Reflections
I love Adair-Hauck and Donato (2002) Story-Based Approach to meaning! I believe this could be a key to learning in Kotlik. As elders share traditional stories in the classroom, teachers can meet the desire of the village to pass on the elder’s wisdom as they reinforce cultural values while meeting the expectations of the state’s standards. Students can expand their ability to communicate in Standard English through the use of culturally rich stories from the community told in Village English. This concept flows easily into Ellis’ (2009) idea of teaching through “interaction.” As students listened to elder stories they were more engaged as they connect with elders.
Some of my students had a hard time working with a peer. They needed a lot of teacher prompting to get started. Students need more practice interacting and working toward a goal with a peer. For next year, I will front load this activity with more pair sharing and peer projects.
I already knew that the kids needed to write about something they were familiar with so I often had them write about cultural experiences or activities. Over time, I discovered two powerful elements that were the keys to motivating my students to write: art and elder stories. I began experimenting with student created books.
One of the keys to open this stubborn door to writing that I stumbled upon was developing cultural elder’s stories through art. Throughout my days teaching, elders stopped by my classroom and I would ask them if they wanted to speak to the students. Students were engrossed in the stories that seemed to circle around the subsistence lifestyle and supernatural events.
I first discovered the link to art when I focused on story elements one week with my students. After I presented a mini lesson on a story element each day, students watched a video recorded elder story. They identified and painted the story element of the day they found in the elder story. We proceeded through setting, characters, and plot one day at a time until the whole story was painted. Then it was time for students to write the story. Some students still hesitated, thinking they could not write, but I had them tell me what was happening in their painting and then I told them to write it. I was amazed that everyone was writing, and with more detail then usual. We put the pages together and the class preserved the story behind one of my student's first dance songs.
My students created other books about cultural activities and documented their experience in a state declared disaster when the village flooded one year. All beginning with stories they connected with and art they crafted before any writing began.
Through my master's program, I continued to sharpen my teaching awareness in regards to my students’ writing. I discovered why my students had a difficult time using past tense. VE follows very specific rules just like SAE. There is no –ed or irregular past tense in VE, so it was not natural for my students to use these forms of past tense in SAE. In VE, past tense verbs look the same as present tense verbs in SAE, and they are understood to have happened in the past by context. The same can be said for future tense.
By incorporating elder stories into our writing process, I applied what I learned from experience along with the research my Masters program exposed me too.
Some of my students had a hard time working with a peer. They needed a lot of teacher prompting to get started. Students need more practice interacting and working toward a goal with a peer. For next year, I will front load this activity with more pair sharing and peer projects.
I already knew that the kids needed to write about something they were familiar with so I often had them write about cultural experiences or activities. Over time, I discovered two powerful elements that were the keys to motivating my students to write: art and elder stories. I began experimenting with student created books.
One of the keys to open this stubborn door to writing that I stumbled upon was developing cultural elder’s stories through art. Throughout my days teaching, elders stopped by my classroom and I would ask them if they wanted to speak to the students. Students were engrossed in the stories that seemed to circle around the subsistence lifestyle and supernatural events.
I first discovered the link to art when I focused on story elements one week with my students. After I presented a mini lesson on a story element each day, students watched a video recorded elder story. They identified and painted the story element of the day they found in the elder story. We proceeded through setting, characters, and plot one day at a time until the whole story was painted. Then it was time for students to write the story. Some students still hesitated, thinking they could not write, but I had them tell me what was happening in their painting and then I told them to write it. I was amazed that everyone was writing, and with more detail then usual. We put the pages together and the class preserved the story behind one of my student's first dance songs.
My students created other books about cultural activities and documented their experience in a state declared disaster when the village flooded one year. All beginning with stories they connected with and art they crafted before any writing began.
Through my master's program, I continued to sharpen my teaching awareness in regards to my students’ writing. I discovered why my students had a difficult time using past tense. VE follows very specific rules just like SAE. There is no –ed or irregular past tense in VE, so it was not natural for my students to use these forms of past tense in SAE. In VE, past tense verbs look the same as present tense verbs in SAE, and they are understood to have happened in the past by context. The same can be said for future tense.
By incorporating elder stories into our writing process, I applied what I learned from experience along with the research my Masters program exposed me too.