Indigenous Storytelling

An ELL skill focused unit plan that revolves around the power of
Indigenous storytelling and presentation/reading skills

Unit Plan Created by: Teegan Gallinger

For PSIII: Lord Beaverbrook High School
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Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Unit Rationale……………………. 3-4

Unit Organizer……………………. 5

Month-at-a-Glance……………….. 8

Unit Assessment Plan………………….. 11

 Unit Rationale 3

Overview:
It’s important to include Indigenous content in every class but I especially wanted to make sure I had a whole unit devoted to it in my ELL
class. This unit focuses on the art of Indigenous storytelling and has students examining and comparing the different ways that stories can be
told within the Indigenous community. A key text here is the creative short film “The Mountain of Sgaana” which tells the heroic story of a
young Inuit couple. My supporting texts in this unit are children’s books (in e-book form). Both children’s books are “creation” stories and
allow for comparison. We are also going to start off the unit with a focus on Indigenous poetry that was created for the Tea and Bannock
project. The Tea and Bannock project contains poetry from members of Indigenous communities, and it centers around the theme of land
relation. Students will also have the opportunity to listen to an Indigenous storytelling Podcast from the text “This Place: 150 Years Retold”.
The final assignment in this project follows the Indigenous pedagogy of sharing knowledge and has students creating their own “book talks”,
Students will work to find an Indigenous creation story or an origin story that they will then do research on and finally present the text and
their findings through a presentation to the class.
Essential Questions:
How can I respectfully appreciate and study the artistry of Indigenous storytelling?
• What are key components to storytelling?
• How can I respectfully study Indigenous stories?
• How can I study Indigenous poetry?
• How can I share knowledge with me peers and community members?
• How can I study Indigenous films?
• How can I listen to Indigenous stories and podcasts to gather information?

Big Meta Concepts:

• Storytelling/ Stories
• Figurative Language
• Poetry
• Presentation
• Organization
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Focused Outcomes Language Arts Demonstrations of Learning
Strands Used
1.16 Writing Summative:
LP4 – Strategic Comprehension | R – Use Reading
synthesizing, summarizing, drawing Collaborative Poetry Work
conclusions, contextual cues, and word Listening
analysis to understand a variety of texts on Speaking Book Talk Presentation
unfamiliar topics.
2.20
LP4 – Socio-Linguistic | W – Produce Literature Circles
expository texts with a
developing sense of audience, genre, voice, Listening comprehension with podcast
and degree of
formality.
3.2 Formative:
Identify a wide array of text and media
genres that use expository
writing forms and identify their purposes.
Poetry Organizer
Possible linguistic
functions: inquiry/seek information, KWL Chart
classify.
Creation Stories Work
3.4
Explore a variety of oral, visual, print, and
multi-media materialand content familiar Trickster Tales Work
to Canadian readers such as texts about
famous Canadians, Canadian cultural Sgaaana organizer
events, or Canadian
inventions to broaden understanding of
Canadian cultural
referents. Possible linguistic functions:
inquiry/seek information,
summarize/inform.
4.2
Apply strategies, with increasing
independence, to interpret
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various textual representations such as art,
film, electronic,
digital, oral, etc. with increasing
independence including
knowledge of use of colour, line, symmetry
or asymmetry,
movement, camera angle, hyperlinks, or
register. Possible
linguistic functions: analyze, evaluate,
summarize/inform
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Unit Organizer/ Colour Descriptor

Opening Developmental Culmination

(Romance) (Precision) (Generalization)
Storytelling video Tea and Bannock work: Book Talk Introduction
- Poem organizer
Discussing Sharing Knowledge - Anchor charts Book talk demonstration
- Sharing knowledge
Importance Book Talk research
Podcast/ Listening Assessment

Mountain of Sgaana Book Talk presentations

Creation Stories Work

Literary Circles

Trickster Work
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Month-at-a-Glance

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

Finishing Previous Unit Finishing Previous Unit Intro/ Hook Indigenous Poetry Poem Organizer for Tea
and Bannock Poetry
Storytelling Video Introducing some bigger
- Importance of themes in Indigenous Introducing what the Tea
indigenous storytelling, talking about and Bannock project was
storytelling importance of land, circle,
Discussing what we medicine wheel, etc.
know as a class about
Indigenous storytelling Working through a poem
as a class
Introducing some bigger
themes in Indigenous Beginning to work on
storytelling, talking their “anchor chart”
about importance of poem work in their table
land, circle, medicine groups
wheel, etc.
Indigenous Poetry Sharing Collaborative Podcast/ Listening Mountain of Sgaana NO SCHOOL
Collaboration Poem Work Assessment Organizer to fill out with
- Working with plot information that will
anchor charts to Podcast/ Listening - Using an episode act as scaffolding to the
present their Assessment from the 150 years short stories.
information retold
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- Using an episode - Done as a
from the 150 years summative
retold listening
- Done as a assessment
Creation Stories Creation Stories Short Story Literary Short Story Trickster Tales
Continued Circles Literary Circles
Background Info on Using Indigenous short Sharing and collaborating Background information
creation stories Furthering work on stories to run literary in their literary circles on tricksters
analysis of creation circles where each their findings with their
Looking and studying stories student will be given a short stories. Looking at “tricksters” in
creation stories different “job” to different cultures and
perform in order to forms of media (I’d like to
study the text. This day be able to mix in some of
is meant as a work their countries)
period to prep for
sharing
Introduce Book Talk Book Talk Work Book Talk Work / Book Talk Work/ Begin Presentations
Practice Presentations
Demonstrate my own Computer Lab: working
Book talk to find their stories that Mini-Lesson: the art of Begin Presentations Finish presentations
they’ll share telling stories
Introduce assignment - Go over pacing,
and expectations I’d like to be able to emphasis and
approve their stories annunciation
that they’re using Continue work on Book
Talk
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Stage 2: Assessments
Tea and Trickst Book Talk/
Listening Mountain Creation
Bannock Literary er Book Talk Book Talk Presentatio
Title Assessme of Sgaana Stories
Poetry circles Work Research Practice n
Learning nt work Work
Work
Outcomes Type Summativ Summati Formativ
Summa
(Formative/Summati Summative Formative tive Formative Formative Summative
e ve e
ve) / Formative
10%
Weighting 5% 10% N/A 20% N/A N/A
50%
1.16 X
LP4 – Strategic
Comprehension | R – Use
synthesizing, X
summarizing, drawing X X X X X X X
conclusions, contextual
cues, and word analysis to
understand a variety of
texts on unfamiliar topics.

