Welcome to Class Willow
Guilty or not guilty?
It is 1830 the Defendant, Isabella Makin, is 11 years old. She has been charged with stealing three coats, two waistcoats, a pair of breeches, a pair of boots and a table cloth.
The defendant lives in Narrow Marsh, an area of Nottingham, with her family.
Isabella must help her family out as her father is ill and cannot work. Her mother must look after Isabella’s younger sisters and cannot go to work because there in no-one to care for them. They are very poor and have very little money to live on.
This is not Isabella’s first time in court. If she is found guilty this time, she will be punished harshly.
Isabella has been found guilty of stealing on four previous occasions. She has been imprisoned four times.
Will our jury find her guilty of theft?
Will our judge sentence her to prison for a fifth time?
What fate will await her?
Our English work this half term will focus on William Shakespeare's Macbeth. We will look at different adaptations of this play for children, use drama activities to help us understand and interpret the play and complete writing activities such as first person accounts and newspaper reports, using our talk for writing techniques to support us.
This term we will be focussing on averages, area, perimeter and volume, as well as angles. All of our learning will be linked with prior knowledge and applied to problems solving contexts.
This half term our topic is about Jewish celebrations and we will be learning about the Shabbat experience. We will also be looking at the story of Easter and what happened to Jesus in the last few days of his life. We will discuss how it must feel to have your friends disown you, as well as discussing how Peter (& the other disciples) disowned Jesus.
We will use ‘photostory’ to import and arrange pictures, adding captions and voice overs to show the changes in crime and punishment throughout British history.
Our science topic will focus on classification in terms of families and inheritance. We will ask questions such as:
Why are things classified?
How does inheritance work?
As part of our topic on ID, we will look at changes in crime and punishment throughout British history, ranging from the Roman era to Victorian Britain. We will also discuss how our knowledge of the past comes from a variety of sources and that different interpretations of stories exist.
Class Willow will have ukulele lessons again this term and will continue to look at pitch, follow musical scores and learn new songs.
This half term, we will be researching and critically analysing the artwork of David Hockney. We will recreate pieces of his work to show light and shadow, as well as using ‘pic stitch’ to alter images in his ‘joiners’ style.
During this term our PE sessions will focus on physical challenges and athletics. Please ensure long hair is tied up and earrings are removed for PE. Please also make sure warm outdoor clothing is in school.
This half term we will continue to work with Madame Balestra learning about family, using French vocabulary to describe our own families.
Our topic centres on ‘Myself and My Relationships’. We will discuss how to recognise emotions in ourselves and others, coping strategies for difficult times and how to manage our changing emotions.
As part of our topic this term, we will be comparing and contrasting different mountains, looking at their locations and statistics such as their height & temperature at different levels. We will also be learning about the water cycle.
We will be researching the life of Edmund Hillary to determine why he is a key figure in history and using photographs as sources of historical data.
We will also be looking at the life of the Adi people, a mountain dwelling community and comparing their lifestyle with our own. We will also be researching and replicating their weaving designs.
Our Science topic will focus on states of matter. We will be investigating questions such as:
We will be using the story of 'A Bottle of Happiness' by Pippa Goodhart as a basis for our story writing, as well as the fantastic illustrations by Ehsan Abddollahi as stimuli for our descriptive writing.
RE work will take us on a journey of our lives to share and discuss key times of celebration. We will then look into the religions of Christianity, Hinduism and Judaism to see what key ceremonies are celebrated and how these religions prepare children for adult life.
This term we will be continuing to find out about our digestive systems. We will investigate how each part works and look at the role of spit in the digestive process.
Our DT topic will focus on chocolate! We will carry out market research to establish the type of products that our customers want to buy. We will design, plan and make chocolates based on our research, to sell at the Christmas Fair!
We will learn about 'Fair Trade', why it is important and how it has helped farmers all over the world. We will look at the process of chocolate being made, from bean to bar, and write an explanation text.
Our RE work will centre on 'Arts in the Faiths'. We will learn about music, dance, drama and much more throughout a range of religions.
This half term, our English, geography and history work will be based on our topic about Mexico.
We will be learning about and writing our own Maya creation stories, creting a powerpoint presentation to compare England with Mexico in a country comparison study, as well as researching what life was like for the ancient Mayans....
We will also be designing and making our own tortilla based pizzas!
Our science work is all about burps, bottoms and bile! Children will review what constitutes a healthy, balanced diet, learn about teeth names and functions, as well as oral hygiene and investigate the digestive system.
The year is 2050 and the children have been commissioned by the Government ministers to investigate and explore the problems and solutions that could be encountered in sending 30 people into space for five years.
For the next 7 weeks, the children will become ‘Space explorers’ and will seek information about a mysterious Planet called Earth and its Solar System. During the duration of their commission, they will be given a number of ‘Space Missions’ to complete.
At the end of their mission, they will present their findings to Government Ministers!
Work will also include an exciting visit to the National Space Centre to find out more about the Space Race and the Earth, Moon and Sun, the stars and our Solar System.
Our English work will link into our space topic with 'Cosmic' by Frank Cottrell Boyce and 'Cosmic Disco' a collection of poetry.
Our Topic this half term is ‘Tomorrows World.’ During the term, we will explore the rapidly changing new technologies that shape our world. We will investigate how technology affects the lives of people across the planet and their impact on natural resources. We will meet four families living in China and think about how one country is trying to overcome the pollution problems created by its rapid expansion of industry.
We will become software designers. The children will start by playing and analysing educational computer games, identifying those features that make a game successful. They will then plan and design a game, with a clear target audience in mind. They will create a working prototype, and then develop it further to add functionality and improve the user interface. Finally, they will test their game and make any necessary changes.
We will explore the work of the artist Eric Joyner and the robot sculptor, Clayton Bailey. Using modroc, we will design and make our own robots.
Our English lessons this half term will focus on the text ‘Floodland’ by Marcus Sedgwick. We will be writing in role, writing formal persuasive letters to a character, composing instructional writing for rules to live on Eel Island, as well as narrative and report writing.
Floodland is a fascinating text - it had us on the edge of our seats!
Read our book reviews to find out more...
We carried out research about global warming linked to our text work on 'Floodland'
Spring Term 2 2017
Under Our Feet!
This term we will review our knowledge of fractions, decimals and percentages, looking at equivalence, mixed and improper fractions and converting amounts. We will be working on algebraic formulae and geometry, focussing on angles, properties of shapes and direction & position. In addition, we will be converting between different units of metric measures and solving problems.
Our English lessons this half term will focus on the short story ‘The Giant’s Necklace’ by Michael Morpurgo. Writing will include using descriptive language, writing setting descriptions for contrasting coastal images, newspaper reports and diary entries. We will also be writing explanation and instruction texts.
History and Geography
This half term we will research our local area to find out about the impact on the mining community and the effects of pit closures. We will begin our topic with a visit to the National Coal Mining Museum, learning about the life of a miner. We will investigate the conditions of working in a Coal mine over time, for both adults and children.
Art and Design
We will be sketching buildings and artefacts linked to our visit to the National Coal Mining Museum. We will use powder paints to build up paintings of imaginary landscapes and industrial buildings. In addition, we will research and design our own Miner’s lunchbox.
We will become interface designers sketching, planning and developing ideas for our App interface. We will source and develop backgrounds, images, sound effects and a video for the App.
This half term, we will become geologists, looking at what is under our feet! We will research fossil fuels and investigate the formation of coal and fossils. We will learn about the different rock types and how they are formed. We will also become ‘Plant Detectives’, learning about how plants reproduce and whether all flowering plants are the same.
This term the children will continue to explore different religions in our local area. They will develop positive attitudes and thoughtfulness through the investigation of non-violence and recognise the consequences of actions. They will explore freedom of beliefs, harmony and respect.
This half term we will be thinking about ‘Financial Capability’. The children will explore what money means in a broader context, as well as learning how jobs are paid depending on skill set. We will introduce children to pensions, insurance and tax, as well as thinking about how the future can be planned for. We will discuss the difference between essential resources and desirable resources.
We were investigating different parts of a flower and dissected daffodils to have a closer look.
This term we will become Historical Detectives and travel back in time to research a time when Victoria was Queen and Albert was Prince Consort. A time when some people lived in slums while others prospered. We will examine first hand evidence including photographs, paintings, diaries, artefacts and census material.
