Julie+Geib


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Points of View - //Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee//**

This is a 3-week unit that is intended for any grade-level in high school or an advanced 8th grade class. In my ideal setting, this unit would be implemented in a team-teaching environment; an 8th grade advanced Language Arts class would coincide with a similar unit in the team's Social Studies class. While the Social Studies instructor covers the concepts of Colonial Settlement and Westward Expansion, the context is the perfect platform on which to present my literary unit featuring Dee Brown's text: //Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee//. While the history textbook speaks primarily from the Anglo perspective, Brown's text is a collection of writings and accounts from the point of view of the Native American community. The students will record their reactions to the text in a daily journal, and will complete a timeline in the format of their choosing at the end of the unit. Their assignments will require them to examine historical events and literary qualities from different perspectives and ask them to consider how the writers of history have the power to influence its perception.

The first day of this unit will be spent surveying students’ knowledge of Native American civilization and history. Students will be asked to write about what they know or think they know regarding this topic, followed by work on a KWL chart detailing what they know and want to know about it. At the end of the unit they will be able to complete the last section by telling me what they learned. After brainstorming as a class to establish a common frame of reference, I will introduce Brown’s text and assign readings. During this unit, students will be keeping a journal to record their reaction to the readings and any questions that they might have. As this text is saturated with dates and events, students will maintain a timeline chart to manage the information.

This unit corresponds with the message of a text used in my classroom called //Writing Our Communities//. Key themes in this text are seen throughout my unit plan, such as putting skills in context (also an integral part of Best Practice) and making information relevant to the students by relating it to their communities. I will be drawing on this book for examples of comparing historical accounts of events.

Brown’s text is a collection of narratives, recorded history and personal accounts that expose students to multiple forms of writing in a historical context. This unit is expected to be a very effective way to teach writing in these formats, and will also serve as a meaningful connection to the unit on the colonization of the greater United States that the students are starting in their Social Studies class. I have been collaborating with their Social Studies teacher and we have agreed that our units would align in an ideal manner that would enhance content retention and the overall educational experience. Studying //Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee// will lend students an alternative perspective on “settlement” of the United States, especially in the western regions of the country. Students will gain skills in critical analysis of information through comparison of historical accounts from the Anglo and the Native American perspectives. Providing the students with the benefit of both perspectives will encourage them to be more inquisitive of commonly agreed upon “history” and motivate them to conduct investigations as Dee Brown decided to do.

ALTERNATE INSTRUCTIONS: In the event that you as an English instructor are lucky enough to have your unit correspond with your team's Social Studies unit, this is what the time frame would look like:

Students will be working with this text for approximately 45 days before our unit aligns with the Social Studies class. From that point, this writing project will begin and continue for 15 days. Week One entails KWL charts, idea maps, and introductions to the timeline and journal system. Week Two will involve critical discussion when students compare the telling of events described in their history textbooks to the same events described in Brown’s text while maintaining journals and timelines. During this week students will also be asked to compose a poem or short narrative from the perspective of a Native American tribe or a specific figure noted in the text. At the end of Week Two students will be randomly assigned to collect information in defense of the Native Americans or American settlers. Week Three will see students putting that information into editorial-style letters addressed to members of the United States government to try and persuade them to either cease or continue current actions. The week will culminate with students debating these two sides and following with writing a reaction paper to be published or a presentation to be performed.

//Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee//: An Investigation
 * Assignment**:

This unit is designed to be used in the context of an 8th Grade Honors English classroom, but could be easily applied to any traditional or advanced-level English class in grades 9-12. The unit is accessible by most kinds of students, but may be especially difficult for English Language Learners.
 * Grade Level:**

Brown’s text is a collection of narratives, recorded history and personal accounts that expose students to multiple forms of writing in a historical context. This unit is expected to be a very effective way to teach writing in these formats, and will also serve as a meaningful connection to the unit on the colonization of the greater United States that the students are starting in their Social Studies class. I have been collaborating with their Social Studies teacher and we have agreed that our units would align in an ideal manner that would enhance content retention and the overall educational experience. Studying //Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee// will lend students an alternative perspective on “settlement” of the United States, especially in the western regions of the country. Students will gain skills in critical analysis of information through comparison of historical accounts from the Anglo and the Native American perspectives. Providing the students with the benefit of both perspectives will encourage them to be more inquisitive of commonly agreed upon “history” and motivate them to do investigations as Dee Brown decided to do.
 * Overview**:

