ENG4U Unit 5: Voices of This Land

Students begin with land, terminology and listening protocols, learn the truth of residential schools through survivor testimony, and study the Mohawk poet and performer E. Pauline Johnson: “A Cry from an Indian Wife,” “The Cattle Thief,” “A Pagan in St. Paul's Cathedral,” “A Red Girl's Reasoning” and “As It Was in the Beginning.” They read Duncan Campbell Scott's “The Onondaga Madonna” beside her work, asking what it means that the poet also ran Indian Affairs, then pair Johnson with a contemporary First Nations, Métis or Inuit text chosen with the teacher. Teacher notes recommend review with your board's Indigenous education lead and include support resources.

Assessment of learning: an inquiry presentation and a learning journal with a final reflection, with rubrics.

Lessons

1. Starting in a Good Way
2. Truth Before Reconciliation
3. Tekahionwake
4. A Cry from an Indian Wife
5. The Cattle Thief
6. Who Holds the Pen?
7. A Red Girl's Reasoning
8. As It Was in the Beginning
9. Contemporary Voices
10. Story and Land
11. Inquiry Workshop
12. Inquiry Presentations

What you get

• A teacher lesson plan for every lesson: curriculum expectations, learning goals and success criteria, a timed sequence, differentiation, look-fors and answer guides
• Detailed slideshows (15 to 18 slides per lesson) with speaker notes on every slide: what to say, what to ask, what to look for and how long to spend, plus worked examples, model answers and answer-key slides
• Student handouts, organizers and exit tickets
• A 21-page Voices Reader with Johnson's poems and stories, Scott's poem and a guide to choosing contemporary texts
• Editable Word and PowerPoint files, plus PDFs
• A unit overview and the summative tasks and rubrics