We will take on the role of an important reformer and present our good causes to the Queen. Will we be able to cause a revolution of change?
During our English lessons, we will be studying the book 'Street Child' by Berlie Doherty. We will discover what happens to Jim when he finds himself all alone in the workhouse and desperate to escape. Life in Victorian times was very different to today.
Our Science learning will focus on our investigative skills linked into the topic of light. We will learn about the eye and how we see, investigate shadows, coloured light and refraction, as well as making our own light bulb.
We will be looking closely at the work of the Victorian artists L.S. Lowry and William Morris. We will sketch Victorian artefacts, developing our skills using pencil, pastel and pen and ink. We will draw close up views of bicycles and enlarge them into detailed pen/ink sketches.
Follow Erik the Viking to discover:
In English we will be writing our own sagas, using 'The Saga of Erik the Viking' by Terry Jones to help us, as well as writing a recipe for Viking bread.
We will map out where the Vikings came from and where they travelled to raid and trade, as well as looking at the place names they left behind.
Our Science topic is based on 'Light'. We will study how light travels, shadows and how they change.
RE learning will centre on Christian and Muslim charities that help people throughout the world.
Our Music learning this half term will be based on the nativity story and we will be studying the poem 'Bethlehem' by Carol Ann Duffy in the build up to Christmas.
Have a look at our class newsletter below for additional information.
This is a project aimed to last throughout the half term. Each child will present their project to the rest of the class in the last full week of school. A timetable will be organised nearer the time.
There will be weekly 'Mathletics' challenges set for each child which are linked to the learning in class. Each child has been given their own username and password to access this.
Please also continue to embed all times tables.
Each child also has a username and password for 'Education City'. Class learning zones have been set up to help with multiplication facts.
This term our learning will be centred around our topic 'The Blue Abyss'. During our residential trip to Boggle Hole, we will be visiting Whitby and the Captain Cook Museum. Children remaining at school will also be researching his life and voyages, so that we can write a biography.
We will also be finding out about Whitby and the surrounding area and writing persuasive texts in the form of holiday brochures.
We will also be learning about 'Oceanography' and the HMS Challenger, as well as learning about threats to our coastline and sea creatures and what can be done to help. Our writing focus will be on information texts and reports.
Our artwork will follow on with our sea theme, where we will be researching famous artists and their seascapes.
During DT sessions, we will design, plan, make and evaluate fish cakes and submarines, keeping to our ocean theme.
Science sessions will focus on classification of living things, life cycles and reproduction of plants and animals. We will ask and investigate questions such as:
Crimson, scarlet, burgundy, cherry.... blood flows through our body in all its vibrant shades of red. But how does the blood move around our bodies? Let's explore our circulation system and find out more. Now surgeons, don't be squeamish as we examine the veins, arteries and chambers up close. William Harvey was fascinated with anatomy and made ground breaking discoveries about valves. I wonder what we might discover?
In Maths, let's check out the most common blood groups in our class and present the information in charts and graphs.
Writing non-chronological reports and explanation texts about how the heart works will be our main focus in Literacy. In addition to this, we will write some 'Heart raps' and use the heart's pulse as a rhythm to guide our class performances.
We will read 'Pig Heart Boy' by Malorie Blackman. The novel tells the story of thirteen-year-old Cameron Kelsey, who needs a heart transplant to survive a viral infection and is offered a ground-breaking xenotransplant opportunity. What should he do?
In Science we will be working scientifically to: measure the heart rate, understand the circulatory system and identify how lifestyle choices effect our health.
Caring for others and answering the question,'Why do people give blood?' will be our main theme in PHSE, along with a discussion on harmful substances.
Our P.E will focus on cardiovascular exercise to keep our hearts happy and healthy.
Hearts pound, flutter and maybe skip a beat... What makes your heart race? Is it a secret? Cross my heart, I won't tell.
This half term we're going to travel back 5000 years to the dusty realms of ancient Egypt. As we cruise along the Nile, we'll enter a world of mysteries and curses, mummies and kings.
In Geography we'll find out about the human and physical features along the river's fertile banks and how these impact on tourism in the country.
In History we'll use historical sources and age-old artefacts to unravel the secrets of ancients tombs, to find out about powerful pharaohs and grandiose gods.
Our Art lessons will be based around the hieroglyphic alphabet and designing our own cartouche.
Now, let's open the doorway to ancient Egypt and see what other treasures are waiting to be discovered...
Welcome back. This half term we will meet ‘Pestilence’ (a hooded and shady character spoiled with foul-smelling boils and revolting sores) and hear his tragic tale of death and destruction during the ‘Black Death’.
We will travel to Eyam to see how the local population sacrificed their lives, long ago, to stop the spread of the plague.
In science we will look closely at micro-organisms. We will investigate 'How Clean are our Hands' and research the bacteria Yersinia pestis and then write a non chronological report about the life cycle of rats and fleas.
In English we will read poems and the stories 'Children of Winter' by Berlie Doherty and 'A Cross on the Door' by Ann Turnball. We will write newspaper reports, diaries and letters to recall the events of the Great Plague.
Welcome back to a new term.
Buckle up, sunglasses on - we're going on a road trip across the good old US of A!
Flying from London Gatwick and landing at the JF Kennedy airport New York, let's waste no time in exploring the sights and sounds of the Big Apple. Using our mapping skills, we will: navigate our way around some of the most famous landmarks; send postcards home and write travel reports. On our travels across America we will meet the Iroquois Tribe (Native Americans with amazing customs and traditions) and learn how to weave, make dream-catchers and design our own totem poles. In addition, we will share Native American tales and legends handed down through time and listen to the modern classic ' The Indian in my cupboard,' by Lynne Reid Banks.
It's going to be an exciting ride, so put the roof down and let the wind blow through your hair - we're off!
What were Native American meals like?
Native American cooking tended to be simple. Most Native Americans preferred to eat their food very fresh, without many spices. This was different in Mexico and Central America, where Indians tended to use less fresh meat and more spices in their dishes, including hot peppers, cumin, and chocolate seasonings. Meat was usually roasted over the fire or grilled on hot stones. Fish was often baked or smoked. Soups and stews were popular in some tribes. Corn was eaten in many different ways, including corn-on-the-cob, popcorn, hominy, and tortillas and corn bread baked in clay ovens. Indians in some tribes enjoyed fruit puddings or maple candy for dessert. Most Native Americans always drank water with their meals, but hot chocolate was a popular beverage in Mexico, and some Indians in Central and South America developed an alcoholic corn drink called chicha.
How did Native American eating habits change after Europeans arrived?
The Europeans introduced some new plants and animals that didn't exist in the Americas originally, such as bananas, wheat, sheep, and cows. Some Native American farming tribes, such as the Navajos or the Mexican Indian tribes, began to raise these new crops and farm animals in addition to corn and other traditional crops. Many people in those tribes are still farmers today, and they have been raising some of these "new" foods for centuries now!
Other tribes were forced to change their traditional lifestyles a lot after Europeans took over. Since Europeans killed most of the buffalo, tribes that used to follow the buffalo herds had to find new ways of living. Today, some tribes raise buffalo on ranches. Many forests and jungles have been cleared, which makes it harder to earn a living by hunting. In rural areas of Canada, Alaska, and South America, some Native Americans and Inuit (Eskimos) still make their living by hunting and trapping, but this is becoming rarer. And of course, one of the biggest changes was Indian tribes being forced to move to reservations far from their original homelands. In many cases, these tribes had to give up their old ways of life in their new location because the environment was different and the land was not suitable for their traditional agriculture.
Some traditional American Indian foods and recipes are still enjoyed by Native American people today. However, except for a few remote rainforest tribes, Native American people also eat modern food, just like their non-native neighbours do.
I wonder what they would think about our attempts to replicate some of their dishes?
Constructing simple series electrical circuits; identifying changes that occur when components are added, removed or changed; making a switch to control a simple circuit; identifying and using circuit diagram symbols to build circuits; planning and carrying out fair tests; predicting and recording results; writing conclusions; describing the difference between series and parallel circuits and building series and parallel circuits to solve problems.


Sept. 8, 2011 | Updated
Since this post first went up, more teachers have written – and, the case of a former colleague, called – in to share more ideas. They have been added below. We will add more again soon. Please feel free to share more ideas and thoughts.
