can stories connect us to places and people that are important to us?

Part I, Padlet Discussion—How can a person or cultural group’s home or sense of home change over time?  What “current events” can affect a person’s home or sense of home?  (Discussion may include agents such as  war, environmental changes, and the migrations that may occur as a result, etc.)

Part II, Padlet—View (perhaps on successive periods) GoogleEarth timelapse videos showing changes to landscapes in China, Bolivia, Antarctica due to development, deforestation, and climate change. Add to Padlet how these types of events could affect a person’s sense of home and the stories they tell. https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/googles-3d-time-lapse-earth-climate-change/

Part III, Padlet—View video on various “push” and “pull” factors may cause people to migrate.
Add to Padlet how these types of events could affect a person’s sense of home and the stories they tell. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfSD9_t61g8

Part IV, Padlet—Reference homework:  What did you learn in your interview with your parent or family member about how your family may have migrated from your traditional or cultural home or how your sense of home or the surrounding environment may have changed in some way?

Teacher might suggest looking at the local community in a time-lapse over last thirty years: https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse/

 

Procedures

  • Instruction by Teacher: a) Review definitions of traditional stories (e.g. creation stories/legends/tall tales/myths) and suggest seeing them as stories that originate in a specific region that have been passed down through many generations by oral tradition and that often convey morals and cultural beliefs.  b) Brief review of Plains Indians (various tribal nations) and Cherokee history on the continent and review of Cherokee and Plains Indian stories we read at the beginning of the unit.
  • Guided Practice: Give background on and read a model story (e.g. perhaps a coyote or spider story) and discuss how it shows the characteristics of a traditional story. Then discuss the various native plants/animals mentioned.  As a class, map the geographical location of the story using Google Maps and research the native range of those plants/animals.  How many different species are mentioned?  What special adaptations do these animals/plants have that make them well-suited to their specific regional environment?  What are the characters’ relationships with each other and with the various aspects of the natural world?  What role do the plants/animals play in the story?  Discuss the morals and messages of the story.

Brief review of definition of oral tradition and then read background from Living Stories of the Cherokee (Duncan):

“By focusing, as this book does, on storytellers and stories alive in oral tradition today, we learn that Cherokee storytelling is a living, vital tradition hundreds, perhaps thousands of years old, valued both within the community and by outsiders . . . Cherokee storytelling grows and changes as new tales are added and old ones are changed or forgotten.  New stories about recent events and family histories form an important part of the oral tradition along with the animal stories, creation myths, and legends.  For example, Freeman Owle tells a story about his great-great-grandfather and the Trail of Tears, and many families on the Qualla Boundary still tell stories about what happened to their ancestors during the Removal.

Cherokee storytelling, at least in its public forms, has changed from being presented mainly in the Cherokee language to being mainly in English, but it is still distinctly Cherokee.  Traditional stories and values have survived changes in language and in the outward form of the culture.  Cherokee people drive cars and live in modern houses, but the use of modern technology doesn’t necessarily mean the loss of traditional culture.  Values, stories, and ideas have a reality of their own.”

In excerpt, using Kami extension, highlight what may change in Cherokee stories.  Then highlight in a different color what stays the same.  Discuss as a class.

With small group, read background on Cherokee Removal of 1838 and list as a class the changes experienced by the Cherokee, i.e., displacement from ancestral lands, movement and adjustment to another land, hardships, suffering, death along Trail of Tears.  Discuss how these events could have changed some traditional stories or spawned new stories and why.

In small groups, read “The Removed Townhouses” from Cherokee Voices:  Early Accounts of Cherokee Life in the East (Rozema) <https://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/cher/motc/motc079.htm>.  Following the same steps for the stories at the beginning of the unit, highlight details of the landscape, names of places, water bodies, animal and plant life (if any). Also, highlight any parts that mention changes or movement. Create a Google Drawing, Slides Presentation, or other format that shows these features.

