Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Cultural Appropriation

Madison Demers
Fall 2020

Component One: Organizational Information

Teacher Madison Demers
Grade 5/6
Name(s) TA: Allison Coulling
Level(s)
Unit(s) /
Subject
ELA, Social Topic(s) /
Area(s)
Strand (s)
Start/Stop Position
Times + of Lesson
Each lesson 30 minutes – 1 hour
Lesson within
Duration Sequence:
Overarching
1. What is the importance of Indigenous ways of knowing and how can we be
Question(s)
respectful when interacting with different culture from our own?

Component Two: Description and Rationale

Students will be exploring ideas about Indigenous ways of knowing and oral history. There will
be two lessons, one on Indigenous Story Telling then one on Appropriation and interacting with
Description:
Indigenous material. It is important to teach anti-racism learning in the classroom.

Emphasizing respect during this lesson, especially when listening to elder knowledge.

Students will be working hard to encourage growth in their own learning about indigenous ways
Rationale:
of knowing. This awareness will help with anti-racism teaching.

Component Three: Learner Outcomes

Students will listen, speak, read, write, view and represent to explore thoughts,
ideas, feelings and experiences. (ELA)

COMMUNICATION (social studies)

General
Learner Students will:
Outcomes(s)
(GLOs)
(or equivalent) 5.S.8 demonstrate skills of oral, written and visual literacy:

Specific (5) use own experiences as a basis for exploring and expressing opinions and understanding
Learner
(ELA)
Outcome(s)
(SLOs)
(or equivalent) (6) read, write, represent and talk to explore and explain connections between prior knowledge
and new information in oral, print and other media texts (ELA)

(5&6) respond appropriately to comments and questions, using language respectful of human

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 Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Cultural Appropriation
Madison Demers
Fall 2020

diversity (social studies)

(5&6) listen to others to understand their perspectives (social studies)

Component Four: Learning Objective(s) and Assessment Evidence

Learning
Students will express personal opinions and feelings relating to material presented to them.
Objective(s)
Students will develop skills relating to respect of different cultures.

Intended
Learning Objective Driving Question(s) Response(s)

Students feelings to new material

Students will express personal
opinions and feelings relating to
material presented to them.
Students will develop skills
relating to respect of different
cultures.
might make them feel scared or
How does this new information
confused which is okay, especially
make you feel?
when they are learning about
something different from them.
Students should express
Why is it important that we
understanding and value to new
understand cultural differences and
information presented to them that
the values of Indigenous cultures?
will help them be more respectful.

Component Five: Pre-Lesson Preparations

Curriculum Resources Materials and Equipment
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1mgNbFqpv- -social books
3TLSjCxX4Ilnv9NMHKqWLZY9Q7Ccp-jJNs/edit? -Indigenous story
usp=sharing -technology (of fails, I am able to teach without the
(presentation on Indigenous Ways of Knowing and powerpoint)
Cultural Appropriation)

Teacher Tasks
-creating presentation
-obtaining Indigenous story telling book

Component Six: Body (introduction, activities, closure)

Introduction Time

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 Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Cultural Appropriation
Madison Demers
Fall 2020
Allotment
Attention “Do your parents share stories with you? Do they have lessons.”
Grabber  Oral history is seen all over our world in many different cultures, more so
than others. However, storytelling is seen across cultures and used a lot 5 minutes
with parents to teach lessons to their children. Some students may have
some anecdotes or stories of what their parents have told them.
Description It is important we start the discussion about Oral Story Telling and History. Many
and students disregard Indigenous Oral History when they get to high school when it
Rationale is one of the most important pieces of history that we will get. It is accurate and
tells truth, instead of a colonizer point of view.
Time
Activities Allotment
Indigenous Going over the first few slides of Indigenous Ways of Knowing.
Ways of Slide 2: Land Acknowledgement and its purpose, why it is important we
Knowing acknowledge the land we are on. We are acknowledging truth of lost land.
Students will  We are acknowledging truth and it is a part of reconciling past trauma
express and past things that were done wrong.
personal Slide 3: What is oral history? Describing the crucial aspects of oral history and
opinions and how it has helped us
feelings Slide 4: Oral history continued, the story of the Franklin Expedition
relating to Slide 5: Indigenous ways of Knowing – Read an Indigenous story and make
material connections to the values of the Blackfoot
presented to  Describing where I got my information from, Don Shade and the transfer
them. of knowledge, ask: Why do you think
30 minutes
Slide 6: Why do you think this is important? Why should we listen to elders? Our
to 1 hour
elders?

After each lesson, I want students to reflect on what they have learned and what
resonates with them.

Written response:
What did I learn and why is it important?
What did I find interesting and why? (make sure to give reason)

Brain breaks: Yoga break and breathing (helping find an inner peace and
calmness)

Transition Does anyone want to share what they are feeling right now? How can you help
support the Indigenous people and their ways of knowing in your education?
Cultural Cultural appropriation? 30 minutes
Appropriation “Do any of you know what cultural appropriation is? If you do how would you to 1 hour
Students will describe it?”
develop skills  Students might now that it is wrong or disrespectful
relating to  Especially those on Tik Tok, have you seen any awesome Tik Tok
respect of Indigenous people using their traditional regalia to dance?
different
cultures. Slide 7: Cultural appropriation definition and examples – expect many questions
for this as some students may have or have wanted to dress up as Pocahontas.
Some might not understand why it is disrespectful, to curtail these beliefs we will
talk about respect.
 Would you want someone to purposefully hurt your feeling because they
think it’s fun? That is what cultural appropriation is.
Slide 8: Other forms of cultural appropriation can be seen in sports teams which
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 Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Cultural Appropriation
Madison Demers
Fall 2020
will resonate with many students in the class:
 Pictured: Cleveland Indians, Baltimore Bullets, Chicago Black Hawks,
Edmonton Eskimos, and others. There are many examples of this in
sports.
Slide 9: To continue the conversation students will take notes on what a
stereotype is, and identify it in a picture, they will also have to create their own
definition of a stereotype.
 Grade 5/6 are old enough to understand this concept as it is something,
they might perform themselves and might engage them in critical
thinking and self-reflection. Remind them it is growth.
Slide 10: outdated terminology, good to use Indigenous and official group
names.
Transition Yoga break between reflection information, just to get their body grounded to
work for 30 more minutes.
Reflection If extra time we will to a written reflection about their feelings of new
information. It is important that they learn more about themselves or if they feel
that they have reflected a lot.

“How do you feel about this new information?

Did you learn something new? Reflect on your feelings!”
Time
What your reflection should include: continued
 Your thoughts and feelings on Indigenous ways of knowing
 Something new you learned about Indigenous ways of Knowing
 Something new you learned about cultural appropriation
 How would you talk to some about what they are doing that may be
offensive? What evidence would you use?

Transition “Does anyone want to share their thoughts on the important of IWK and cultural
appropriation and how would want to address it or talk about it with others? How
could you use the information you have learned in the last few days to address
this?”
Closure/Cliffhanger Time
Allotment
Assessment In their reflection, are they describing the importance of IWK or their feelings
of Learning: about new material?
Are they understanding and analyzing the importance of why we need to address
cultural appropriation?

“Please hand in your reflection today or tomorrow so I can take a look at them,
take extra tome to finish them if you need. Thank you, meegwech!

Component Seven: Teacher Reflection

What worked
well? Why?

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Madison Demers
Fall 2020

What didn’t?
Why not?

What would
you do
differently
next time to
further
promote
optimum
learning for all
students?