As teachers are making plans for the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, many are concerned about how to make it meaningful because, they note, today’s K-12 and college students very likely have only dim memories, if that, of the events of that day.
But today’s students did not experience other crucibles in our nation’s and world’s history: slavery, the Holocaust, the Vietnam War. Teachers have always found ways to use engage students in events and difficult issues like these — with the historical record, with representations in literature, film and the arts and with writing and creative projects — to foster their growth into informed, thinking global citizens.
I am a student, and to be honest I really thought history was boring because all of the dates you had to remember for tests. But now by reading this Learning Network article I started to think about how you really need to deeply understand the history of something. And by understanding it you will realize that it is essential to human life.
I think 9/11 should be taught in schools across the world, and we shouldn’t neglect it, we should understand and remember the event.
In July, we put a call out to teachers, asking them to share teaching approaches that help students forge personal and intellectual connections to 9/11.
Here are the suggestions they shared. (Please note that they have been lightly copy edited and links have been added. Some organizations posted curriculum collections and resources, too, and we’ll include those in a resource collection on Friday.) They are grouped into four categories: Interdisciplinary Ideas, Ideas Using Writing, Literature, Theater and Fine Arts, Ideas Using History and Humanities and Ideas for Younger Students.
Thank you to all the teachers who shared their ideas, and to those who got the word out — especially the National Writing Project, who were extremely helpful in asking their members to contribute ideas.
We hope you will use The Learning Network as a community to keep the sharing going. Please post more suggestions and experiences. We will update this collection as more ideas come in. And thank you for making us part of your plans to teach about 9/11.
As students enter my classroom each year, I have a list of names of those who died up on the screen. It’s in four columns in alpha order, and the font is tiny. I start by pointing out that only A-D is shown, and that makes an early impact about the sheer number of lives lost.
Then, to introduce the literary elements of mood and tone, I show three very different newspaper front pages from 9/12, including The New York Times. I have them vote on which they would select, and we have a lively discussion about why–the headlines, the image(s) used, which seem more credible, how some seem less credible but better communicate the rage that readers may feel, etc.
To further illustrate the theme of mood/tone in the literature of 9/11, we read Dan Barry’s article “For One 9/11 Family, Five Waves of Grief.” Last year, I had them answer a few written questions after reading, then we shared responses as a group. Some questions were about Barry’s writing style and techniques; others are more personal. (For example, the Petrocellis received calls about parts of their son being found, and I explain that many families received similar calls about wallets and other personal items being recovered. Students write about whether they feel such a find would be a blessing after losing a loved one, or whether they’d rather have closure without the call.)
We’re in Oregon, so my students don’t know people personally affected by 9/11, but there are always some tears as the discussion connects them to their own losses. We don’t have a curriculum for 9/11–this is something I do because I feel it’s important. Each year, I get thanks from kids who say that no one else mentioned 9/11 all day.
I blogged last year about how my lesson has changed as students increasingly don’t remember the day. You may read about it here.
— Five Septembers
While I have not finalized my plans for a 9/11 curriculum, I have decided to use sections of “A Nation Challenged” and “Portraits of Grief” in my curriculum. In the immediate years following 9/11 as I attempted to cope with loss, “Portraits of Grief” provided some comfort. These glimpses into the lives of souls lost provided some peace and hope. They also put a face on an immeasurable tragedy. The students who will enter my classes in September will know about the tragedy of 9/11 at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Shanksville but they may not know the faces, the souls, lost in that tragedy. It is my hope to share “Portraits of Grief” with them and to acquaint them with those faces and use their portraits as a springboard for writing.
— Joan Marie Bellotti, High Tech High School, North Bergen, N.J.
I had my high school students create 9/11 anniversary videos, by allowing them the creativity, to tell a story that was personal to them in some way. You may see their videos here.
— Don Goble
Last year I began to incorporate a service project along with my writing prompt I’ve used to discuss 9/11 with my high school English classes. Many of these kids do not remember the events or the aftermath of the attack. The discussions and service project coordinates with a year-long “tolerance” theme. I have a downloadable lesson for teachers (free) and also will incorporate parts of Scholastic’s lesson.
— Tracee Orman
I am the principal of Seton Catholic Central High School in Binghamton, NY. We plan on remembering and teaching about 9/11. On Sept. 9, the school’s opening Mass for the school year will be in memory of the victims of 9/11. We have invited Binghamton firefighters, who assisted in recovery efforts, to speak about their impressions and experiences at Ground Zero. We have also invited veterans of the Iraq and Afganistan wars, who have connections with the school, to discuss their roles in these conflicts. Our theology classes will focus on an interfaith discussion of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Our students have grown up with the consequences of 9/11. To have an understanding of the profound issues facing the nation and the globe today they must be familiar with the events of 9/11. The 10th anniversary of 9/11 is a critical teaching moment.
— Richard Bucci
An extremely powerful and educational way to learn about 9-11 is through an organization like September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. They are family members of 9/11 victims who have figure out how to turn their grief into steps towards peace, justice, and reconciliation. This organization recently collaborated with an educational magazine, The Change Agent (free online) to produce materials for the classroom. Through storytelling, reflective essays, poems, and background facts, students can use The Change Agent to learn about the history of 9/11, wrestle with important legal and moral questions related to security and liberty, and examine the “rule of law” in the context of terrorism.
— Cynthia Peters
A student of mine put together a 9/11 tribute video on YouTube that other students, teachers & parents might be interested in viewing as we remember the tragic events of ten years ago: “United We Will Stand: a Tribute to the Fallen of September 11th, 2001.″
— Brett Malas
As a seventh grade science teacher I wanted to look at this tragedy from a different point of view. I created a power point first explaining the meaning of the day and what exactly happened, but then I continue with a more scientific explanation. With pictures and diagrams I plan to discuss what caused the towers to collapse and the structural significance. We will look at the history of the towers, how they were built and how eventually they were brought down, therefore allowing for an emotional and educational impact. I plan to share my power point with my entire department.
— Susan Russo
This is the second year of a blogging community among four schools, and soon to be two international schools. We collaborated and decided to do something as a community to commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9/11. We are compiling a message of hope, peace and remembrance written by our students. From their written words we are adding their voice and a visual element to connect all of the schools together for a final product.
Most of our students were so young when this happened, we want to impress upon them the changes in society, on many levels, that have been triggered by the events of 9/11. Showing relevance to their daily lives and passions will help them understand the impact caused by the tragic events.
We collaborated using Twitter, Google Docs, and Skype. I will share a link after the final project is done. We plan to share this with the schools as well as the world.
— Shaelynn Farnsworth, Erin Olson, Shawn Hyer, Bev Berns, Todd Vogts
Ideas Using Writing, Literature, Theater and Fine Arts
I use my own blog post from the day (or pre-blog, I guess) as we were in our fourth day of school at one of the two high schools located directly south of the South Tower. I also had my students write immediately after the first plane hit. I had them type their pieces up and have those texts uploaded on my site as well.
Between the two, you have some pretty immediate writing you can utilize in your classroom. I am happy to provide you and any other teachers who could use them with URLs to the blogs, photos, and student reactions.
— Heather Ordover
I’m a mom and work in a homeschool group of kids ranging in age from 7-15. We did a research writing unit and kids could choose between two topics, one of which was 9/11. The students who chose this had to complete factual research and then write a first person narrative story including the facts. The stories were extremely creative. One child put together a power point presentation with wonderful images that explored the feelings of her character in relation to different things that happened on that day. One person wrote a story about being twins that were born on 9/11 and traveled back in time to observe the experience. These twins had some super powers and were able to change the pattern of history. One student put together an ABC book with a variety of facts and emotions related to the event. Each student presented his/her information to the class. We then debriefed about the emotional content. It’s been one of the best homeschool group experiences we’ve had.
— Jennifer Rouyer
I will be planning a lesson that coordinates with the anniversary of 9/11. My intended focus will be on designing a monument. I teach sculpture and Art 3D.
