Best Piece of Academic Work

The Art of Storytelling

My particular 5th grade classroom at Hawthorne Elementary doesn't teach social studies.  The two 5th grade teachers have agreed to a schedule where one teaches social studies and the other teaches science.  My cooperating teacher leads the science lessons. The students travel between the two classrooms on an alternating schedule.  This means that in any given week, the 5th graders will receive two or three lessons in science and two or three lessons in social studies.

This set-up works well for the teachers involved, and they intend to switch subjects each year to ensure that both teachers can gain experience in each area of curriculum.  However, this arrangement naturally lends itself to Indian Education being incorporated more often in the other classroom, and less frequently in my class.

This structure fueled my desire to incorporate more Indian Education in other subject areas.  In beginning my research, I knew that I wanted to embed the lesson into the units we were already studying, as opposed to artificially creating a lesson that was simply an add-on.  I decided to incorporate the lesson into our English Language Arts curriculum.  The students were currently completing a unit on important artists and inventors, and would soon be starting a unit on adaptability.  This seemed like a perfect fit.

The next challenge became trying to find or create an appropriate lesson.  I knew that I needed to carefully and respectfully address any Native population that I incorporated into my lesson.  Although I had successfully completed an upper level course in integrating Indian Education for All (IEFA), I still felt inadequately prepared to create a lesson in this area.  I felt that I simply did not have the knowledge to present a meaningful and respectful lesson.  However, I knew I had the resources to find one.

This led me to contact Julie Saylor at OPI.  She provided me with several different resources.  This, in turn, led me to contact the Montana Historical Society about a lesson they had created regarding ledger art.  Debra Mitchell graciously sent me a packet that included everything I would need to present an accurate and engaging lesson on the Plains Indians perspective on ledger art (PowerPoint and all resources can be found by clicking on the link).

The lesson began with a PowerPoint presentation designed to engage the students and activate background knowledge regarding pictographs and petroglyphs.  The PowerPoint discussed traditional ways in which Native Americans created storytelling pictures, as well as how they adapted to using more modern materials as Euro-Americans settled in the west (leading to what was termed 'ledger art').  Guided questions were used to encourage student interaction and feedback.

After the PowerPoint presentation, I extended the lesson to allow the students to create their own ledger art. Students were encouraged to draw a rough draft of an important event from their own lives.  The event was to be one that the student wanted to share with the class.  After creating a rough draft, students were provided with a piece of accounting (ledger) paper and drawing materials.  Students were provided with the option of simply drawing their ledger art, or using magazines to find pictures that could be used to symbolically represent important details in their 'story.'

Students were actively engaged in this lesson, and willingly created meaning pieces of ledger art.  Incorporating the art experience allowed for the creation of an interdisciplinary lesson, allowed the students to have a hands-on activity, and allowed for a creative summative assessment.

All in all, this lesson was a success, and one that I plan on using in the future.