Yéil Ḵa Tʼá: Culturally Responsive Lesson Plans

Culture bearers share oral narratives that connect to the Southeast Alaska tribal values and help teach important lessons. What better way to explore the tribal value of "lishoogú át kanaylaneek" (tell funny stories) than through Raven the Trickster! Yéil Ḵa Tʼa (Raven and King Salmon) is just such an oral narrative. This oral narrative by Yakwx̱waan Tláa, (Katherine Brown Mills) was adapted into a play by Nora Keixwnéi Marks Dauenhauer published by Goldbelt Heritage Foundation. This oral narrative includes many feeling phrases that align with the Tlingit Culture, Language and Literacy 100 Lingít word list, which the Haa Ḵusteeyí project has adapted.

Listen to this audio recording of Yéil Ḵa Tʼá by Katherine Mills telling in Lingít. Gunalchées, X̱ʼunei Lance Twitchell, for housing these precious recordings of fluent speakers on your website.
This story has so much to offer culturally and pedagogically that Sitʼ Eetí Shaanáx̱ Glacier Valley decided to create an online Readerʼs Theater artist-in-residency with Ed Shaaḵindustoow Littlefield, Roblin Gray Davis, X̱ʼunei Lance Twitchell and Abel Ryan. Students will
  • learn to speak the feeling phrases embedded throughout the story with support from Ed Littlefield
  • sign each feeling phrase and character with guidance from Janet Olmstead (JSD Deaf & Blind Educator) and Jinkasee.ee Rose Willard (JSD cultural specialist). 
  • comprehend the story sequence by understanding key phrases in Lingít
  • play language games created by Elizabeth Kent (JSD Integration Specialist), Jinkasee.ee Rose Willard and X̱ʼunei Lance Twitchell (Associate Professor of Alaska Native Languages at UAS)
  • assemble formline design puppets created by Abel Ryan, Tsimshian carver and teacher
  • bring these puppets to life with Roblin Davis Gray, puppeteer and drama specialists
  • package them all in a story bag for every K-5 student at Sitʼ Eetí Shaanáx̱ and Riverbend Elementary student donated by Goldbelt Heritage Foundation.

Gunalchéesh all of the individual above, as well as Stephen Blanchett of the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council and Amy Rautiainen and Nancy Lehnhart of the JSD Artful Teaching program for their financial support.
Culturally Responsive Teaching Best Practices: These three lessons prepare K-5 students for an artist-in-residency culminating in a formline puppet performance of this oral narrative. Every child received a Lingít Language Story Bag containing hands-on activities to engage students and families in the story, including formline puppet templates, script, card games focused on teaching key vocabulary and phrases in Lingít, and links to online resources. For more details on this project click here.

The following Culturally Responsive teaching practices are included in these lessons: use of story, song, movement and call and response. Indigenous artists and language scholars were consulted and involved in each step of the process. The Southeast Traditional Tribal Value of Lishoog̱ú át kanaylaneek (“Tell Funny Stories”) forms the foundation of the unit as told through this raven story.

Piloting a Language Learning Process

This artist-in-residency gives us an opportunity to experiment with the Lingít language learning process. This video outlines the three stages:
  • Lesson 1: What Lesson Does This Oral Narrative Teach? After listening to the cultural specialist tell the oral narrative in English, students share what lesson they think the story teaches.
  • Lesson 2: Retelling Story in Lingít and Illustrating Tribal Value While listening to elder Katherine Mills tell the story in Lingít, students draw an event from the story in their Haa Ḵusteeyí journals that they feel illustrates the value of Tell Funny Stories.
  • Lesson 3: Learning Key Phrases in Lingít Along with ASL Sign Students listen to the cultural specialist tell the story accompanied by a slide presentation with feeling phrases embedded and spotlighted as talking bubbles. Students learn these phrases by echoing the cultural specialist and including the ASL sign.
Lesson 1: What lessons does this oral narrative teach?

Overview
After listening to the cultural specialist tell the oral narrative of Yéil Ḵa Tʼá (Raven and King Salmon) in English, students share what lesson they think the story teaches. Students will practice the tribal values of K’idéin át yisa.áx ka a yáa awuné wáa sá i daa yadukaayí ("listen well and respect what people say to you") by respectfully listening as the cultural specialist tells the story following oral tradition. Students will then share out what lesson they think the story teaches. There is no right or wrong answer, but rather an opportunity for children to share their thinking before learning the tribal value connected with this oral narrative from the Haa Ḵusteeyí unit.