I hope to teach students about some of our country’s great national monuments through a slide show and question/answer session. Students will learn where the monuments are located, their purpose/meaning, and be asked to share if they have visited the monuments or have any other prior knowledge about them. Next a discussion will be had based on the prompt question, “What do you think the artist was thinking when they designed the monument?” I hope to have some peer discussion and then greater group discussion as well. After discussing design and purpose of the national monuments, we will start planning to build a 3D sculpture of a monument by starting with some free sketching to work out some ideas. After students have settled on design concepts, they will build their monuments (most likely in small groups of two-four). The materials used will vary from sculpting clay to cardboard to wire. I expect this lesson to take one-two weeks of class time, in 45-minute class periods.
— Christine Todd
I teach 8th and 11th grade English students in Southwest Virginia. I’ve been teaching for four years. I admit that each year my 9/11 focus changes as a result of my annual tweaking but, I really like how last year’s 9/11 remembrance worked out. For the sake of space I will focus on my 11th grade students.
Each year in September, my 11th-grade students and I find ourselves in an American Literature introductory unit which includes our oral tradition. A few days before 9/11, I give my students a homework assignment to discuss with at least two people what they remember about 9/11. One has to be a family member and 1 other person (could be a friend or someone they know that is old enough to remember 9/11 or another family member).
The students are to take good notes and be prepared to share them on 9/11. Meanwhile in class we are still discussing the strengths of the oral tradition in handing down what the culture’s most important messages are for the next generation. We also discuss how often young people are the audience of these cultural stories so figurative language is used to help them visualize the messages the elders are trying to pass down.
During the week I will also be reading quotes from my own 9/11 family interviews to give my students an idea of the kind of notes I want them to be taking.
On 9/11 I will begin class by showing students one of the many 9/11 memorial videos on YouTube (after previewing them the night before) and then we spend just a couple of minutes discussing what the main message of the video was or the main focus; then we break into groups.
Student share their interviews with their group members. They are to take notes on what stands out as the main memory or main feeling or main message they get from all of the interviews they have heard and discussed. They decide as a group which message they think is the most important to pass down to the next generation.
The next day students get back into their groups and create a story map of a story they could tell in an oral tradition style that would teach one powerful message about 9/11 to the next generation. I suggest they use animals as characters to get away from any stereotyping that could occur in the making of the story and they should use figurative language. Each story needs a message or a moral but the story should stand on its own; no need to add “the moral of the story is…”
Last year we just stopped the lesson at the outline only and with the students sharing their ideas with classmates. I think this year I would like my students to finish their stories and create podcasts that my 8th grade class can then listen to and try to decide what the main messages of each of the stories are. Maybe I will have my juniors create voice threads so the 8th graders can easily comment on them and then they can go back and review.
I really look forward to the results this year.
— Alicia Johnson
My students in AP English Language and Composition read Jonathan Safran Foer’s wonderful book “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.” Our focus in this unit is postmodernism and postmodernist literature, and our standard is reading and writing in a specific genre. We watch clips from “The Man Who Walked Between the Towers” and “Falling Man.” We look at reader response theory and how memories of an event transcend the actual physical “being there” in a community. We also talk about style, pairing the novel with the essay “On Ground Zero.” My students have been the protagonist’s age or older for the past five years, so I’m interested to see how my future students will react to an event they were too young to remember personally.
— Wendy Turner
I have been teaching high school literature for 30 years and last year I had a magical experience teaching Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” to about 90 regular junior students at the suburban high school where I teach outside of Cleveland, Ohio. The text is especially relevant because it is being made into a movie that will be released in December, starring Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock. Due to its unusual format, the novel challenges students to use their reading skills in unique ways because it uses a non-linear sequential story line and also includes photographs, illustrations, and experimental typography, as well as offbeat humor with puns and wordplay. My students loved the book and I plan on teaching it again this year.
— Linda Lackey
I realized my sophomore students this year were only in kindergarten when 9/11 occurred. (I was a freshman in college.) I wanted to acknowledge the 10-year anniversary in some way, and I decided to use poetry from Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry Web site/column.
You and your readers may be interested in my recent Huffington Post story on Ten Books About 9/11 to Share With Kids & Teens.
— Rocco Staino
In the aftermath of 9/11, I had my students write a letter to Osama bin Laden. I saved the letters to use as primary sources with my future students. On the first anniversary, I had my students write as essay about their memories of 9/11. I saved the essays, too. Every year I have done a lesson remembering. I show a DVD of the news coverage of the event. Then I bring out the bin Laden letters and the memory essays. The students love to read the accounts from the students who were their age at the time. For several years now the middle school age students do not remember 9/11. For some it is the first they even heard of it.
— Annette Duffy
As an English teacher, I have included “The Names” as part of my curriculum during September. This poem, written by Billy Collins, the Poet Laureate at the time, was read at the memorials that year. It is a poem, that no matter how many times I read it, has new meaning and is more moving. I highly recommend that English teachers check it out if they aren’t familiar. I have students draw an image from the poem, or select a part to respond to.
— Becky Riley
A former Stuyvesant High School colleague of mine called me to share a discussion he has with his A.P. English literature students about the Billy Collins poem “The Names.” Here is a very brief description of his approach, in my words, not his:
We discuss how “The Names” is an occasional poem and falls within classical traditions and poetic modes, delving into these elements and devices, among many others: the elegiac mode, the use of Homeric dactylic hexameter, the hero and heroic death that recalls book two of “The Iliad,” classical epithets, anaphora, monody and phrenody, juxtaposition of pastoral and urban, tribute to democracy, list-making and name-reading.
– Walter Gern
Ideas Using History and Humanities
I am an adjunct professor of philosophy at a SUNY community college. I teach 3 sections of Introduction to Philosophy. Each year, on the anniversary of 9/11, I devote my 50 minute classes to an exploration of the event from the perspective of human nature. The text I use for this course unfolds the history of Western philosophy through the lens of various theories on human nature. I carry over the human nature theme to our 9/11 inquiry.
These are some of the questions we explore:
What did 9/11 tell us about our origins, nature, and destiny?
What did 9/11 tells us about the human qualities of good and evil, love and hate, strength and weakness, kindness and cruelty, aggression and passivity, generosity and greed, courage and cowardice?
How did 9/11 depict us as part angel, part demon, part rational, part animal, capable of great glory and great tragedy?
What did 9/11 “say” about who we are?
— Katherine FitzGerald
I worked as an undergraduate teaching assistant, alongside my mentor professor, teaching a political science class at the college level called 9/11: A Historical Review. Basically, our approach was to put 9/11 into historical context, with an emphasis on U.S. foreign policy and unforeseen consequences in the world: the Middle East and Central Asia. We reviewed the CIA funding of Osama bin Laden and the jihad in the 1980’s, the Iraqi Tilt policy of Gulf War I and U.S. support for Saddam Hussein, the Iran Contra Affair and more. We framed our semester with a few key questions, some of them being: How have past US policies affected our lives and the world today? Do the ends justify the means?
We discussed the nature of U.S. foreign policy, pre-9/11 – largely done in secret, without public or congressional debate. Because this secrecy fits the definition of conspiracy, we logically entertained all theories about the events of 9/11, and any inconsistencies or questions on which the students chose to focus their attention and research.
We used all forms of media and literature (independent and mainstream) to discover the information our students desired: documentaries such as “9/11 Press For Truth” and “Zero: An Investigation into 9/11,” and required readings, “The Terror Timeline” by Paul Thompson, and the 9/11 Report: The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. We discovered and discussed information from countless scholars, groups, sources and Web sites with volumes of information relating to 9/11, such as The Project for The New American Century, Dr. David Ray Griffin’s “The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions” and Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth.
We encouraged our students to be their own media by creating a YouTube video about any topic related to 9/11 as their final project. Most students focused their projects on the inconsistencies relating to 9/11, and many focused on the history – past U.S. foreign policies and what roles they might have played in the events of 9/11. Some students even conducted campus interviews, finding and showing an unfortunate abundance of common, often improperly, or not fully informed understandings of historic events. We taught this class three semesters in a row, and it was consistently the most popular and highly peer-recommended class within its particular program, which shows that even 10 years after the event, 9/11 continues to be a relevant and important scholarly topic.
