This curriculum unit for middle school students explores the art of folklore and story telling. In the unit, students will explore the nature of various types of stories and tales and will identify the characteristics and motifs of subgenres such as tall tales, fairy tales, and fables. The following lessons are part of the unit: Folktales: A…

Describes the O'odham language and oral tradition of the Tohono O'odham Indians of southern Arizona, relating it to the development of O'odham children's English literacy. Oral tradition and school literacy constitute opposite ends of a literacy continuum, in which English literacy is often isolated from and in conflict with O'odham literacy. (10…

A Native American literature professor's account of college students' cross-cultural field experience on two Indian reservations near the Grand Canyon shows how the experience enhanced student understanding of the Native American belief in the people and land as one, storytelling and a sense of the sacred, and the history and impact of…

Is a developing country like Nigeria information rich or information poor? The first impression is of scarcity, but a closer examination reveals unexplored riches. There is a wealth of information in the oral tradition, but it is not found in schools and libraries. There is information in libraries, but language and reading level make it…

This book is an appeal to First Nations leaders in Canada to promote educational integration--a mixing of ideas in which non-Aboriginal people are taught those elements of Native culture and philosophy that support a reverence for the Earth and all living things. The benefits of such an undertaking cannot be overemphasized since the very existence…

Provides a useful introduction and overview to using storytelling in the elementary social studies classroom. Presents a rationale for using storytelling, tips on getting started, preparation for the story, and follow-up activities. Includes a 61-item bibliography of folktales and stories. (MJP)

Some postsecondary programs in child and youth care for First Nations students in British Columbia are offered locally and employ elders as teachers because they understand their cultures and communities. The strengths found in the traditions of respect and intergenerational transmission of knowledge through elders are empowering to Native…

This study guide accompanies a poster series and documentary video about 12 American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian "women of hope." The women vary by age, education, profession, and geographic locale, but they share an unwavering commitment and dedication to their people's struggle to survive and flourish as distinct…

This paper examines the place of oral heritage in France. The first section provides an overview of oral collections in France from the early 1900s to the present. The study of oral materials is then discussed in the second section, including: research centers within universities or high schools; activities of the Ministry of Culture; development…

Migrant farm workers are the concern and theme of this special serial issue. Migrant farm workers arrange much of their social and economic life around seasonal changes as they follow jobs up the eastern migrant stream to its northenmost part in New York state, then south to Florida. The education, health, and folk arts program at the Board of…

This collection of writings was compiled over a 19-year period (1972-91) by the last writer and one of the last storytellers of the Kenai dialect of Dena'ina (Tanaina) language of Cook Inlet, Alaska. Peter Kalifornsky is a literary artist and scholar born in 1911. The 147 writings are organized in eight chapters, with a prelude containing two…

The history of education, as taught in the United States and in the West generally, has focused primarily on how Western educational tradition emerged. This book provides a brief overview of several non-Western approaches to educational thought and practice. An understanding of how other peoples have educated their children, as well as what…

The purpose of the conference and this book is to begin to establish the parameters of a new period of interaction between indigenous and non-Native peoples of North America through their experiences in university and academic practices and settings. The book exposes academic communities to indigenous learning and indigenous knowledge with the…

This book presents an ethnohistorical examination of American Indian thinking and philosophy and strives to explain the complexity of the American Indian mind in its traditional cultural and natural environment and in contrast to the American mainstream linear world. It is argued that Indian thinking is visual; circular; concerned with the…

A Canadian teacher-educator's research into what has meaning for Bush Cree students became a reciprocal learning-teaching relationship. What emerged is a reverence for the ordinary, and the researcher's realization that in Cree society, the medium and the message are one, just as education and culture are one. Contains photographs used in the…