Using Indigenous texts and working with strategic sequences to include all learners in the intermediate and middle grades.

1. Strategic Sequences with
Aboriginal Texts – Intermediate/
Middle
Kamloops
Dec 4, 2017
Faye Brownlie
Slideshare.net/fayebrownlie.kamloops.interAB

3. Teaching Reading in a Diverse Class
• Heather Shantz – Cedar Grove, gr. 3/4
• Focus on reading strategies
– QuesMoning from pictures
– Re-ordering sentences from the text
• Requires close reading
• Opportunity to read with partners
• Opportunity to conference with reading partners
• The Challenge: great diversity in readers!

7. Suddenly, the drumming and dancing stopped. The chief turned to him and said, “We
are glad that the storm has brought you to our village, but now you are thinking of
your own.”
He took the staff and stepped behind the chief. Closing his eyes, he pictured his father
and mother, his house, and the people of his village.
A chief’s son went fishing alone, and a terrible storm arose.
“My son,” cried his mother, “where have you been? We thought you were lost in a
storm a year ago!”
The boy and his hosts began to dance around the fire together to the steady beat of
the drums.
He soon found himself washed ashore under a strange sky he had never seen before.
That night the whole village celebrated his return and marveled at the boy as he
danced with the staff and told of the large and mysterious people under the
strange sky.
“When you wish to return,” he conMnued, “grip my staff Mghtly and stand behind me.”
A^er they finished eaMng, the chief said to the others, “Let us sing a welcome song
and invite our guest to join in the dance of our people.”
The celebraMon went on in this way for many long hours, the boy and his new friends
each learning from the other.

9. Demonstration Lesson: Grade 4/5
Goal: increased engagement &
thinking
Strengths of my class:
- CooperaMve
- Eager and want to learn
- SupporMve of each other
Stretches
- CommunicaMon and CriMcal Thinking amongst
my students

10. The Sequence
• Goal today – stretch your thinking and work like a detecMve to use
clues to figure things out
• EssenMal quesMon: How does where you live effect how you live?
– How can you answer this already?
– Partner talk, then group share
• Image: see – think – wonder
• Quick write
• Explode the sentence
• Reflect with core competencies

13. Explode the Sentence
• One day many years ago, children were
playing in the village, learning to be good
warriors and hunters.

17. Critical Thinking Core Competency
•I am becoming an acMve listener; I ask quesMons and make connecMons.
Evidence:
•When I talk and work with peers, I express my ideas and encourage others to express theirs; I share
roles and responsibiliMes.
Evidence:
•I recount and comment on events and experiences.
Evidence:

18. Unpacking the Lesson
• What struck you?
– Engagement of the kids
– 1 hour, 40 minutes
– All could parMcipate
– Major shi^s in thinking
– Content woven into massive thinking
– All responses were accepted
– Your language: each child was honoured and li^ed up
☺
– I could do this!!

19. Next Steps
• Next day, begin with another image and another sentence
to explode (should take half the Mme)
• Move to groups of 2-3 and have each group of students
explode a different sentence
• Share the sentences and an interpretaMve comment about
each
• Can the students, together, move to read their sentences in
order?
• Retype the same 10 sentences – as 10, 7 and 5. Students
choose which they want and re-order them BME
• Keep listening to the kids read
• Read the text, and reflect on how where you live affects
how you live.
• Repeat process with 2 other Roy Henry Vickers books,
highlighMng content.