I taught social studies to grades 8-12, in a private school, for three years. One of the essential questions we looked at was, How was 9/11 exploited, for political purposes? Since the students were inundated with a textbook perspective that didn’t examine the erosion of civil liberties after 9/11, I sought to give the students a viewpoint that is more akin to Howard Zinn’s in “A People’s History of the United States.: We looked at how whistleblowers, 9/11 victims’ relatives, and other voices of dissent were marginalized. In post-9/11 Ameica, critical thinking about the government often was, and still is, characterized as denigrating the memories of those who died on that tragic day. 9/11 should not be used as a tool to indoctrinate students into blindly obeying the government. Fighting terrorism should never imply ignoring the Constitution.
— Michael J. Berman
I was in eighth grade when the towers fell. I was in my classroom 19 blocks from the Twin Towers when the planes struck. I remember every detail of that day.
The school in which I was sitting at the time of the attack is a progressive K-8 school in Greenwich Village. Each year our homeroom curriculum focused on a particular subject and other disciplines found ways to incorporate that topic. In seventh grade my homeroom’s focus was the culture and belief system of Islam. I cannot express how grateful I am to have gained an un-biased perspective on Islamic tradition before the attacks. Because of my curriculum, even as a 13-year-old I was fully aware that this horrible event was perpetrated by a small, fanatical group of Muslims and that the community overall was peaceful and loving.
I think that it is so important when teaching about 9/11 to emphasize that the people behind the attacks do no represent the Islamic community as a whole. Making an effort to do so is required to prevent prejudice from developing in young and impressionable minds.
— Sarah Philips
In my eighth grade U.S. history class, we debate the merits of having a 9/11 national holiday through a 3-corner debate. We look at a few opposing views on why 9/11 should, or should not be addressed in classrooms and then I write the statement on the board, “9/11 should be deemed a national holiday by the U.S. Congress.” Students take a stand in one of three corners of the classroom 1) Strongly Agree 2) Somewhat Agree/Somewhat Disagree 3) Strongly Disagree. One student at a time from each group then has a chance to try to convince students from the other corners of the classroom to move to their corner. To conclude, we discuss who had the strongest argument and why. This is only a one-day, 50-minute lesson. It sparks great debate over the ways we really want to remember the 9/11 tragedy.
— Jill DiCuffa
I drew a lot of comfort from re-reading the details of the Blitz of London, and realizing that if London recovered from months of nightly bombings, NYC and the US would recover from the events of that morning.
Students should always be taught how the people of NYC, Washington and the rest of the US resolved to move beyond the unimaginable, how the world banded together to support us, and how the heroes of that day and the ones that followed turned the story of 9/11 into one about the bravery and devotion to duty that our people can show.
It will serve them well when drawing connections and relationships from 9/11 to unimaginable events that occur in their adulthood.
— Mark Moran
Pam Moran and Ira Socol, who wrote the guest post Teaching 9/11 | Why? How?, also shared four project ideas with us. Here are descriptions of their projects (they are fleshed out on Mr. Socol’s blog, SpeEdChange):
- Localizing history – Examining “big events” in the history of the community where your school is located, focusing on how the stories about those events are shared and how they have changed, commemorative gestures like memorials or plaques and groups that play a role in keeping the history of the event alive. In groups, students conduct interviews and visit local sites in addition to conducting research.
- Considering how history is created – Considering and investigating comparisons of other significant events to those of Sept. 11, 2001 by generating research questions related to how various groups in the United States remember those events differently and how those differences affect political and personal decisions. Groups of students then search for primary sources and images, including global news sources like The New York Times.
- Considering iconic absence – How does a place deal with the loss of a landmark? Why might it be important to many New Yorkers to have the ground zero site rebuilt with tall towers? What landmarks define where you live? Have any local landmarks been lost? Students search local history to find lost landmarks and photograph the locations where they once existed. How did locals feel when these landmarks were lost? Students can create QR codes to tag locations in their community, leading users to images of landmark views of the past or to interviews with those who remember the landmark, or to stories about the landmark.
- Reflecting on knowledge of history – What do American students know about U.S. and global history? What do students around the world know about their own country’s history and about world history? Does emphasizing certain historic events in curriculum affect how a nation behaves in the world? Students investigate various incidents and how it is taught and recalled.
– Pam Moran and Ira Socol
Ideas for Younger Students
I teach 7th and 8th grade English in a rural northwest Ohio school district. I use two picture books to teach about 9/11. Students fold a 8-1/2″ x 11″ piece of paper into fourths and we use both sides. I stop three times throughout the books and have students write to a prompt for each “box”: a connection, vocabulary word, a prediction, etc. and the fourth box is always a drawing. The two books I use are “The Man Who Walked Between the Towers” by Mordicai Gerstein and “Fireboat” by Maira Kalman. Our social studies teacher shows the junior high students a DVD she made of images from 9/11 set to music.
— Erika Snyder
In the past I have asked my 8th grade students to interview a family member about their memories of where they were, and the impact the day had on them. The students then have the opportunity to share with the class if they choose. In addition, because it is the 10th anniversary, I plan to create a gallery of images posted on big paper where students may silently post, in writing, their responses to each image.
— Karen Dorr
My students were not yet born in 2001, and many of them have never been to New York, or even the United States. Most have very little background knowledge about 9/11.
Every year on Sept. 11th, I read “The Man Who Walked Between the Towers,” by Mordicai Gernstein, to my students. I’ve read this book to students from first grade to fifth grade. They are drawn in by the true story of Philippe Petit, and the book is a powerful vehicle for introducing this topic. The book leads naturally to generating questions and discussion. I highly recommend it for elementary classrooms.
— Greg Feezell
My fourth graders and I are interviewing the adults in our building to ask them this question: “How has your faith been strengthened or your relationship with God changed?” I teach at a Catholic school and we are focusing on the good that came out of 9/11.
After the interviews, each student will create or locate an image to accompany the words. We will then put the voice and image to music as a multimedia presentation to share with our school and our parent community.
— Renee Streicher
I haven’t yet decided how I will address this because I have to have a sense of my new students first — as this is history to them I need to know if they have personal connections or if it is remote to them. Being a New Yorker it is a difficult anniversary for me, but not necessarily for them and I want to keep that in mind as I consider what they need not what I need.
I am considering reading aloud and discussing a new picture book, “America Is Under Attack: September 11, 2001: The Day the Towers Fell” by Don Brown, which will publish on Aug. 16.
— Monica Edinger
Carmen Agra Deedy’s picture book “14 Cows for America” tells the true story of an African medical student, his Masai village and the generous gift they wish to present to America after 9/11. It’s a great jumping off point!
— Susan Robie
We have taught about 9/11 in our elementary school, with age-appropriate material since it occurred. we not only have a word of silence, read stories,sing songs, write poems, draw pictures, express feelings, but we have established a 9/11 Memorial Perennial Garden that the students work in and have lessons in. This year in commemoration of the 10th anniversary, we will be holding a special assembly, where the students will express their feelings in song, poems,etc and will rededicate our garden. The garden serves a twofold purpose: to never forget those lost on that day while serving as promise for the future to strive for peace. Every school throughout the nation should have 9/11 curriculum in place. I am currently on a quest to write curriculum particularly for the elementary school age child. This should never be forgotten and is a piece of history every child in America should know about.


(This is the Learning Episode 5 for Shane Doyle (Crow) and Megkian Doyle’s teaching unit, “Living within the Four Base Tipi Poles of the Apsáalooke Homeland.”)
Five 50-minute class periods
By Shane Doyle
Most American Indian tribes did not use surnames, or last names. Many American Indian people experienced name changes during the course of their lives that reflected their experiences and thus, were known by several different names throughout their lifetimes. For people outside of this culture it may seem difficult to trace families, but because of the rich oral traditions that are an important part of American Indian culture, tribal elders know their family histories going back many generations.
Mainstream American naming patterns give children surnames that generally reflect their relationship to their father’s family. This naming system is considered patrilineal. The patrilineal system of naming reflected early colonial beliefs that the wife was the property of the husband. In contrast, many American Indian tribes did not have the concept of ownership of land or people, but instead governed their affairs according to a concept of stewardship. These tribes often trace their lineage through their clans or their mother’s side of the family (matrilineal).
When the U.S. government began enumerating American Indian populations, Native naming systems were not compatible with their concept of lineage so federal census employees began replacing traditional names with a first and last name. Often the first name given was considered a “Christian name” and was followed by the person’s original American Indian name.
