Teaching Indigenous Texts During Native American Heritage Month

I've been in a reading slump for a good six months now, but I recently subbed for a class that was reading The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline, and after reading for the class, I then blasted through the rest of the book in two days.

Tommy Orange has been one of my favorite authors for a long time now. Every time I re-read There There, I love it more than the time before. And when I read Wandering Stars... I was just blown away by Orange's ability to capture so much – a variety of Indigenous experiences through generations (including the mixed experience) - in one book.

I will forever insist that chapter 14 of Wandering Stars should be required reading for all Americans. I don't know how to concisely capture what Orange illustrates in that chapter after laying the groundwork to build up to it, but essentially a mixed race high schooler, Sean Price, who's raised by a white family in a predominantly white suburb of Oakland, learns that part of his heritage is Native American, and what follows is his conversation with his father about how he should use that to his advantage when it comes to college applications. What follows in their dialogue and Sean's inner thoughts, turmoil, and reflections is an illustration of the mess of conversation that takes place in post 2017 America that I wish everyone could read and take time to sit and process.

Teaching With Cultural Humility During Native American Heritage Month

Anyways, I used to teach in a school that taught There There with juniors in American Literature, and I just thought The Marrow Thieves is an appropriate text to teach with freshman, and highly accessible.

Since it's Native American Heritage Month and I just read the book, I've been thoughtful about how I would teach The Marrow Thieves both to maintain joy and cultural humility while also not shying away from teaching the history that the text symbolizes.

While it will take me time to fully develop the unit, and I'm in no particular rush, I did work through some frontloading and activation activities that I would use before reading the text. While some of these activities are more Marrow Thieves specific, many can also be used for any Indigenous/Native American lessons and units.

Loosely, this is how I've been imagining an initial week of frontloading:

Session 1:

I'd probably start with a warm up free-write asking students to reflect on what they think of when they think of "Native Americans" and what they know of Native/Indigenous American History, experiences, and culture.

Then, I really like Reservation Dogs as an accessible, film/visual hook. So I would watch the first episode in class while having students complete viewing questions. After that, I'd have students fill in the "K" and "L" (What do I know? What do I want to learn?) of a KWL chart.

Session 2:

I want students to hear from Indigenous Americans about how to talk about Indigenous/Native American experiences, history, and culture. So we're going to watch two videos and then talk about them.

I like this one that features Tai LeClaire, talking about Who Can Identify As Native American:

I have viewing questions for this video, since it moves quickly and I think students need/should take time to process the topics he gets us through.

I don't have viewing questions for the following video, but I think it's a good one to also watch and discuss as it asks students to think about "what Native American looks like." Dimaline touches on this in some brief moments in The Marrow Thieves, but I think the question of what it means to be Native/Indigenous American comes up even more clearly and frequently in Wandering Stars.

Session 3:

Since I love Tommy Orange and I'm looking for additional ELA skills building opportunities, I think the prologue of Wandering Stars actually runs through a lot of concentrated history that relates to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School – which, as I'm understanding – I view to be similar to the Canadian Residential Schools, but from my limited research (watching We Were Children and some light Googling / article/source curating for frontloading lessons), it seems like Canadian Residential Schools were run by the church, but perhaps more specifically the Catholic church in many instances? Whereas some of the secondary source records for the Carlisle Indian Industrial School suggest an emphasis on the teaching of industrial or assimilable skills (example: Pop Warner Football League started at the school...).

So – I'm asking students to read the prologue and gain a little historical context with an ELA focus by closely reading and analyzing the Prologue of Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange. And for me, I would take an additional day to have students dig even deeper by comparing secondary sources for historical events referenced in the Prologue.

I actually had a hard time finishing the full We Were Children documentary film, but I think it is an accessible view for high school students. It illustrates the weight of the issues with residential schools without getting graphic, and it also includes the testimony of two survivors. I also just discovered the entire documentary is available on YouTube:

I found the film hard to finish because I was watching it in one sitting and the experiences were weighing heavily on my soul. Students might feel the same, so perhaps showing clips might be a more meaningful way to share historical context for The Marrow Thieves.

Marrow Thieves Teaching Materials

For a clean list of what's currently available in The Planning Room for teaching The Marrow Thieves:

If you're a Planning Room member, you can also access my current versions (still refining/developing) of Essential Questions (I use them to create essay prompts) and Reading Questions for the entire novel below. I also have my first day of classwork after reading chapter 1 activity, and viewing questions for the first 45 minutes of We Were Children linked below too.