Objectives
  • Students will listen to Lingít oral narratives and understand that these stories contain valuable lessons and important tribal values passed down for thousands of years.
  • Students will understand the important role that Raven plays in the Lingít culture both as a trickster and creator.

Activities
  • Ritual and Priming: To help students know where the unit is going, begin class with the "Waasá iyatee? Counting Song," which embeds the dialogue: "How are you? I am fine. Itʼs good to see you." This song primes students for the oral narrative, which includes many feeling phrases expressed by the different birds. Students will learn these feeling phrases in Lingít in Lesson 3. The song also acts as a ritual to start class and gets bodies moving as students do  jumping jacks or other types of movement during the counting part of the song.
  • Hook: storytelling is the hook. Before the cultural specialist tells the story of Yéil Ḵa Tʼá, review the Lingít name for Raven (yéil) along with the ASL sign. Because Raven is the main character in this story, his name is mentioned often. Students can demonstrate their knowledge of Yéil by showing the ASL sign each time this Lingit word is mentioned.
  • Equip, Experience & Explore: ask students ahead of time to think about what lesson this oral narrative might be teaching? The Google Slide presentation accompanies the storytelling to help students experience and better understand the key elements of the story.
  • Tailored: after the story is told, ask students to share what lessons they think the story teaches.
  • Rethink, Revise & Evaluate: What did they hear/see in the story to make them think that? (Project Zero Thinking Routine - See, Think and Wonder - could be used here as well).
  • Ritual and Priming: end class with a traditional dleigú, Aayátxʼi, which ties directly to the story and will be used later in the puppet play when Raven clubs the King Salmon and cooks it over the fire pit.
Adaptations Students may move to the songs any way they feel most comfortable. The Google Slide presentation that accompanies the storytelling provides visuals for students to help build more background knowledge and context.

Evaluation Students will be assessed when they share the lessons they think the story teaches and why. This formative assessment is grounded in the Project Zero Thinking Routine of See, Think and Wonder in which students need to provide evidence of what they saw or heard to back-up their thinking.

Culturally Responsive Teaching Reflection
This lesson was very engaging for students. They were excited to share their thinking backed by evidence from the story. As documented in the video above, students made connections to tribal values that they learned previously and each was confident to share their own interpretation and perspective.
Lorrie Heagy
Subject: Lingít Oral Narratives
Grade level(s): K-5
Unit: Yéil Ḵa Tʼa     Lesson 1 of 3

Materials List:
Standards Addressed:
Cultural Standard A.1
  • Recognize the validity and integrity of the traditional knowledge systems
  • Utilize the Eldersʼ expertise in multiple ways in their teaching.

Speaking & Listening Standards:
  • Ask & Answer questions about key details in a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media.
  • Retell or describe key ideas or details from a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media.
Lesson 2: Listening to Our Elders

Overview
After listening to the cultural specialist tell the oral narrative of Yéil Ḵa Tʼá (Raven and King Salmon) in English in Lesson 1, students will listen to an audio recording in Lingít of Yéil Ḵa Tʼá by Katherine Mills. To prepare them for the recording, students first will collectively recall as much of the story and its details before the teacher shares the tribal value that was selected for this story: Lishoog̱ú át kanaylaneek ("tell funny stories"). While listening to the recording, students draw an event from the story in their Haa Ḵusteeyí journals that they feel illustrates the value of Tell Funny Stories.

Objectives
  • Students will listen to Yéil Ḵa Tʼá in Lingít while drawing an event from the story that they feel best illustrates the value of Lishoog̱ú át kanaylaneek ("tell funny stories").
  • Students will listen for key phrases and words in Lingít throughout the story to help guide them through the sequence of events. The slide show with images and text are also presented to provide support for understanding.