The four people in the Famous Apsáalooke People in 2014 all have names that illustrate this history: Mardell Plainfeather, Christian Takes Gun, Kevin Red Star, and Joe Medicine Crow. In the lessons that follow students will become familiar with these important members of the Crow Tribe.
COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS
CCSS Literacy RH 10-1
Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, attending to such features as the date and origin of the information.
CCSS Literacy RST 10-6
Analyze the author’s purpose in providing and explanation, describing a procedure, or discussing an experiment in a text, defining the question the author seeks to address.
CCSS Literacy WHST 10-2
Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures/experiments, or technical processes.
CCSS Literacy WHST 10-8
Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess the usefulness of each source in answering the research question; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.
CCSS Literacy WHST 10-9
Draw evidence from informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
CCSS Literacy SL 10-1
Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 9-10 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
CCSS Literacy SL 10-1d
Respond thoughtfully to diverse perspectives, summarize points of agreement and disagreement, and, when warranted, qualify or justify their own views and understanding and make new connections in light of the evidence and reasoning presented.
GOALS FOR UNDERSTANDING
Students will understand
- What an ethnography is.
- The role that ethnographic study has played in the formation of our understandings about people groups.
- The role of the researcher in ethnographic research. An American Indian perspective on a chosen issue gained though ethnographic study.
- How to conduct an ethnographic study.
- The importance of presenting the voice of the culture as an authentic source of reliable and viable information.
- The purpose of ethnography, ethnopoetry, and ethnophotography.
- How history has been formed through the use of historical writing and photographic images.
- How photos and ethnographic writing can improve or mislead our construction of reality.
- How images and words are used in our culture.
- How images and ethnographic writing can create stereotypes and misinformation or achieve greater accuracy through the use of certain types of ethnographic methodology.
- What is ethnography? Who is an ethnographer?
- How do we know what we know about people who are alive today?
- How do we know what we know about people of the past?
- How are our ideas of character and culture formed by ethnographic work?
- How accurate are our perceptions of historical people?
- How does ethnography help/hinder our understanding of the “truth” about people?
- How did Lewis and Clark’s ethnographic work contribute to our understanding of and beliefs about American Indian people?
- How does ethnopoetry of the type written by Mardell Plainfeather help us to understand people more accurately?
- How are images and words used to communicate messages about our past, our history?
- What influences the interpretation of images and ethnographies from the past?
- How is meaning constructed from images and ethnographies?
- How does culture affect our interpretation of images and ethnographies?
- How does power influence the use and interpretation of images and ethnographies?
- How do images and written records construct our “reality”?
Students will be able to
- Discern the intended message and links to historical events and climate of the time in which various photos and writing are used.
- Examine how photographic images and ethnographic writing construct our reality and either improve or mislead our understanding of it.
- Compare photographic and written messages to actual truths to determine the direction of influence of each image.
- Understand the power and influence of image and ethnographic record in our history and also consider the roles of those wielding power to use images and words to influence the masses.
- Understand and value the power that the use of images and words potentially hold.
- Utilize critical thinking and independent thought to evaluate images and ethnographies and their intended messages and subsequent influence.
Suggested Formative Assessment of Learning Outcomes
Epistemology discussion—Can students evaluate the source of their beliefs and the authenticity/reliability of these sources?
The Lewis and Clark scenario discussion—Can students recognize how “truth” is impacted by perspective?
Ronda reading—Can students explain how our ideas about “the other” are constructed?
Thinking about ethnography—Can students identify the effect of ethnography on our constructed understanding of humanity? Can students identify the qualities of a good ethnographer?
Plainfeather interview—Can students define ethnopoetry and explain its value to the discipline of ethnography?
Ethnopoetry reading—Can students explain how this example of ethnopoetry illustrates the utility of this form of ethnography?
Photography discussion—Can students recognize how perception of images continue to shape our construction of reality?
For each presentation the class will discuss what is seen and what is not seen, what is true and what may not be.
Following the lesson students will show continued care in considering images and records and their intended messages.
Following the lesson students will show continued careful consideration of the source of photos and writing and the truths being represented.
Culminating Performance Assessment of Learning Outcomes
Ethnography project presentation – students should organize their information and present it to the class, discussing how the ethnographic procedures helped them to better understand a group of people, how the study may have changed or improved their own thinking, reflections on the experience of being an ethnographer (objectivity), etc.
For the ethnographic research study students will design and conduct a study of a group they wish to know more about. Their final product should interpret the results of the study.
Students will gather a verbal recording and engage in ethnographic research by translating the recording into an ethnopoetic interpretation. They will discuss the value of presenting information in this way.
For the historical photography project, each student will research who took the photo, something significant about the person’s background that may contribute to the WHY of the photo’s taking, the historical climate at the time of the photo’s taking and public display, the intended purpose of the use of the photo, and the public’s reaction to the photo and present this information competently and in an organized fashion to the class.
For the cultural photography project, each student will take a set number of photos attempting to capture the essence of a specific cultural group. Students will present their photos mounted on a standard sized piece of poster board. Each student will present what he/she feels is represented by each photo and what this idea tells about the culture being depicted.
Ethnography is the scientific description of the customs of individual peoples and cultures. Lewis and Clark used journals to collect ethnographic descriptions of the people they encountered. These descriptions became a foundation for what people in America who were far removed from the western frontier, knew about the American Indian people Lewis and Clark encountered. The accuracy of their ethnography and all ethnographies, is dependent upon the accuracy of the perceptions collected. It is important to recognize that there are multiple perspectives surrounding any event and that even though ethnography is a scientific process, and ethnographers try to create an objective record of the observations and experiences, ethnography is still a human endeavor that can contain misperceptions and untruths along with the valuable information they collect about a subject.
One of the most difficult tasks presenters of Native issues face is how to present images of Indian people and information about Indian people that will not encourage the continuation of stereotypes or misinformation. Because so much of our information about Indian people has been derived from a pictorial and written history of tribal life in the past, interpreted through non-Indian eyes and voices, much of the non-fiction of Indian life is unknown, misunderstood, or misinterpreted. Indian people must grapple with how their images are appropriated for profit (the use of Indian imagery and ideas to sell the popular Old West or mystical Indian ideas) and how images and words are used by the media to present them as a people.
One method Mardell Plainfeather, a member of the Crow (Apsáalooke) tribe, has explored to collect an accurate Apsáalooke perspective on a historical period is to employ what is known as ethnopoetics. Ethnopoetics is a method of recording text versions of oral poetry or narrative performances (i.e., storytelling) that uses poetic lines, verses, and stanzas (instead of prose paragraphs) to capture the poetic performance elements which would otherwise be lost in the written texts. The goal of ethnopoetry is to accurately reflect the unique manner in which information is shared orally within a specific cultural context.
According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, “An ethnography is a descriptive study of a particular human society or the process of making such a study. Contemporary ethnography is based almost entirely on fieldwork and requires the complete immersion of the anthropologist in the culture and everyday life of the people who are the subject of his study.
There has been some confusion regarding the terms ethnography and ethnology. The latter, a term more widely used in Europe, encompasses the analytical and comparative study of cultures in general, which in American usage is the academic field known as cultural anthropology (in British usage, social anthropology). Increasingly, however, the distinction between the two is coming to be seen as existing more in theory than in fact. Ethnography, by virtue of its intersubjective nature, is necessarily comparative. Given that the anthropologist in the field necessarily retains certain cultural biases, his observations and descriptions must, to a certain degree, be comparative. Thus the formulating of generalizations about culture and the drawing of comparisons inevitably become components of ethnography.
The description of other ways of life is an activity with roots in ancient times. Herodotus, the Greek traveler and historian of the 5th century BC, wrote of some 50 different peoples he encountered or heard of, remarking on their laws, social customs, religion, and appearance. Beginning with the age of exploration and continuing into the early 20th century, detailed accounts of non-European peoples were rendered by European traders, missionaries, and, later, colonial administrators. The reliability of such accounts varies considerably, as the Europeans often misunderstood what they saw or had a vested interest in portraying their subjects less than objectively.
