Learning Target #1- Students will analyze and discuss different structures of literature that provided a voice for Native Americans in the history of America.
Learning Target #2- Students will effectively cite textual evidence from historical American documents to support their claims about the purpose and intent of the document.
Learning Target #3- Students will determine how these documents provide relevancy in today's society.
Text 1- Resolution 331
http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/hconres331.pdf
Some classes recorded the answers in their journals and some submitted them through Googledocs.
1. What is the purpose of this document?
(Cite textual evidence to support your answer.)
2. What does the U.S. government say it will do for Indians?
(Cite textual evidence to support your answer.)
3. Is the U.S. government doing what it says it will do in this document? Explain.
Discussion of Academic Vocabulary- Parallelism
- the repetition of similar words, phrases, sentences, or grammatical structure
- shows that ideas are related or equally important
- helps to stress a phrase or idea
Text 2- "Educating Sons" (a speech by Chief Canasatego in 1744)
A student volunteer read the speech. We discussed each question as a class.
1. What is the main idea (message) of this speech?
2. In what way does he use parallelism for emphasis in his speech? Give examples.
Text 3- The First Americans (A letter from the Ground Council Fire of American Indians to the mayor of Chicago in 1927)
After discussing the background of the letter, students were given two minutes to skim and identify at least three claims that the author makes in regard to content that needs changed in the textbook.
Discussion- Structure (academic vocabulary)
Identify the structure of each of the documents: legal document, speech, letter
What does the structure tell us about the speaker?
Group Writing Task- (Narrative)
I reviewed the Code of Indian Offenses and students were provided with a copy for reference.
Students could choose if they wanted to be a judge, a Native committing a crime, or a witness to the crime. Based on the perspective they chose, they were asked to write a minimum 10 sentence fictional narrative describing the court day. They were asked to use dialogue in their narrative. They could complete this task as a group or as an individual.
native_american_speeches.docx |
native_american_code_of_indian_offenses.docx |