Indigenous Education Through StoriesBy Christine Sherk

I am currently a grade 4 teacher at J.A. Laird Elementary in Invermere, BC. Over the last few years I have been looking for ways to co-present English Language Arts and Social Studies. I have discovered a number of well-written novels and short stories that present information about Indigenous peoples in the form of an engaging story. These texts have allowed me to cover the following Grade 4 Social Studies outcomes:

• Apply critical thinking skills• Gather information from a variety of sources (stories)• Distinguish characteristics of various Aboriginal cultures in BC• Identify effects of early contact between Aboriginal societies and European

settlers• Identify the impact of Canadian governance on Aboriginal peoples’ rights• Describe technologies used by Aboriginal people in BC• Describe Aboriginal peoples’ relationships with the land and natural

resources.

Every year I use a different selection of stories. I have used the following texts:

• Secret of the Dance by Andrea Spalding and Alfred Scow

• Donna Meets Coyote by Don Sawyer• Nokum is My Teacher by David Bouchard• The Elders Are Watching by David Bouchard and Roy

Henry Vickers• Pathki Nana by Kenneth Thomasma• A True Story: Fatty Legs by Christy Jordan-Fenton and

Margaret Pokiak-Fenton

Secret of the Dance by Andrea Spalding and Alfred Scow

I used this book as an introduction to the Pacific Coastal First Nations. I did not tell them the name of the Indigenous group in the beginning. Initially I

involved the students in a number of tasks that

demonstrated aspects of this culture and

eventually some of the students were able to name the First nations

group using their background knowledge of

the different cultures in BC.

Secret of the DanceHere are some examples of tasks the students were involved

in:• We studied the illustrations on the front and back cover.

(What do we notice about the people? Who do you think they are? What are you wondering about this cultural group?) The students then wrote questions they had about this cultural group.

• I gave them a list of words that corresponded to different aspects of the Pacific Coastal First Nations culture and aspects of some of the other cultures we had studied. They predicted which ones they felt went with this culture. We then watch a video clip that showed different aspects of the Pacific Coastal First Nations culture and checked our predictions. The students then wrote a prediction about the culture and the story (they needed to justify their prediction using the information we had collected).

Student Tasks• I distributed key phrases from the story to the students, and their job was to walk around the

room sharing their phrase with others and discussing how the phrases connected to the story and culture. Once they returned to their desk they needed to write powerful questions about the culture and story. From there, the students shared their questions and wrote another prediction about the culture.

• I read the story The First Beaver by Caroll Simpson and we looked at the pictures and the text to pullout different aspects of the Haida culture.

• After we had read the story, our school’s Aboriginal Education Worker came into our class and each student made their own button blanket.

• Each student also completed a written task in which they wrote in role as the main character, expressing what they had discovered about their culture and traditions, and how they felt about their family defying the government.

A True Story: Fatty Legs by Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton

I used this book as a novel study. The story is about a young Inuit girl who

wants to go to school to learn how to read. The story takes place in the mid-1940s when many of the First Nation

children were taken to residential schools. The young girl convinces her

parents to allow her to go to the residential school. The story examines how the students were treated and is a story of survival. I liked this book for

it is a good representation of the treatment these children endured and

is written at a grade 4-5 reading/understanding level.

Fatty Legs

My students had some background knowledge on residential schools, so I began by using a predicting strategy. They were given 3 clues and after each clue they created an image, with some writing and then after all 3 they were to write a prediction, with justification.

The clues were: 1. Inuit girl and nuns 2. School 3. The title and front cover of the book. Here are three examples: