Digital Collections

Topic: History/Sources of Knowledge

Time frame: 2-3 days (plus time to sew the quilt together)

Activity:

• Send out a letter ahead of time letting the parents know that on a particular day the students are expected to bring in an item that represents their culture/background/origin. Hopefully the students will have them on the day you do this lesson.
• Have students sitting in the circle with their item. Although this is like a show and tell, it can be done at any age if you don't call it that. Students like to bring stuff in to show their friends/classmates, usually whether or not they seem reluctant to do so.
• You can participate in this circle as well. Doing so can promote understanding and respect between you and the students. It is important to do this, because when you are in the circle you are all seen on an even level, and are all to participate in some way, whether it is speaking, listening or both.
• Show and tell.
• Discuss. How much more have you learned about a particular culture because of what students have brought in? Do they know more now that they have seen a symbol of those cultures? Talk about this. Yes, this is appropriate for grade two students. They are quite able to understand that they all have similarities and differences; the responsibility of the teacher is to promote an atmosphere of respect and self esteem.
• Make a chart on the board, or preferably on chart paper. List the object and what it represents. These can be categorized later.
• Have the students write in their journals about what they have learned today. Did they learn anything new? Did they see stuff they already knew about?
• Summarize what was learned in the lesson above. Ask students how they learned the most about their culture. Was it from a book? An object? Or their family telling them stories? The answers will vary, but what we are looking at is an emphasis on oral history. Learning should come from a variety of sources, but we need to hear the personal stories of our relatives and neighbours.
• Point out that we can not learn all about a culture from a few objects. We can guess about objects or know a lot about it, but it still paints only part of a picture. We must look to each other, teachers, books, and family to fill in the other holes. Explain that this is what anthropologists, archaeologists and historians have done - used pieces of information to create a story.
• Although such things tell us about part of a culture, they will never tell us all about it - it is just one piece in the puzzle. We must keep that in mind when learning about other cultures. To illustrate the point, read one of the class's favourite stories/pieces of literature, poem, etc. Leave out a very large piece so they will notice. Show them that this is like an object or symbol that represents a culture. It is only part of it.
• The Heritage Quilt is a patchwork quilt which illustrates the diversity of the students in a class
• Teacher provides each student with a patch of material - 30 cm by 30 cm
• Students design a quilt patch which represents their cultural heritage and interests - they can put a picture of the object they brought in on it
• Students create the design from markers; will be sewn later by volunteers: allow for a 2 cm seam allowance all the way around the patch. (It would be good to draw the border on the patch before handing them out to students.
• Students names added to the patches, please!
• The patches are then joined to strips of material 2-3 cm wide of a contrasting colour - this acts as a grid with the patches in the squares of the grid
• Hem the joining strips or grid, and use quilt as a wall hanging in the classroom
• Explain that when the quilt is finished, it will tell a story about all of us in the classroom, not just one of us. It will tell a better story than just one object could. (This activity is taken from Carol Butler and Maureen Swain's Cultural Awareness Through the Arts in the Lennox and Addington County Board of Education.)
• Talk about stories. Ask who knows a story. What are some of their favourite stories, and why? Are any of these stories culturally based? Disney cartoon movies come from cultural stories, especially those over the last decade. Does anyone know stories about the Native people in Canada? North America?
• Ask if anyone has heard of the Haudenoshaunee, Iroquois, Six Nations, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca or Tuscarora. The subject is only to be touched on at first.
• Have students write something in their journals on what was discussed today.
• Go to the site on E Pauline Johnson at www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/%7Epjohnson/mock.html Introduce her as a Mohawk (Kanienkeha) from the Six Nations Territory near Brantford, Ontario. Read the page above to the class, or have students read (depending on level). It discusses her background of a Mohawk father and English mother. This information should be familiar now to the students as they have looked into their backgrounds by this point.
• Continue on to the next page, which is www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/%7Epjohnson/teka.html : it talks about the Mohawk name Johnson used, "Tekahionwake." It gives you a little background into the idea that all Iroquois names have a meaning behind them; a story all on its own.