Modern anthropologists usually identify the establishment of ethnography as a professional field with the pioneering work of the Polish-born British anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski in the Trobriand Islands of Melanesia (c. 1915). Ethnographic fieldwork has since become a sort of rite of passage into the profession of cultural anthropology. Many ethnographers reside in the field for a year or more, learning the local language or dialect and, to the greatest extent possible, participating in everyday life while at the same time maintaining an observer’s objective detachment. This method, called participant-observation, while necessary and useful for gaining a thorough understanding of a foreign culture, is in practice quite difficult. Just as the anthropologist brings to the situation certain inherent, if unconscious, cultural biases, so also is he influenced by the subject of his study. While there are cases of ethnographers who felt alienated or even repelled by the culture they entered, many—perhaps most— have come to identify closely with “their people,” a factor that affects their objectivity.
In addition to the technique of participant-observation, the contemporary ethnographer usually selects and cultivates close relationships with individuals, known as informants, who can provide specific information on ritual, kinship, or other significant aspects of cultural life. In this process also the anthropologist risks the danger of biased viewpoints, as those who most willingly act as informants frequently are individuals who are marginal to the group and who, for ulterior motives (e.g., alienation from the group or a desire to be singled out as special by the foreigner), may provide other than objective explanations of cultural and social phenomena. A final hazard inherent in ethnographic fieldwork is the ever-present possibility of cultural change produced by or resulting from the ethnographer’s presence in the group.
Contemporary ethnographies usually adhere to a community, rather than individual, focus and concentrate on the description of current circumstances rather than historical events. Traditionally, commonalities among members of the group have been emphasized, though recent ethnography has begun to reflect an interest in the importance of variation within cultural systems. Ethnographic studies are no longer restricted to small primitive societies but may also focus on such social units as urban ghettos. The tools of the ethnographer have changed radically since Malinowski’s time. While detailed notes are still a mainstay of fieldwork, ethnographers have taken full advantage of technological developments such as motion pictures and tape recorders to augment their written accounts.”
ethnography. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved September 15, 2013, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9033138
INTRODUCTION TO ETHNOGRAPHY
Examples of ethnographic studies (see resources listed below)
Begin by asking students to think about all the people we know about from different countries, ethnic groups, and cultures.
- Have we experienced all of these groups of people and cultures personally?
- How do we know what we think we know about different people groups?
- Where did our information come from?
- How has it been constructed over time?
- How does the past influence the present when we think about how we see people?
- What would be the best way to really understand what it’s like to be a part of a specific group?
For instance, if I as your teacher, wanted to better understand what it’s like to be an avid skateboarder (or some other pertinent group), what would I have to do to gain that information? Allow students to suggest ways you could study this group. What things might help me get good information and what things my hinder me? (The researcher’s interaction or lack thereof with the group, the willingness of participants to divulge truthfully or fully, preconceived opinions/assumptions the researcher has, etc.)
As a second example ask students what they know about North American Indians. Ask them to consider how they know what they know and how accurate and authentic they feel their understandings are. Next, ask students to hypothetically consider studying a North American tribe to better understand a specific tribe as a unique cultural group. What would students be interested in studying or understanding? How could they go about gathering information that would be authentic and reliable?
Introduce students to a formal definition of “ethnography” explaining how ethnographies contribute to our understanding of people groups, how they inform and misinform us, how ethnographers are influenced by the beliefs of their own time, how ethnographers try to be objective while also participating in the group, how ethnographers collect data (photographs, audio or video recordings, written journals or other writings), etc.
Read some samples from the suggested texts or websites in the resources list below. Allow students to evaluate the value, authenticity, and objectivity of the excerpts. Discuss what each author wants to know about and how he/she has gone about gaining good information. Discuss some of the barriers/challenges these authors may have had in gathering good information.
Introduce the North American Tribes ethnography project. In this project students may study any aspect of life related to any of the North American tribes. Students will draft a single research project to focus their work as individuals, in small groups, or as a class. Possible questions might be: What is it like to be a bicultural teenager? Why is living on the (specific reservation) reservation important to Native Americans who do? What is it like to be an urban Indian? How do Indian (choose a specific tribe) young people define their identities? How do (specific tribe) Indian young people view the role of elders in their tribes? What is the experience of (specific tribe) Indians who participate in pow wows, etc.? As a next step ask students to plan whom they will contact for information and how they will gather this information. If interviews are chosen, students should draft a series of interview questions to guide their questioning. Set specific parameters for the amount of information to be gathered and also suggest resources for students to pursue (tribal colleges, Native American studies departments, Indian organizations, willing Indian students or adults, etc.) One or two interview sources should be adequate for students to gain a substantial amount of new information. As individuals, small groups, or as a class students should organize their information and present it to the class, discussing how the ethnographic procedures helped them to better understand a group of people, how the study may have changed or improved their own thinking, reflections on the experience of being an ethnographer (objectivity), etc.
DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION FOR ADVANCED AND EMERGING LEARNERS
Base ethnographic example information on auditory resources for struggling learners to reduce the amount of reading and comprehension work and create concrete examples of what to do for the assignment. Pair struggling learners with other students for the group project. For advanced learners allow students to choose an ethnographic study and evaluate it for bias, motivation, etc.
Counting Coups: A True Story of Basketball and Honor on the Little Big Horn by Larry Colton (a contemporary example of ethnographic writing about Crow Indian young people based in Hardin, MT.)
A Braid of Lives Edited by Neil Philip Publication Date: 2000
This book is a study of Native American childhood experiences through the compilation of direct quotations about childhood.
Artist Julie Mehretu designed an ethnographic study that eventually became part of the permanent collection of the Hennepin History Museum in Minneapolis, MN. Go to this site for an inspirational excerpt about the project. An interactive Web site that incorporates the stories she collected can be found at http://tceastafrica.walkerart.org.
EXPLORING THE ETHNOGRAPHY OF LEWIS AND CLARK
Copy of scenarios
- Kinesthetic (depending on research project choices)
The ethnographic collections of Lewis and Clark are discussed at length through the Harvard Peabody Museum. See images of some of the remaining artifacts brought to Washington D.C. as a result of Lewis and Clark’s expedition.
Allow 10 minutes for students to share their answers to the questions below with either small peer groups or the whole-class learning group. Imagine you are on the Lewis and Clark expedition. You are charged with bringing back a report of the people, places, animals, and land forms you encounter.
- In describing the different tribes of Indians you encountered what types of observations should you make?
- How would you make meaning of the new things you were seeing?
- What types of information about these people groups should be included in your journal reports?
- What do you need to know about a group of people in order to accurately define them?
Provide half the class with Lewis and Clark’s report of the Clatsop stealing their elk meat. Give the other half the Clatsop story of Lewis and Clark stealing their canoe. Based on the description of this encounter, how would you define the character of the other group?
Group 1 Scenario
We have been stuck on the west coast all winter and each of us is eager to complete this mission and return home. We are going to need a lot of canoes to make an expedient return trip. We have purchased a few, but we need more. The Clatsops know how much we want them and I think this keeps them from trading with us for a canoe. We recently killed an elk. It was so big we were only able to carry a small portion of it back to our fort on foot. When returning to get the remainder of the elk, we found it had been stolen by the Clatsop. Today we plan to take a Clatsop canoe in exchange for that meat.
Group 2 Scenario
Lewis and Clark’s men have long been after us about the price of a canoe. We have been very generous with them although they have shared little with us. They do not have enough goods in all their stores to match the price of one of our fine canoes. Our 30-foot cutwater canoes can carry 10,000 pounds of goods for them. They are so valuable we give them as wedding gifts (brideprice) and they are the burial vessels for our greatest people. One of these canoes was stolen by Lewis and Clark’s men today. They say they have taken it in exchange for some elk meat, elk meat they left behind for the wolves to eat because they weren’t prepared to carry what they killed on the hunt.
Ask students to report on their thoughts about the description of “the other” from their given perspective. Then read both scenarios aloud so that the whole class can hear the two different perspectives on the same event. It is important for students to understand that although ethnography is scientific, there may be more than one truth involved. It is also important to realize that while Lewis and Clark were studying the Natives, they were also the objects of study for the tribes they encountered. Both sides were taking notes.
Read how James Ronda, an author on the topic of the Corps of Discovery, describes what this must have been like in retrospect.
At the expedition’s departure from Fort Clatsop on March 22, 1806, Lewis wrote in his journal that Coboway “has been much more kind an[d] hospitable to us than any other indian in this neighbourhood.”