2.20
LP4 – Socio-Linguistic |
W – Produce expository X
texts with a X X X X
developing sense of X
audience, genre, voice,
and degree of
formality.
3.2
Identify a wide array of
text and media genres that X
use expository
writing forms and identify X X X X X X
their purposes. Possible
linguistic
functions: inquiry/seek
information, classify.
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3.4 X X
Explore a variety of oral,
visual, print, and multi-
media materialand content
familiar to Canadian
readers such as texts about
famous Canadians,
Canadian cultural events, X X X X X X X
or Canadian inventions to
broaden understanding of
Canadian cultural
referents. Possible
linguistic functions:
inquiry/seek information,
summarize/inform.

4.2 X
Apply strategies, with
increasing independence, X
to interpret various textual
representations such as art,
film, electronic, digital,
oral, etc. with increasing
independence including
knowledge of use of X X X X X X X
colour, line, symmetry or
asymmetry, movement,
camera angle, hyperlinks,
or register. Possible
linguistic functions:
analyze, evaluate,
summarize/inform
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3.14 X
Use figurative language such
as simile, metaphor,
personification, allusion,
idioms, and symbolism in X X X X X
expository text for effect,
where appropriate. Possible
linguistic functions:
describe, evaluate, justify
Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating and Creating
Triangulation
Assessme Brief Description (Conversation/
Cognitive
Engagement
nt Title Observation/
Product) (Taxonomy)
When looking for poetry to work with I came across the Tea and
Bannock project which was done by staff and students at Simon
Fraser University in B.C. The project takes multiple pieces of
poetry from community members and put them together in a
Tea and
document. I loved the idea of getting to use lesser-known Understand
Bannock Conversation/
Indigenous pieces of poetry for students to study and the poems Product
ing/
Poetry Applying
had the added bonus of being short. Students will work in their
Work
groups and each group will have the same poem. Students will
work individually to fill out a poem organizer and then they’ll
collaborate to fill out an anchor chart with their information
which they’ll then share with the class.
There’s a multitude of stories and podcasts that we can look at to
Listening use for listening assessment for ELL students. This will be done
Evaluating/
Assessme as a test format meaning that students will not be able to share Observation
Applying
nt their answers with each other. Students will listen to the podcast
and work to come up with answers to comprehension questions
Up to this point we haven’t dug too much into the actually story
Mountain analysis of things, but I think the Mountain of Sgaana is a good
Analyzing/
of Sgaana point for us to start off with that task. We’ll watch the short film Observation
Applying
Work and use it to understand plot and structure as well as to write
about for writing assessment.
I’ve really wanted to have an opportunity to try out literary
circles and this unit is a great time to do it. We’re dealing with
Literary shorter texts so students don’t have a ton of text to analyze but Applying/
Conversation
Circles they can still share knowledge with each other. Each student will Evaluating
get a different role and then they’ll read a text through that lens
followed by time to share findings with their group.
Creation stories are a key part of Indigenous storytelling and also
a good place to bring in short stories/ reading assessments. We’ll
Creation Product/ Analysing/
have some background knowledge on what creation stories are Observation Evaluating/
Stories
and what they act to explain. Students will then get a chance to
read through some short creation stories and analyze them.
I wanted to talk a day to focus on tricksters because I think A)
they play such a key role in Indigenous storytelling B) they’re a
fun area to focus on and C) lots of different cultures have their Understand
Trickster ing/
own version of trickster stories so I’m hoping to be able to Observation
Applying/
Work
integrate these into our lessons. The work itself will have Analyzing
students analysing but I’m also hoping to work in some creative
work.
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This is the first step of the unit final assignment, and it has
students working to do research to find their own creation or
Book origin stories that they’ll do their book talk on. In a perfect world Evaluating
Talk students would bring in actual books (my original idea was Product and
Research picture books) but having them do it online is accessible. Along Creating
with finding their story I also want students to do research on the
story/ its origins.
Everyone hates presentations and talking in front of our
classmates, but we’ve spent time building up to this point. This
Book
day will be a final opportunity for students to practice their book Product/
Talk Creating
talk in front of peers. I’d like to do it in a “speed dating” style so Conversation
Practice
that students repeatedly share their book talk and become
comfortable with it.
When I was in my first year of education my prof had us do
“book talks” with picture books that we liked. The idea was to
Book make a “short and sweet” presentation that was entertaining,
Talk talked about the book and convinced others to use it. Students Product/
Creating
Presentati will present a book talk about their found stories and offer Conversation
on information about the origins of their stories. This also works
nicely as a way to tie up our unit theme of knowledge sharing
and community work.