St Louis Inquiry Unit Plan with Lessons 1-4
This unit is focused on storytelling and the oral tradition of Canada’s Indigenous People. The idea for this inquiry unit came from the opportunity for my English 8 classes to watch the Vancouver Opera’s performance of Michael Yahgulanaas’s parable Flight of the Hummingbird. As I read through the resources and the text, I began to envision a unit that ties together Indigenous Ways of Knowing with current environmental concerns. I started brainstorming with the Teacher Librarian at my school and together we began to create something really cool and unique for students to explore. Many of my students have voiced concern for the environment and climate change, and this unit has become an opportunity for my students to blend key principles of the ELA curriculum while also developing student’s core competencies. But most importantly, this unit supports the work my students do throughout my English 8 course focused on identity and developing our understanding of self and our interconnectedness with the world around us. We journey through English 8 exploring perceptions, our own and others, and how perceptions influence and shape the self. Incorporating ecological pedagogy into an exploration of self is a necessity in this complicated time. This unit is inspired by work being done to reconnect humanity with our environment and connect self to place.
ASSESSMENT
I plan to collaborate in the classroom with students to re-work Friesen’s (2009) rubric for inquiry learning in the classroom. I have other assessments, both formative and summarive planned, and students will also engage in socratic discussion and a final project (which will have criteria developed in class in collaboration with students). Below is an example of the Socratic Discussion preparation and evaluation my students do in class. (A colleague shared this with me many years ago, so I am unable to give proper credit for the prep work booklet) There is a peer evaluation/observation framework, and I’ve included a re-worked rubric for participation in discussion. (credit given to L. Richter for designing the rubric).