Said The Raven....U Pick It

Actually said the raven ...it was all was a "writing idea" motivator I had here on the fly this week. It followed something I've wanted to blog for a few days.I want to share our days in 1st grade so much is going on. I'm way behind on getting to my blogs the things that I want to share. WAYYYYYY behind due to illness and hard work.
1st grade require a great deal of me, endless testing and almost no time to reflect or prepare.
By Raven I do not mean Poe, I'm talking of a Pacific Northwest Indian tale!

(A little note of pleasure this week, my husband was selected to present at AERA and that on our shared project in my room on the orbital calendar and watching a year in shadows cast in an observation of the analema. Basically a year of more hard work. I'm late starting the project this year, rather discouraged in doing so by rigid site changes. But as they say the show must go on, info here..

Sun and Shadows

The 2nd observation, Shadows, ChalkArt

The 1st Observation, Explaining that watching Shadows has interesting meanings

Looking at Morning Light)

So I do want to start with November, what's been going on this year. This year I'm collecting my students together in a circle 1 time a day to share stories of immigrants, Native Americans and what I like to call the ways many people over time have "explained" things through their art and writing to the young.

I have an enormous set of books and children are using. In this they are both learning another genre and choosing their books. Choosing is fun! Additionally they chart this by title, author, likes, and in time then can do this after January in their own individual reading logs for "their" independent reading. It's a way into this future goal.
Contrast this with an effort of ours also quite planned and involved to teach the science the District adopted. There we work with a scientific method. And we really start careful observation and stopping the inclination to reach for invented explanation by starting to watch the earth go around the sun, using shadows. I got ahead of myself and almost wrote this as the "sun around earth." Yikes. In both experiences however we see our earth as central, figuring out, explaining, understanding a part of who we are.But there is in this an opportunity for differentiation of myth over method. And in our world this seems to hang a lot of people up.

First off this year has had a few absences on my part. That's hurt a great deal So we are reading and making in roads into finding out how to relate to each other........with lots of boys who like to get to and into things. And sometimes maybe do a somersault too...

In November, as stated, we read books that represent Native American cultural groups, thei art, wisdom, philosophy if you will. It's rather interesting in our circle U Pick It Time in my classroom. I know for a FACT many children do not hold yet the capacity this year to understand "past" if only from observing the daily restating of our routines.

Quite frankly my group doesn't yet really grasp that we have built this world through time. That there were those before us, even in their family many do not know ancestors as a construct beyond those they know, this year overall many are sill trying hard to meet daily needs. To understand my language in English, to figure out how to do what is in the minute. Imagine past tense introduced into that. Infinitely difficult.
It is a year where switching to a talk of "long, long ago" sounds a lot like adults in Charlie Brown..." ummhummah ummm" I know this. Our social studies standards requires we address community, the past. So my work is to provide the contexts. And believe me it is work.

I have a real affinity for story and for the struggle we have to "be," so the Native people have quite a lot for us to hear.And quite a lot to add to the November ideas.
We might be learning to keep an identification with who they were, who they are and how this speaks to others ( us) as the fundamental values of a group are conveyed through oral story.
It is interesting to me that The Earth is so core here, because in our readers that springs forward homogenized though it may be....the earth will be a theme 7.

So in my 1st grade we have this mentioned time called U Pick It. ( we have tummy vision too but it's entirely different) I have not altered this, though I was mandated to do so, in that the "new" structures did not use literature pieces presented by the teacher at all. No real shared reading besides some rather poor "passages" that intro these themes. Right now we are in "Let's Look Around" I have a giant box of books, each child chooses a book, we gather in a circle and I share ( ok I read it) the story. Each month I focus on story and book skills such as finding author, title, tracking...identification of genres, deciding if fiction or non-fiction and as time goes on this grows more complex. Right now children vote on a scale ( thumbs way up, to thumbs wayy down-hey it's a rubric) after the book to decide their likes/dislikes. In this way they begin their way into book reports. Essentially as we model the process of listening actively as well with questions, discussion, multiple requests for polite listening...ugh.. Engagement and authenticity are the heart of this. Teach Read Aloud along with many fine things has been hit hard in the Bush-capades years.(sorry)

The first book I want to recommend oddly was the first chosen. It is called Raven. Today my kids worked to make a response in art. A pacific Coast tale it's wonderful and the "stylization" of the art a real opportunity to talk about how art can evolve "norms" or styles by groups of artists. Not at all lost on a very good group of makers. My class is a maker group.

