Lesson Overview
Finding Folklore is a technology focused music lesson. The goal is to connect students with their local community by conducting an interview. The interviews will be digital recordings of audio, or written accounts. These documents will then be posted on-line to be shared with the world. It is an intense project where the students will pick their interviewees, collect the interviews, document them accordingly, and then preserve them on-line. The project will be concluded with student reflections and (hopefully) a chance to share the recordings with the local community.
This lesson correlates with an interactive iBook (see PDF version below) for the students to learn about the Yup’ik, and their efforts to preserve their language and culture through radio, video, and audio. This will help students obtain an understanding of the value of oral history while providing them an example of that process. This iBook also outlines the possible projects the students will partake.
Curriculum Standards
I feel my lesson best fits the Cultural Curriculum Standard C, focusing on number 6:
“Makes appropriate use of modern tools and technology to help document and transmit traditional cultural knowledge.”
I feel this way because I am inviting students to use technology to collect local oral history and then share it on-line. This creates a new strain of place based history, while also teaching students communication skills, recording and note taking skills, and technology skills to share their creations on-line.
Lesson Materials and Supplementary Documents
The Lesson Plan
This is the primary material for the process of teaching this lesson. It contains an overview of rubrics, expectations, lesson pacing, and more. Enjoy!
Israelsen – Finding Folklore Lesson Plan
Finding Folklore iBook as a PDF
Worksheets
These are early drafts of documents for the students to interact with to generate interviewees, questions, and more. These will help guide the students through the long term project and provide adequate ways to grade and monitor student involvement and understanding.
Links to Material in the iBook
The iBook utilizes a series of on-line resources to help students learn – for those that can’t use iBooks, these links proved the information linked in the lesson so that it can be taught effectively. The PDF of the iBook (see above) roughly shows how these materials are presented!
Our Yup’ik Language on YouTube by the LKSD Media Film Group.
John Active tells a Scary Story on YouTube from the Alaska Dispatch News.
Mike’s Mouse and Gram Story on Soundcloud from the Iguigig School District.
Evelyn’s Pronunciation of Mike’s Mouse and Gram Story on Soundcloud from the Iguigig School District.
This is perfect. Sending loves and hugs.