NBE3U Unit 3: Writing Back

As historical context for the contemporary voices later in the course, students study how Indigenous writers used English, print and the stage to control their own stories: Johnson's poems and stories, Zitkála-Šá's account of boarding school and her 1921 essay “America's Indian Problem,” and Charles Eastman's boyhood in exile in Manitoba. Close reading, style and vocabulary build to a comparative essay with revision and editing workshops, and each historical writer is paired with a contemporary First Nations, Métis or Inuit text chosen by the teacher. Teacher notes recommend reviewing the course with your board's Indigenous education lead and inviting Elders, Knowledge Keepers or Métis Senators through board protocol, and include support resources wherever residential schools and loss come up. Contemporary texts are chosen by the teacher from board-approved resources (titles only); public domain writing by Indigenous authors of the past is included in full as historical context.

Assessment of learning: a comparative literary essay and a “then and now” seminar, with rubrics.

This unit is free to download and use with your classes.

Lessons

1. Writing Back
2. Two Audiences
3. The Ballad Turned
4. Christie's Argument
5. The Last Word
6. Big Red Apples
7. The Land of Red Apples
8. The Civilizing Machine
9. Retrospection
10. Hakadah
11. The Fire-Boat
12. Speaking to Power
13. Essay Workshop
14. Then and Now

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 model answers and answer-key slides
• Student handouts, organizers and exit tickets
• Editable Word and PowerPoint files, plus PDFs
• The Writing Back Reader (32 pages): every public domain text in the unit, complete
• A unit overview and the summative tasks and rubrics

Part of the free complete NBE3U course.