Page 70 - ELA_CA_HighSchool_Sampler_Flipbook

ACTIVITY 1.13
continued
It takes a long time to absorb and reflect on these kinds of experiences, so maybe that is why you think my Indian child
is a slow learner. His aunts and
grandmothers taught him to
count and know his numbers
while they sorted out the complex
materials used to make the abstract
designs in the native baskets. He listened
to his mother count each and every bead and sort
out numerically according to color while she painstakingly made complex beaded belts and necklaces. He learned his basic numbers by helping his father count and sort the rocks to be used in the sweat lodge—seven rocks for a medicine sweat, say, or 13 for
the summer solstice ceremony. (The rocks are later heated and doused with water to create purifying steam.) And he was taught to learn mathematics by counting the sticks we use in our traditional native hand game. So I realize he may be slow in grasping the methods and tools that you are now using in your classroom, ones quite familiar to his white peers, but I hope you will be patient with him. It takes time to adjust to a new cultural system and learn new things.
He is not culturally “disadvantaged,” but he is culturally “different.” If you ask him how many months there are in a year, he will probably tell you 13. He will respond this way not because he doesn’t know how to count properly, but because he has been taught by our traditional people that there are 13 full moons in a year according to the native tribal calendar and that there are really 13 planets in our solar system and 13 tail feathers on a perfectly balanced eagle, the most powerful kind of bird to use in ceremony and healing.
But he also knows that some eagles may only have 12 tail feathers, or seven, that they do not all have the same number. He knows that the flicker has exactly 10 tail feathers; that they are red and black, representing the directions of east and west,
life and death; and that this bird is considered a “fire” bird, a power used in native doctoring and healing. He can probably count more than 40 different kinds of birds, tell you and his peers what kind of bird each is and where it lives, the seasons in which it appears, and how it is used in a sacred ceremony. He may have trouble writing his name on a piece of paper, but he knows how to say it and many other things in several different Indian languages. He is not fluent yet because he is only 5 years old and required by law to attend your educational system, learn your language, your values, your ways of thinking, and your methods of teaching and learning. So you see, all of these influences together make him somewhat shy and quiet—and perhaps “slow” according to your standards. But if Wind-Wolf was not prepared for his first tentative foray into your world, neither were you appreciative of his culture. On the first day
of class, you had difficulty with his name. You wanted to call him Wind, insisting that Wolf somehow must be his middle name. The students in the class laughed at him, causing further embarrassment.
While you are trying to teach him your new methods, helping him learn new tools for self-discovery and adapt to his new learning environment, he may be looking out the window as if daydreaming. Why? Because he has been taught to watch and study the changes in nature. It is hard for him to make the appropriate psychic switch from the right to the left hemisphere of the brain when he sees the leaves turning bright colors, the geese heading south, and the squirrels scurrying around for nuts to get ready for a harsh winter. In his heart, in his young mind, and almost by instinct, he knows that this
My Notes
painstakingly: thoroughly
tentative: cautious foray: journey
hemisphere: one half of the brain
in the underlined sentences? How does he intend the sentences to affect the reader? How persuasive is the author in these sentences?
Unit 1 • Cultural Conversations 91
ACTIVITY 1.13 continued
10 Point out the author’s use of semicolons in the third paragraph on this page. Ask students how semicolons are used here. (They are used in a list to separate clauses that already have commas within them.)
SCAFFOLDING THE TEXT-DEPENDENT QUESTIONS
3. Knowledge and Ideas (RI.9–10.8) What M 9781457304668_TCB_SE_G10_U1_B2.indd 91
4. Craft and Structure (RI.9–10.5) In paragraph 11, what is the author’s claim?
How does he support this claim? What explicit argument is the author making? What does he believe—and want the teacher to understand— about his son? What evidence—details and examples—does he provide to back up this claim?
element of an argument is displayed in the underlined sentences in paragraph 10? How do they improve the effectiveness of the speaker’s claim? What does the author acknowledge
10/2/15 10:51 PM
Unit 1 • Cultural Conversations 91
© 2017 College Board. All rights reserved.
© 2017 College Board. All rights reserved.