Visual Aid 6

Book Title

An Indigeneous Peoples' Hisory of the United States for Young People

Subtitle

About the Author

author info

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, a New York Times best-selling author, grew up in rural Oklahoma in a tenant farming family. She has been active in the international Indigenous movement for more than 4 decades and is known for her lifelong commitment to national and international social justice issues. Dunbar-Ortiz is the winner of the 2017 Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize, and is the author or editor of many books, including An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, a recipient of the 2015 American Book Award. She lives in San Francisco.

About the Adaptors

Debbie Reese

Debbie Reese is an educator and founder of American Indians in Children’s Literature (AICL). She is tribally enrolled at Nambe Owingeh, a federally recognized tribe, and grew up on Nambe’s reservation. She holds a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Illinois.

More Info

About the Adaptors

Jean Mendoza

Jean Mendoza is a curriculum specialist focusing on the representation of Indigenous peoples in children’s and young adult literature. She holds a PhD in curriculum and instruction and an M.Ed in early childhood education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Book Summary

This book provides a history of the United States positioned from the Indigenous peoples of America. The book starts with introducing the terms and concepts that might be new to readers such as the different citizenship designations of native peoples. While conventional histories of the United States might start with Columbus or the first European settlements, this book starts off with the cultivation of and its spread throughout the Americas. It moves through the history of various indigenous peoples until it reaches the present day. The book emphasizes resistance to European settlements and the various attempts at full civil and political rights in American culture.

Introduction Summary

This lesson will focus on the introduction to the book. “This Land,” the introduction to the book, provides an overview of the main themes and premises of the book. The introduction provides an understanding of how indigenous peoples understand the land that is called the United States and introduces the idea that depending on one’s position the same history or event can be understood in different ways.

Lesson Title

Learning about Native Americans

Grade Level

Reading 1 9th Grade

TEKS

Reading I, II, III (2) The student acquires an extensive vocabulary through reading and systematic word study. The student is expected to: (A) expand vocabulary by reading, viewing, listening, and discussing; (B) determine word meanings through the study of their relationships to other words and concepts such as content, synonyms, antonyms, and analogies;

ELPS

(4) Cross-curricular second language acquisition/reading. The ELL reads a variety of texts for a variety of purposes with an increasing level of comprehension in all content areas. ELLs may be at the beginning, intermediate, advanced, or advanced high stage of English language acquisition in reading. For the ELL to meet grade-level learning expectations across the foundation and enrichment curriculum, all instruction delivered in English must be linguistically accommodated (communicated, sequenced, and scaffolded) commensurate with the student's level of English language proficiency. For Kindergarten and Grade 1, certain of these student expectations apply to text read aloud for students not yet at the stage of decoding written text.

Instructional goal(s)

Students will understand the importance of use the correct words when talking about and with Native Americans.

Learning Objective

By the end of the lesson, I (the student) will be able discuss the different words used about the origins of he United States.

Assessment

The table below shows the assessment rubric for the activity

Activity

Vocabulary Role Play

• Identify key vocabulary
• Teach the lesson or read the book
• Connect the vocabulary to past expriecnes
• Sort the words
• Plan ways to use the wors
• Give the stuents tiem to practice
• Perform the scenes
• Focus on multiple word meanings

I chose this chapter from the book as a way to introduce students, many who are new to the United States, how to properly refer to the indigenous peoples of the United States. For my activity, I am going to use the Vocabulary Role-Play strategy in the Herrell and Jordan book. As many of the words in the Introduction to the book may be known though the nuances of the author makes the vocabulary distinct, this will help students understand the distinctions. Using figure 6.2 in the Jordan and Herrell book, I presume that most students will be in the category Intermediate fluency or fluent. Below is the steps for teaching the strategy with details for each step following.

Identify key vocabulary

After reading the chapter, I believe the following words would be words that students may have difficulty understanding. As much of the vocabulary is actually phrases, these words phrases may be difficult because when put together there is a nuance that might make them unfamiliar. Using Beck and associates understanding of three tiers of vocabulary words, I chose the words and phrases in bold as tier two words. Beck separates words into three different tiers. Tier one- words students should know, tier two - words one come across mostly while reading and should explicitly teach, tier three - words that are specific to a content area. American Indians (p. 1) Native Americans (p. 1) Origin narratives (p. 4) Doctrine of Discovery (p. 4) Settler (p. 5) Colonization (p. 5) Settler colonialism (p. 6)

Read the Chapter

As this is a longer passage, it might be helpful to break the chapter into two parts and depending on the group. The most difficult problem with this chapter is that most words would be known by the students, however, the author places nuances on the vocabulary which modify the word's usage. I would modify how the books is read, to help students with some pronunciation I woold read the first section of the introduction aloud then ask students who are in the Fluent category to read the next section to themselves asking them to let me know when they are then and then have them summarize. While the group of fluent students is reading to themselves, I will work more closely with students in the Intermediate fluency and speech emergence categories.

Connect the Vocabulary to past expereicnes

This part of the lesson may be the most difficult. Depending on the student, they may be victims of these concepts and could be one of the reasons they left their country of origin.

Sort the words

With this part of the lesson, it might be helpful to discuss the nuances among settlers, colonialism, and settler colonialism. The list that I have come up with is not that long and, therefore, it might be difficult to sort the words as described in the chapter.

Plan ways to use the words

When splitting the words for the groups I would make sure that American Indians and Native Americans as words are in different groups. As students are trying to learn the difference between these words, to have these words in the same vocabulary group might be confusing. As I mentioned above, most of the students in the class somewhat fluent, I would make sure that the groups have mix of students in them.

Give students time to practice

During this time, I would go between groups to ensure that students are focused and to help if they become stuck.

Perform the scene

Students perform the scenes. This part of the exercise will be the assessment part of the lesson. Use rubric from beyond pencil and paper, pages 59 and 60. Focus on multiple word meanings

Focus on Multiple meanings

Rather than essentially review what I just said, to demonstrates the nuances and multiple meanings of the words we discussed, I would ask one of the staff who is native American discuss with the class, their understanding of the nuances and multiple meanings of the words the student learned. If they are unavailable, I would try to film them so they can help students understand the concepts they learned today.

Bibliography

Demers, C. (2000, October). Beyond paper and pencil assessments. Science and Children, 38(2), 24-60. Retrieved December 9, 2023 Dunbar-Ortiz, R., Mendoza, J., & Reese, D. (2019). An Indigeneous People's History of the United States for Young People. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Herrell, A., & Jordan, M. (2020). 50 strategies for teaching English Language Learners. Hoboken, NJ: Pearson. Herrera, S. G., Perex, D. R., & Escamilla, K. (2015). Teaching Reading to English Language Learners: Differentiated Literacies (Second ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.