You no doubt know the book:

Raven: A Trickster Tale from the Pacific Northwest by Gerald McDermott, Gerald McDermott (Illustrator)

Raven is really totally revealed here. If you go to that link you'll see how great the story really is.
I was delighted to start the month listening to the story of how light was tricked from the Sky Chief 's abode into the realm of "the people" by the raven. Outside our room we watch ravens, huge and mysterious one often when we walk in late after the school is tucked away, one raven openly talks to my class and we have spread some different seed for him. His fury with us after recess is often evident and his willingness to remain near us quite vexing. So in some ways my class already sees the raven as a trickster figure.

In the story something is mythologically "explained" that one might call a force or a gift of nature, in this case the sun. That process of turning to man for self referential explanation seems as old as man himself and is i gather biological. And it's something I am in a way revealing. We are bound in contexts. Our story, language, meanings express this. We are within our cultural values, we can look at this. We can experience thankfully outside our own set of glasses, if you will, through shared story.

The class found the story a good one giving it a total thumbs up. And a bit of clapping.
Unsatisfied I decided to try making the raven. Then we added in writing what we thought the story told about. That was cute. I'll try to place a bit of that ear. I used chalk with them. I don't know why...Just felt like it. Boy was that interesting.

A few thoughts on using chalk, it helps to have baby wipes hangy to clean up. They smudge it with their hand so it helps to practice this so they can gain awarenesses. It also is a challenge to deal with "building up" layers. But all in all I enjoyed the results. Later today after I return from a trip to Cal tech I'll put in what kids said in the story "retells." I'm still transcribing them!

The next book chosen was this one...so I'm taking from past writing. This was also very interesting for them. They loved the DRUM!

The People Shall Continue in Those We Call The Young

Do you think the Native American perspective on Thanksgiving would teach us all something?
Something to make us stronger?
Do you know this book?

The People Shall Continue (Paperback)
by Simon Ortiz (Author), Sharol Graves (Illustrator)

I wrote a little about it a year ago.....

I am a teacher, in 1st grade, that has used my copy of this book in November for 12 plus years in multiple grade settings and really love it.. It was sold by The Children's Press out of San Fran which put out excellent tales of bi-literacy and stories from minority and immigrant cultures. I hope they still are going strong.

In this story, one that stood the test of time for me, a kind of poetic Prufrock unfolds...a song really of Native American tradition in our world from then to now...a sad song...a flowing tale of bittersweet truths and perseverance....I usually read it with a child gently keeping a rhythm of a drum I was given a few years ago by a Native Sioux family.

What does it teach to make it worth the reading journey?

The relationship to the earth, nature, care of this relationship, responsibility to care for our children and their life spaces and places, the traditions of tribal members in the beginning prior to times when native cultures were literally pulled to pieces (tho that tone is not struck in this sensitive story), the arrival of the white men, the change this wrought, dissension, unrest, new religious practice, relating to the American government, scattering of tribal culture, reservation life, suffering of Native peoples, ultimate desire for unity and peace. It's really an elegy.

Why do I use it? I think this text alone is one of the most powerful ways to try to bring into the primary room a kind of talking back story, a kind of story like understanding about history and past and awareness that will take many years, many stories, many kinds of experiences to be able to fuller absorb and understand. It's a validation of something. It's a story of message, of empowering by acknowledging, it's a story of the kinds of things history can deny or do a great job of telling in another way.

I use it to bring to the story of the first Thanksgiving the story of the giant change these times signaled to Native American's...and to begin talk about indigenous peoples, immigration and all the complexities of societies and communities.

The tone set inside the text is unique...listen...

" But one day, something unusual began to happen.

Maybe there was a small change in the wind.
Maybe there was a shift in the stars.
Maybe it was a dream that someone dreamed.
Maybe it was the strange behavior of an animal.
The People thought and remembered,

"A long time ago, there were Yellow-skinned men
who came upon the ocean to the Western Coasts"
The People Thought and remembered,
"A long time ago , there were Red-haired men who came upon the ocean to the Eastern Coasts"
But these visitors had not stayed for long.
They met with some of the People
and soon they left upon the ocean for their homes.".......

You can see the way the story unfolds the perspectives of these events and allows a teacher to drop in the facts and the fictions, the then, now and the kinds of pieces needed to bring students into awareness of cultural perspectives. It's a treasure, hope you can find and use it with a child..