The lesson I wrote for the iBook is on identifying components of familiar stories/legends and comparing those with Alaska Native stories from the Southcentral region. The culminating project of the lesson is for students to write their own story incorporating character traits and values from two different cultures.
To view the lesson plan for the story, click here.
In the blog post accompanying your lesson/unit plan, please describe the cultural standard you believe is most clearly linked to your plan and explain how your plan embodies the spirit of that cultural standard.
The cultural standards truly represented in the lesson plan is D1:
The student draws parallels between knowledge derived from oral tradition and that derived from books.
In the lesson students will be comparing oral stories and written stories. The oral stories come from the Alaska Native perspective, and the written stories are western or other stories that students are already familiar with. By dissecting the stories into their character traits and story values, the students can derive the knowledge from said stories.
Shaun, I really like that you use students current background knowledge and build off it in the lesson. It’s great that you have an option for both reading and listening to a story. I could see this unit really being enhanced if you had the opportunity to invite an Elder in to tell a story in person too. I like the chart breakdowns of characters / traits, but wonder if it could somehow be enhanced to be more visual. My host teacher has these awesome graphic organizers that she drew and she encouraged students not to just write things like parts of speech, characters, theme, etc. but she also had them draw pictures. Some of the graphic organizers are like in the shape of a tree to list characters on the branches and theme on the trunk, and literary elements on the roots. Anyway, great lesson!
Hey Shaun, this is a cool way to get students to consider the values and messages of the stories they grew up with and to broaden their storytelling perspective. I like Electra’s idea of inviting an Elder in to share a story, if possible. This lesson would be well-suited for that.
This sounds like a really cool way to build a connection between European and Alaskan “fairy tales”. Finding some values that are evident in both cultures’ stories could also lead into a deep discussion about universal truths.
I like the idea of exploring stories from different regions and cultures. It could be a lot of fun in seeing the patterns that emerge and bringing in notions of the collective unconscious of Joseph Campbell and the archetypal figures that exist all over the world. Or the lack of these connections. Good times…
Thanks for role-modeling a lesson plan that is easy to follow. I totally saturated mine with words so I’m happy to learn from how you used clear and simple tables.