With small group, read background on Mandan Indians (and perhaps others Plains Indian nations) and list as a class the changes and hardships experienced by the Mandan:  encroachment by white settlers, smallpox epidemics, the slaughtering of the buffalo, flooding of bottomlands caused by the Garrison Dam.  Discuss how these events could have changed some traditional stories or spawned new stories and why.  (Potential source:  https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mandan-people)

In small groups, read “Retrospection,” by Frank B. Linderman
<http://scienceviews.com/indian/indianwhy22.html>

 

Retrospection

It was evening in the bad-lands, and the red sun had slipped behind the far-off hills. The sundown breeze bent the grasses in the coulees and curled tiny dust-clouds on the barren knolls. Down in a gulch a clear, cool creek dallied its way toward the Missouri, where its water, bitter as gall, would be lost in the great stream. Here, where Nature forbids man to work his will, and where the she wolf dens and kills to feed her litter, an aged Indian stood near the scattered bones of two great buffalo-bulls. Time had bleached the skulls and whitened the old warrior’s hair, but in the solitude he spoke to the bones as to a boyhood friend:

“Ho! Buffalo, the years are long since you died, and your tribe, like mine, was even then shrinking fast, but you did not know it; would not believe it; though the signs did not lie. My father and his father knew your people, and when one night you went away, we thought you did but hide and would soon come back. The snows have come and gone many times since then, and still your people stay away. The young-men say that the great herds have gone to the Sand Hills, and that my father still has meat. They have told me that the white man, in his greed, has killed – and not for meat – all the Buffalo that our people knew. They have said that the great herds that made the ground tremble as they ran were slain in a few short years by those who needed not. Can this be true, when ever since there was a world, our people killed your kind, and still left herds that grew in numbers until they often blocked the rivers when they passed? Our people killed your kind that they themselves might live, but never did they go to war against you. Tell me, do your people hide. or are the young-men speaking truth, and have your people gone with mine to Sand Hill shadows to come back no more?”

“Ho! red man – my people all have gone. The young-men tell the truth and all my tribe have gone to feed among the shadow-hills, and your father still has meat. My people suffer from his arrows and his lance, yet there the herds increase as they did here, until the white man came and made his war upon us without cause or need. I was one of the last to die, and with my brother here fled to this forbidding country that I might hide; but one day when the snow was on the world, a white murderer followed on our trail, and with his noisy weapon sent our spirits to join the great shadow-herds. Meat? No, he took no meat, but from our quivering flesh he tore away the robes that Napa gave to make us warm, and left us for the Wolves. That night they came, and quarrelling, fighting, snapping among themselves, left but our bones to greet the morning sun. These bones the Coyotes and the weaker ones did drag and scrape, and scrape again, until the last of flesh or muscle disappeared. Then the winds came and sang – and all was done.”

(Source:  http://www.apples4theteacher.com/native-american/short-stories/retrospection.html)

 

Following the same steps for the stories at the beginning of the unit, highlight details of the landscape, names of places, water bodies, animal and plant life (if any).  Also, highlight any parts that mention changes or movement. Create a Google Drawing, Slides Presentation, or other format that shows these features.

Independent Practice:  Introduce the Choice Board (see the illustration at the end of this lesson).  Students will work with a partner and progress from row to row at their own pace.  Assignments may be differentiated for varying reading levels within class.  The rows are approximately the following.

    1. Choose one of the three stories, read aloud (or listen to) with your partner, and then complete the chart, explaining how the story shows the qualities of a traditional story. Next, create a map in Google Drawing showing the landscape and other natural features (landscape, animals, plants) mentioned in the story.  Research the natural range of these creatures and where they typically live.  What makes this place unique and special?  What are the characters’ relationships with each other and with the people (if any) mentioned in the story? Resource:  http://www.native-languages.org/plains-coyote.htm
    2. Find a traditional or cultural story from your own background, if possible, one that references animals or plants or the landscape of your home country. If you wish, you can interview a parent about a story from your culture or just a traditional story told in your family. It might be connected to a holiday or festival of your culture.  You may use some questions from this site: http://www.pbs.org/circleofstories/educators/lesson3.html

You may choose to include any special words in a different language to give the reader a better sense of the people, places, actions or rituals in the story. Briefly explain or give definitions for the words and explain how they are pronounced.