Imagine someone has come to study the teenagers in your class. What do you think they will observe and how do you think they will interpret what they see? What things may influence the way in which they write about you (their perspective and tone)? How would you like to be represented? What would be a fair representation? If a group of 40-year-old scientists collected ethnographic information about your class, do you feel like they would understand what they observed? What things do you think you would have to explain to them?
In small groups make a list of the qualities an ethnographer needs have to conduct a valuable study (unbiased, patient, thorough, open-minded, etc.). What does an ethnographer need to know about him/herself in order to conduct an effective study?
Advanced discovery — Think of a people group you would like to better understand. It could be kindergarteners, skateboarders, school principals, custodians, parents, etc. Design an ethnographic study. Before beginning the study examine yourself as the ethnographic researcher. What is your motivation for doing the study? What biases might you have? Do you already expect to see something in particular? What impact might this expectation have on your study? Conduct the study to collect information about the group. You may record your observations and experiences in any form you wish (i.e., you could collect objects associated with the group, record verbal or video files (with their permission), draw pictures of important events, people, objects, etc., write journal entries, or any other recording method you can imagine, as long as it records accurately). What things did you learn about your population? Did you learn anything unexpected? How has your study influenced your perceptions of this group? How do you think your study will influence others who read it?
DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION FOR ADVANCED AND EMERGING LEARNERS
Struggling learners may be given more time to respond to the questions posed in discussion if they are allowed to take a list home and respond in writing or through voice recording. (Many students have phones with recording capabilities and can send audio files to a teacher’s email.) Struggling students may also be paired with peers who can help guide them through discussion. They could also be paired with a peer to conduct the ethnographic study. Advanced learners can do a deeper analysis of the findings of their ethnographic research. They may also be instructed to read a formal ethnographic study to gain insight into the process and methods for this type of research and technical writing.
Harvard Peabody Museum’s website with a record of objects collected by Lewis and Clark for their ethnographic study
THE ETHNOPOETRY OF MARDELL PLAINFEATHER
- Copy of the book The Woman Who Loved Mankind, Lilian Bullshows Hogan or a link to view the first chapter on Amazon
- Cell phone
Ethnopoetry is a form of ethnography. Ethnopoetics is a method of recording text versions of oral poetry or narrative performances (i.e., storytelling) that uses poetic lines, verses, and stanzas (instead of prose paragraphs) to capture the poetic performance elements which would otherwise be lost in the written texts. The goal of ethnopoetry is to accurately reflect the unique manner in which information is shared orally within a specific cultural context. Mardell Plainfeather is a contemporary member of the Crow (Apsáalooke) tribe. She has used ethnopoetics to record the voice of her mother as a means of showing a more accurate picture of Crow life, thought, spirituality, identity etc. Listen to a public radio audio recording of an interview with Mardell Plainfeather about her book, The Woman Who Loved Mankind, Lilian Bullshows, Hogan. The book uses ethnopoetry to record the life story of a twentieth-century Crow elder.
- How might ethnopoetry better explain a person or people than other forms of ethnography?
- What are the advantages of using ethnopoetry to learn about people?
- Why did Mardell choose ethnopoetry to record Lilian’s life?
Allow students to read an excerpt from Mardell’s book. The sections are short and can be read in about 5 minutes. You can either purchase a copy of her book or the first chapter can be read on Amazon by clicking on the picture of the book where it says, “Look Inside”. Students should read a segment and then examine the ways in which this literary form of ethnography may add to what we already know about Crow people from ethnographic work and other sources. How can ethnopoetics give us insight into the lives of a particular group of people? What does it teach us about humanity?
Using a cell phone, record a person or two people speaking. How does the way that they talk give you insight into who they are and the things that influence them? Listen to your recording. How can this conversation be written so that it most effectively and accurately conveys the ethnographic information? Write up your conversation using the idea of ethnopoetics as a guide. Trade your ethnopoetry with another group. Analyzing what you have read, talk to the group about what their ethnopoetry communicated to you about the people you recorded.
DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION FOR ADVANCED AND EMERGING LEARNERS
Advanced students may read and analyze larger portions of the Plainfeather text and also examine other examples of ethnopoetry to look at differences and similarities between the examples. They may also analyze the effectiveness of these forms to communicate information about people groups. Rather than reading a portions of the Plainfeather text, the text could be read aloud for struggling students.
Public radio interview with Mardell Plainfeather about her ethnopoetic work.
Amazon site for The Woman Who Loved Mankind, the “look inside” link will allow students to read the first chapter
- A selection of historical photographs (you could consider using the historic photos found in Supaman’s You Tube video, The Prayer in the Christian Takes Gun lesson).
- Disposable cameras or cell phones with picture-taking capabilities
- Poster board
Discuss the power of image in various historical contexts (i.e., Lewis and Clark’s drawings or the iconography surrounding the Corps of Discovery, J.F.K’s presidential election following the first televised debate, Hitler’s use of film and photograph as war propaganda – the construction of an alternate reality, WWII raising of the flag photograph illustrated in the movie Flags of Our Fathers as well as other images that moved the American people – Hurricane Katrina, atrocities in Darfur, AIDS in Africa, images of jets flying into the World Trade Center, etc.) During this discussion consider questions of the following nature: What is true about each photograph? How does the photo craft or influence our sense of reality? What meaning do we construe from each photo? What is the intended message or meaning? How does who controls the photo affect how we see it?
Allow students to select a historic photograph (independently or from a predetermined selection) to research. For each photograph students should find out who took the photo, something significant about the person’s background that may contribute to the WHY of the photo’s taking, the historical climate at the time of the photo’s taking and public display, the intended purpose of the use of the photo, and the public’s reaction to the photo. Students should present the photos and their research to the class. These presentations should be used as a bridge to discuss other photos that have shaped and continue to shape our beliefs about reality (such as those of Native Americans). When we see contemporary photos of Indian people we usually see them in their dance regalia. What is the significance of this observation? What do photos like this tell us about Indian people? What don’t they tell us? Is what photos like these communicate true about Indian people? What is the purpose of using these types of photographs? Why is their use to depict contemporary Indian people so prevalent? Consider the photographs of Indian students taken during the boarding school era. Carlisle Indian Industrial School has many before and after photos of students. The first photos were taken when students entered the boarding schools. Students were photographed in their “Native” clothing and often placed sitting on the ground. Their dark skin was enhanced photographically. The second photos were taken after students were “civilized”. Students were photographed in military uniform or domestics clothing, seated on chairs, and their skin appears lighter. What was the purpose of these photos? Scroll down this web page to see pictures of Tom Torlino.
Engage students in a discussion about how we take pictures of people. What are we trying to capture about them? How do we depict culture through photography? If we want to tell a story or capture the essence of the way in which a group of people live, what should we try to photograph? The use of the quotes and other materials included in the books and excerpts referenced below would lend much to this discussion. Consider reading some parts of these books aloud or allowing students to read these books.
Following the discussion and readings, give each student a disposable camera (or ask each student to purchase one or use cell phones) and ask them to use the set number of photos to capture the essence of a cultural group. (You may need to discuss what a cultural group is at this time.) As a way of allowing students to really think about what they “see” in other people, allow students to present their photos, mounted on a standard sized piece of poster board. Each student should present what he/she feels is represented by each photo and what this idea tells about the culture being depicted. For each presentation discuss as a class what is seen and what is not seen, what is true and what may not be. Also consider mentioning how possible biases may influence the taking of photos. Students should understand that biases are not necessarily bad, they just require awareness.
DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION FOR ADVANCED AND EMERGING LEARNERS
Allow struggling students to verbalize their descriptions of the photos they take rather than creating a poster board. This verbalization could happen in smaller groups or oneon- one with a teacher or peer depending on the level of modification needed. Advanced learners may work with controversial photos and research the impact of these photos on later historical events. They might also design a research study to show how people respond to photos they take to see how messages are transmitted through images or analyze cultural images in film or commercials.
Excavating Voices: Listening to Photographs of Native Americans, by Michael Katakis, University of Pennsylvania Museum, 1998, ISBN 0-92-417157-X
Regarding the Pain of Others, by Susan Sontag
“The photographs are a means of making “real” (or “more real”) matters that the privileged and the merely safe might prefer to ignore.” (p.7)
Carlisle Indian School photographs of Tom Torlino