Discovering Family Roots
Suggested sources:
First Nations Storytelling and the Tradition of Oral History
Themes:
Globalization, Development, Governance, Sovereignty, Justice
Suggested Sources:
CD The Peopling of Atlantic Canada: (Go to Start Main - Modern Cultures - Cultures – First Nations – Meeting of Oral and Literate Tradition; also go to Main – How Do We Know). For individual topics use the index
Canada’s History: Voices and Visions (Unit 1, Chapter 1)
Ideally, a member of First Nations would come to a classroom and lead a storytelling session. Another suggestions would be to invite those in the community at large known for their storytelling skill. As an alternative, the following is suggested:
Select five or six topics of significance to Canadian history. Suggestions from which to choose could include First Peoples (from CD), The arrival of the French (CD), Fur Trade (Unit 1, Chapter 2, Unit II, Chapter 8; CD), The Struggle for the Continent (Unit I, Chapter 3), Confederation (Text -Unit 3, Chapter 14), The Great Depression (Text - Unit II, Chapter 10), Canada at War (Text - Unit 1, Chapters 4 and 5), Cultural Sovereignty: examples include Acadian, Aboriginal, Metis, or Quebec (Unit IV of text)
Assignment:
1. Divide the class into groups. These numbers would vary, based upon the class size. A class of 32 could be divided in the following manner:
Divide the class into 8 groups. Assign one of the topics to research to a group of 4. Have that group compile a report of no more than a page on its assigned topic. Have the students pass the report in. Ask the groups to keep the information reasonably confidential within the group until the whole activity ends.
After the report is passed in, do the following. In the first four groups, assign each student in the group a number, from 1 to 4. In the next four assign numbers from 5 to 8. Ask all of the 1’s to form a group, the 2’s etc. up to 8. There now should be new configurations of 8 groups of 4. Ask each group member, in turn, to privately tell a fellow group member the information on the story that they researched. Ask that person tell the story to the next member privately, and so on. Ask the last person in each group to orally tell, without notes, the story that he or she was told. Do the same exercise for each topic.
Each student in the group represents a generation in the First Nations practice of storytelling. This activity was also very popular among most cultural groups before the advent of mass media.
After all groups have reported on a topic, ask a representative of the group who compiled the report on the topic to read it to the class. Compare the factual to the story told. How reliable is the story that is told? Why would the story that is told be a valuable historical resource? Why are stories so important to historians? Is story telling still practiced today in some form? Explain.