OR

Share a family story about a place you have lived.  Include all the important and descriptive details such as who you were spending time with and the conversation (dialogue), food you were eating, and a detailed description of the location and what made it feel like “home.”

OR

Create a story that takes place here in your community.  Consider including places important to you here at school or other locations in town; describe them vividly as well as the feelings you have about them. If possible, try to include plants, animals, and the features of the landscape you feel most connected to. You may include buildings and other structures, objects that may be meaningful to you.

3. Bring in food, fruit, handicraft, or another plant or animal product, or a photograph referenced in the story, or just anything typical of your culture. Research and explain fully how this artifact connects to the region in which the story is set and how it connects to the land, water, vegetation, and animals of this location. For extra credit, send the teacher links to some music that may be connected to the place in your story.

Next, answer the questions below:

Who told you this story or where did you find it?
Where does this story take place?  Can you find it on a map?
Are there any plants or animals mentioned  in this story?  What characteristics do they have?
What is the setting of the story?  How are the landscape and the animals and plants important to the story?
What lessons or morals does this story teach?  What can we understand about the culture?
What sense do we have about this place and its importance in the story?  In Google Drawings, make a map of this place including photographs/clip art.

In your group, share your story, and discuss how it shows important parts of your culture, family, or self.  After you enjoy the stories, work on the “chalk talk” about some of the animals, plants, geographical features mentioned in each story in addition to what “messages” may be conveyed.  You may also discuss important buildings, parks, stores, objects that are associated with any aspect of your story.

Last Row of ChoiceBoard:  Make a Google Slides presentation or other format telling the story in your own words and adapting/revising/updating the story to reflect any changes or challenges faced by your cultural group, family, or self due to current events or perhaps victories or progress.  Your story may also reflect changes caused by climate change, environmental degradation, or species decline.  Alternatively, you might also revise your story based on “change of setting” due to movement or migration to a new place.  You may also choose to give information on the food or other item you also brought in.  As you tell the story, include the following at some point in the story:

  • A map and details about the geography of your country (mountains, plains, rivers, lakes, and/or oceans).
  • Information about where the plant grows and how it is adapted for that region.
  • Where the animal lives and how it is adapted for that region.
  • The message, the ideas of the story, and any cultural beliefs it illuminates.
  • Changes that have happened, why they have happened, and the impact on people, animals, vegetation, and the landscape.

Supplemental

Research various examples of Native American artists, musicians, and fashion designers who have taken traditional art forms and adapted them to more modern trends, perhaps by using modern technology or blended them with contemporary movements and styles.  Then, create a sketch, musical composition, or new artifact that takes a traditional art form and modernizes it in some fashion.

Alternative

Explore the storytellers in “The Tent of Many Voices” <https://lc-triballegacy.org/> to find different versions of the same story.  How are the stories different in the plot details, characters, setting/landscape details, as well as in how the storytellers tell the stories?  What could account for these differences?  What further research could we do to find out more about these differences?

Closure

Highlight and share excerpts of your story aloud or with your partner/group, emphasizing how and why you have modified it.

Assessments

Teacher will evaluate the learner’s accomplishments on each row of the Choice Board (see below) with attention to the meeting of the lesson’s objectives. Teacher will also evaluate the oral presentation about the story for meeting lesson objectives and meeting standards.

Extensions

Learners can be asked to research more about what changes may be taking place within cultural groups, whether due to current events or changes to the environment in the region.  Have learner consider: How might your story continue changing and evolving into the future?

 

Choice Board

Directions:  Starting with the top row, choose an option that appeals to you.  The left hand side has detailed directions.  Make sure you complete all parts of the box before moving on to the row below.