Inquiry Cycle – Ask: Topic Exploration
The topic chosen for this inquiry project is the topic of the oral storytelling tradition and its significance in the development of self and identity. The oral tradition of storytelling is thousands of years old, and varies among cultures and societies. My topic is wonderfully alive in the world, across many cultures, modes and genres, however I plan to focus on the Indigenous culture and First Nation perspective as it pertains to the classroom. I participate in this topic, telling stories of my own and teaching others to tell stories of their own, but recently I have wanted to make deeper and extended connections to the self through storytelling and the rich cultural history of Canada’s First Nations People. As Archibald (1997) identified in her doctoral dissertation, storytelling is powerful, transformative and educational; elders she consulted explained and “shared traditional and personal life experience stories about traditional ways of becoming a storyteller, cultural ways to use stories with children and adults, and ways to help people think, feel, and ‘be’ through the power of stories” (p. iii). This highlights the key to storytelling – its aliveness exists within its use. It is not ‘used’ rather employed to create intergenerational connections to culture and family, but further to this, it connects oneself to the essence of what it means to be an individual searching for understanding and meaning within one’s world. According to Archibald (1997) “the elders taught me about what I came to call the principles of respect, responsibility, reciprocity, reverence, wholism, inter-relatedness and synergy related to using stories and storytelling for educational purposes – storywork” (p. iii). These principles are represented in the First Nations Principles of Learning connected to the BC Curriculum. Storytelling is not something that First Nations and Indigenous people ‘do’, it is inextricably who they are; it is how they pass their own knowledge and lessons from one generation to the next, how they communicate values, traditions, language and culture.
The only “controversies” I can identify with this topic is the fact that there is a disconnect between dominant discourse and First Nations principles of learning. I see storytelling as something we have begun to re-emphasize in the classroom, especially in the high school context in the BC Curriculum. English Language Arts (ELA) in particular has reflected this emphasis with a change in course options from Grade 10 to 12. For example, courses at the Grade 10 level are divided into English, with Spoken Language as one of the options, and English First Peoples with an emphasis on authenticity, literature, oral tradition and cultural identity. For me, this is where the most significant connection that I want to make with my students lies; I want to help my students explore identity, wellbeing, the self, and storytelling. The main texts I am currently planning to begin with are Flight of the Hummingbird (2012) at the Grade 8 level and Indian Horse (2012) at the Grade 11 level because both approach and utilize storytelling, however in different ways. I confess I had already begun planning this unit before the Covid 19 pandemic and shut down of schools. My school had signed up for a special presentation of the Vancouver Opera’s Flight of the Hummingbird. My evolving plans were to engage in a unit of inquiry and the initial stages of planning involved our First Nations Education Worker (FNEW) at our school. She consulted Elders in our community who agreed to come into our class for three sessions of storytelling. I wanted to use this presentation as a starting point for understanding how storytelling teaches, motivates, challenges, and encourages us. There is also an interdisciplinary connection between ELA and Science related to the environment and climate change that links the two disciplines. Ultimately, students will engage in this unit to understand how to imagine, create and tell their own stories.
This Haida Manga Short retells the story of the Flight of the Hummingbird. This, along with an oral reading and the Vancouver Opera performance of the parable, will be a starting point for the unit. Beyond these texts, we will have Elder visits to our classroom and incorporate a walking curriculum into the classroom whereby we regularly take guided and purposeful walks to connect ourselves to the outside world of our classroom to support the understanding of story in the place and context we live.
The key questions within this topic that I would like to explore with my students, at least at the outset of the unit are:
- What do I know about storytelling?
- Is storytelling important?
- What do I know about who uses storytelling, the purpose of storytelling?
- How can or does storytelling benefit me? How can it be meaningful to me?
- In what areas or ways can or does storytelling benefit the world in an ecological sense?
- Do we need to be connected to the environment?
- What is our responsibility to the environment?
- What is our responsibility to each other?
- How are storytelling and identity connected?
- How can storytelling support identity?
I am a natural and curious ‘questioner’ of what I see, read, hear and feel. So much so, that I have always gotten myself into trouble, in school as a student and as a professional in the workplace. As a result, I have never once silenced my students questions in the classroom. I could be deemed an over thinker, except that I don’t believe one can ‘overthink’ anything if they are searching for the meaning and using what they have learned in their next experiences. The joy I experience in inquiry is the process of inquiring itself. Inquire. Question. Explore. Answer. Explore again, and answer again. The joy I am experiencing in the topic of storytelling is extensive. It is an opportunity for one to personalize an experience or event, and a way to be connected to the narrative that is being communicated. I think this is the crux of this unit from my perspective. I want my students to connect to the stories of others and see value in looking at their own stories and experiences. When we put words to our own narrative it allows many things to happen to us. Some may need to heal, to accept or to understand, while others might need it to develop their capacity of reflection, or their ability to make decisions that benefit them in positive ways. The current state of the world is challenging, through storytelling I want to encourage my students to connect to each other and their inner self and to recognize that we are interconnected and need each other to live sustainably.