//-Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee// by Dee Brown //-Ceremony// by Leslie Marmon Silko //-Writing Our Communities// edited by Dave Winter, Sarah Robbins
 * Sources**:

The texts by Brown and Silko (both Native American writers) use history and personal experience to bring a new perspective to the Native American life and history here in the United States. The insight delivered by the historical facts of //Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee// and the poetic expressions lent by //Ceremony// offer the students a drastically different account of “western settlement” (read: conquest) than the literature of popular mainstream textbooks. Using Brown’s text, the students have the opportunity to see history, literature and culture through a different lens. It is the intention of this unit that the students can use this material to contemplate different historical accounts and begin to possibly form new ideas about what has happened in this country regarding the management of the Native American societies and how this information is so carefully presented and distributed.

Student Objectives: During the course of this unit, students will be able to: · Fulfill a KWL chart demonstrating the evolution of their subject knowledge · Gain exposure to different literary accounts of Native American conquest · Express opinions and inquiries through writing via journals, poems, narratives, and editorial pieces · Explore opinions of the “settlement” of the American West from the perspectives of American settlers and Native American tribes · Manage a timeline to help chronicle important events and developments, which will serve as a supplement and aide in student writing · Maintain a journal detailing personal reactions to material covered in class · Think critically about how history is presented through writing; students will compare and contrast historical fiction and nonfiction with common Social Studies textbooks · Gather facts for the purposes of a class debate between the two perspectives studied in class · Gain understanding and empathy for the different peoples affected in the era of western settlement · Compose a reaction to the project in the form of creative writing, visual art, or a performance



The following two links are the Alternate Perspectives writing assignment. Half of the class will write a letter to the editor of a local newspaper from the point of view of a **Settler** while the other half writes as a member of the **Navajo** tribe. The objective of the letter is to rally other citizens to //support// or //discourage// further Westward Expansion and settlement, and to argue //in favor// or //opposition// to the notion of **Manifest Destiny**: Reading schedule, rubric, and resources used:

Michigan ELA Content Expectations:

CE 1.1.2 CE 1.1.3 Select and use language that is appropriate (e.g., formal, informal, literary, or technical) for the purpose, audience, and context of the text, speech, or visual representation (e.g., letter to editor, proposal, poem, or digital story). CE 1.1.4 CE 1.1.5 CE 1.2.2 Write, speak, and visually represent to develop self-awareness and insight (e.g., diary, journal writing, portfolio self-assessment). CE 1.2.3 Write, speak, and create artistic representations to express personal experience and perspective (e.g., personal narrative, poetry, imaginative writing, slam poetry, blogs, webpages). CE 1.3.1 CE 1.3.7 CE 1.5.1 CE 2.1.2 Make supported inferences and draw conclusions based on informational print and multimedia features (e.g., prefaces, appendices, marginal notes, illustrations, bibliographies, author’s pages, footnotes, diagrams, tables, charts, maps, timelines, graphs, and other visual and special effects) and explain how authors and speakers use them to infer the organization of text and enhance understanding, convey meaning, and inspire or mislead audiences. CE 2.1.7 CE 2.2.3 Interpret the meaning of written, spoken, and visual texts by drawing on different cultural, theoretical, and critical perspectives. CE 2.3.4 CE 3.1.1 CE 3.1.5 CE 3.1.7 Analyze and evaluate the portrayal of various groups, societies, and cultures in literature and other texts. CE 3.1.8 Demonstrate an understanding of historical, political, cultural, and philosophical themes and questions raised by literary and expository works. CE 3.1.9 Analyze how the tensions among characters, communities, themes, and issues in literature and other texts reflect human experience. CE 3.2.5 Respond to literature in a variety of ways (e.g., dramatic interpretation, reader’s theatre, literature circles, illustration, writing in a character’s voice, engaging in social action, writing an analytic essay) providing examples of how texts affect their lives, connect them with the contemporary world, and communicate across time. CE 3.3.4 Demonstrate knowledge of American minority literature and the contributions of minority writers.
 * CE 1.1.1 **
 * CE 4.2.1 ** Understand how languages and dialects are used to communicate effectively in different roles, under different circumstances, and among speakers of different speech communities (e.g., ethnic communities, social groups, professional organizations).