Inquiry Cycle – Investigate: Inquiry Project Brainstorm
Key highlights from Topic Exploration:
This topic has cultural, social and historical significance and can be accessed by students through a variety of genres, which will help to personalize it for each student. Storytelling is an essential aspect of First Nation and Indigenous culture, and this inquiry unit focuses on local culture and development of a sense of self and interconnectedness with our world. The key to storytelling is its aliveness. 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). Through understanding storytelling, students move through storywork to create a personalized narrative of their own, while also learning through the principles of the Indigenous worldview.
Key questions for inquiry within the topic:
- Is storytelling important?
- What do I know about storytelling, and what is the purpose of storytelling?
- In what ways can storytelling and identity be connected?
- How does place influence storytelling?
- What is our responsibility to each other and the environment?
- How can storytelling contribute to living life sustainably on the planet?
Description and Plan for proposed Inquiry Project:
- Goals of this project are to develop student’s understanding of the significance of storytelling, culture and place based education; understand how texts influence and develop sense of self; and experiment and develop skills for the oral storytelling process
- Prior to beginning this unit, I will implement the principles outlined in Jillian Judson’s A Walking Curriculum (2018) and spend two weeks walking with my class to begin to build curiosity and connection to place and learning from the land
- Students will explore the website Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada: https://indigenouspeoplesatlasofcanada.ca/
- In collaboration with both my school’s First Nation Education Worker (FNEW) and Teacher Librarian (TL) who has a science background, the unit will open with discussion about essential questions and exploring the ‘Pathfinder’ created through the library website that outlines a variety of related topics/texts
- An Elder and Storyteller will be an invited guest into our classroom to share stories and engage students in dialogue about local TK’emlups te Secwepemc culture and traditions
- Activities will range from individual to pair and small group exercises to develop personal connections to a range of texts on the topic- students continue with walking curriculum and reflections from prior to beginning of the unit
- Students will work in pairs and small groups to explore the essential questions but also to develop their own questions in regards to storytelling, place, culture and identity
- Students will spend time (approx. 3-4 classes) in library focused on research, 2 fiction and 2 non fiction texts that support their understanding and thinking about essential questions
- Assessment through teacher observation will use Friesen’s (2009) framework and rubric for inquiry, but focused into a concentrated rubric using less technical language
- Students will identify through group discussions relevant criteria to develop a self evaluation and reflection along with peer evaluation for evaluation during the inquiry process and writing process, including peer editing and feedback
- Final presentation of learning will be centered on students’ personal choice – key pieces to be developed in collaboration with FNEW, TL, classroom teacher and students
Learning Principles from BC Curriculum: (taken directly from BC Curriculum ELA 8 doc)
K-12 Core Competencies:
- Communication
- Creative Thinking
- Personal and Social Responsibility
- Positive Personal & Cultural Identity
- Social Awareness and Responsibility
Big Ideas (Understand):
- Exploring stories and other texts helps us understand ourselves and make connections to others and to the world.
- People understand text differently depending on their worldviews and perspectives.
- Texts are socially, culturally, and historically constructed.
Learning Standards for Curricular Competencies (Do):
- Recognize and identify the role of personal, social, and cultural contexts, values, and perspectives in texts
- Recognize how language constructs personal, social, and cultural identity
- Construct meaningful personal connections between self, text, and world
- Respond to text in personal, creative, and critical ways
- Recognize and appreciate the role of story, narrative, and oral tradition in expressing First Peoples perspectives, values, beliefs, and points of view
- Develop an awareness of the protocols and ownership associated with First Peoples texts
- Use writing and design processes to plan, develop, and create engaging and meaningful literary and informational texts for a variety of purposes and audiences
- Use and experiment with oral storytelling processes
- Transform ideas and information to create original texts.
- (Science 8) Express and reflect on a variety of experiences and perspectives of place; Consider social, ethical, and environmental implications of the findings from their own and others’ investigations; Experience and interpret the local environment; Apply First Peoples perspectives and knowledge, other ways of knowing, and local knowledge as sources of information
Learning Standards for Curricular Competencies (Know):
- forms, functions, and genres of text
- oral language strategies
- writing processes
- features of oral language
- language usage and context
- elements of style
An image that comes to mind in considering a walking curriculum
First Peoples Principles for Learning for the grade level(s):
- Learning is embedded in memory, history, and story
- Learning requires exploration of one’s identity
- Learning ultimately supports the well-being of the self, the family, the community, the land, the spirits, and the ancestors
- Learning is holistic, reflexive, reflective, experiential, and relational (focused on connectedness, on reciprocal relationships, and a sense of place)
My current understandings of inquiry based pedagogy are evolving. I have experience with the inquiry process and my classroom represents forms of inquiry throughout my lessons and units, but I want to develop student interdependence and ability to guide in depth discussions through their own research. It seems to me I am starting with a more universal design for inquiry with Socratic style discussions to promote critical and in depth thinking, but I would like to move more discipline based as I want to focus on students developing critical thinking skills and analytical writing skills.
Through this unit, my hope is that students connect how storytelling is an essential part of our lives as individuals but also as interconnected groups of people. The suggestion was made (by Jodi) that I think about incorporating discovering and learning about our own gifts through the inquiry process and how we might “give back” or share this gift with our community. This fits perfectly with the environmental parable Flight of the Hummingbird (2012) because one of the lessons from the story is that no matter who we are, we can all contribute to the greater good in our own way. This is an excellent connection between the story, the purpose of storytelling and self. Storytelling does not only rely on the teller, but there is a partnership between the teller and the listener. Jardine (2013) highlights this in his article Time is (not) always running out, he cites “told and retold or read and reread, the story exists neither in the mouth nor on the page, neither in the ear nor the eye. It is created between. No two listeners hear exactly the same tale. Each brings something of himself to the story, and the story is then re-created between the teller and the listener, between the writer and the reader. (Yolen 1988, as cited in Jardine, p.2). This emphasizes the reciprocal relationship between the teller and the listener, and the responsibility the listener has while participating in storytelling. Stories are used for entertainment, but in the context of the Indigenous worldview, they are more importantly used to teach lessons, reflect on self, connect intergenerationally and educate.