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Final Report

Project Description: Participants We originally started with two classes of grade 8 students. The goal was to indigenize their grade 8 english/humanities curriculum.  Many of the topics we aimed to cover in english curriculum overlapped with the grade 8 social studies curriculum, therefore we included both.  Our project included Kathleen, the Aboriginal Education teacher, Kelly, the classroom teacher, and MANY community members, elders and knowledge keepers.  Due to unforeseen circumstances, one of the divisions was dropped from the grant project, so in actuality, our project included one division (approximately 28 students) of grade 8s. Goals There were many goals to our project, but the overlaying goal was to have students engage with the 94 calls to action, write a slam poem in response to a call to action, and create a video to go along with their poem.  On a larger scale, we aimed to indigenize the grade 8 english curriculum, teaching students about the importance of Aborigi
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Memoir Trailers

Students used the ipads to make movie trailers for their memoirs. Below is an example!
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Where are we at?

We are nearing the final push of our project! Students have started looking at slam poetry and are starting to think about their final project.  Kelly and I have been busy planning our final evening showcase.  We have many things to take into consideration, and one of the most important is figuring out the technology.  As we are both new to using iPads in this capacity, we need to troubleshoot getting all the students videos on one iPad and hooking it up to our system in our theatre. We have decided the evening will be by donation, with all donations going toward a set of drums for the school.  In addition to entering by donation, students will have the opportunity to pick one piece of their Coast Salish inspired art which we will print on photo paper for parents to purchase and frame.  Other things we are deciding on is having a concession of Bannock for sale.  Because this is the first time doing this project, we do not want to pack our evening so full that we take away from the
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Thinking about our Final Report

In regards to reflecting on where we are at with our final report, Kelly and I have decided to put together a blog post and resource share out of our project. Our goal, is to organize all the resources we used and put them together in one folder that we can then share out on google.  We have been spending lots of time reflecting about our project. As this is the first time we have done this, we have learned lots and have several things we would do differently next year! Our goal, in creating this document, is that others can use it to recreate something similar to our project.  One issue we seem to be running into is that we made the project scope very large originally, a whole year of indigenizing the curriculum! So we are having troubles focusing the resources to our slam poetry! In other words, despite the fact that we did an origin stories unit, it isn't necessary to do in order to succeed with slam poetry. So we are trying to find a way we can separate the units and make the b
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Origin Stories

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The artifact we wish to share comes from our Origin Stories unit. We chose to do an origin stories unit as a spin off of the Memoirs unit other grade 8 classes at our school run.  We have been doing lots of work with students about the importance of where they come from and their ancestry.  As part of the lead up into our slam poetry, we felt it was important for students to first understand where they come from. Beginning this unit, students read one of our local origin stories (Saanich Flood Story) as well as several memoirs of Indigenous peoples from the book Island Kids by Tara Saracuse.  Students then worked on elements of story with the end goal of writing their own Origin Story. Students began by answering 8 of the Questions for a Memoirist document. We created an origin stories planning sheet where students could reflect on their origin story.  Here is a students example . As well, students were provided a origin story plot diagram  for their planning.  On the Or
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Assessment

Kelly and I sat down to talk about the way in which we would assess the final project, or slam poem.  While discussing, we had a great discussion about what it was we wanted students to get out of participating in our project. We realized quickly we would need three separate rubrics; one for the poem itself, one for the presentation , and one for the video component. When discussing the poem itself, we discussed that we wanted students to be assessed on how well they convey their Call to Action in their poem.  We created a hand out that will hopefully help scaffold the students through the process of writing a slam poem.  We included words we wanted the students to use, poetic devices, their personal connection to the call to action as well as how the call aids in reconciliation.  Students will be asked to add a personal connection to the call to action they focus on. The presentation rubric will involve tone, clarity, volume, eye contact, etc.  We decided that the students will no
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Drumming

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Over the past two weeks we have had two knowledge keepers into our classes to teach about the importance of the drum and drumming in indigenous culture.  Last week we welcomed Brother Rick Peter of Cowichan Nation to our school to teach about the importance of the drum.  Brother Rick is also part of our Elder in Residence program at two schools in our school district. Much of what he taught was about the respect for the drum. His teachings included the knowledge that at one point, everything the drum is made of, was living.  He teaches this to help students understand the respect needed for the drum. With Brother Rick, the students participated in singing the Hych'ka song as well as Happy Birthday. Next, we welcomed Alana Johnson, Haida Nation, to come participate in drumming in our classes.  We thought it was best to give students two different styles and different learning opportunities for drumming as they will be using drumming in their final project. Alana worked with our st
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