Activities
  • Ritual and Priming: To help students know where the unit is going, begin class with the "Waasá iyatee? Counting Song," which embeds the dialogue: "How are you? I am fine. Itʼs good to see you." This song primes students for the oral narrative, which includes many feeling phrases expressed by the different birds. Students will learn these feeling phrases in Lingít in Lesson 3. The song also acts as a ritual to start class and gets bodies moving as students do  jumping jacks or other types of movement during the counting part of the song.
  • Hook: Play the recording of Aayátxʼi inviting students to join along using traditional dance moves. Ask students if they remember the meaning of the lyrics to this song? Do they remember how it connects to the story of Yéil Ḵa Tʼá? (Aayátxʼi ties directly to the story and will be used later in the puppet play when Raven clubs the King Salmon and cooks it over the fire pit.) After hearing their responses, review the ASL sign for Yéil and teach them the ASL sign for Tʼá.
  • Equip, Experience & Explore: ask students to collectively retell the story of Yéil ḵa Tʼá to determine how much they remember from the first telling. Share with them the tribal value that Haa Ḵusteeyí selected for this oral narrative to represent: Lishoog̱ú át kanaylaneek ("tell funny stories"). Can they think of funny moments in the story? Think, Pair, Share. Tell students that they will have the opportunity to draw an image from the story that they think bests represents this tribal value. They will draw in their Haa Ḵusteeyí journals while listening to Lingít elder, Yakwx̱waan Tláa Katherine Brown Mills, tells Yéil Ḵa Tʼá in Lingít. While drawing listen for these key words and phrases recorded by Yaandu.ein Paul Marks and Jinkasee.ee Rose Willard:
          Then play the recording and advance the Google Slide Presentation to help students make  
          connections with the language to the story.
  • Tailored: after the story is told, ask students to share what part of the story they thought best represents the tribal value of Lishoog̱ú át kanaylaneek.
  • Rethink, Revise & Evaluate: What did they hear/see in the story to make them think that? (Project Zero Thinking Routine - See, Think, Wonder - could be used here as well).
  • Ritual and Priming: end class with the song that Ed Littlefield composed for our play: Lishoog̱ú át kanaylaneek so that students can hear this tribal value repeated several times while they dance. repetitions of this value h a traditional dleigú,

Adaptations Students may move to the songs any way they feel most comfortable. The Google Slide presentation that accompanies the storytelling provides visuals for students to help build more background knowledge and context.

Evaluation Students will be assessed when they share their drawings and expain why this event in the story reflects the tribal value of Tell Funny Stories. This formative assessment is grounded in the Project Zero Thinking Routine of See, Think, Wonder in which students need to provide evidence of what they saw or heard to back-up their thinking.

Culturally Responsive Teaching Reflection
This lesson was very engaging for students because we gave them enough anchors to listen with purpose to the Lingít recording of the oral narrative. They also had something to do with their hands that directly related to their listening task: drawing an event from the story that represented the tribal value of Tell Funny Stories. As documented in the video above, students were eager to share their drawings.
Lorrie Heagy
Subject: Lingít Oral Narratives
Grade level(s): K-5
Unit: Yéil Ḵa Tʼa     Lesson 2 of 3

Materials List:
Standards Addressed:
Cultural Standard A.1
  • Recognize the validity and integrity of the traditional knowledge systems
  • Utilize the Eldersʼ expertise in multiple ways in their teaching.

Speaking & Listening Standards:
  • Retell stories from diverse cultures and determine the authorʼs purpose (e.g., teach a lesson, make you laugh), lesson or moral.
Lesson 3: Wáasá i toowú yatee? How are you feeling?

Overview
After listening to the telling and retelling of the oral narrative of Yéil Ḵa Tʼá  in English and Lingít, respectively, students will learn feeling phrases listed in the TCLL 100 Lingít word list along with the ASL signs. These phrases are embedded in the script, which was adapted from the oral narrative by Yakwx̱waan Tláa, (Katherine Brown Mills). Gunalchéesh to Jinkasee.ee Rose Willard, X̱ʼunei Lance Twitchell and Yaandu.ein Paul Marks for their work on this. As the script is read along with the Feeling Phrases Google Slide Presentation, students learn each of the Lingít feeling phrases in context of the story.
Objectives
  • Students will pronounce the feeling phrases in Lingít along with the ASL sign after each embedded video clip in the Feeling Phrases Google Slide Presentation and connect them to each of the characters in the Yéil ḵa Tʼá script as the script is read by the teacher.

  • Students will review the feeling phrases in Lingít by playing a Gimkit, which attaches an emoji to each phrase as a way to eliminate the use of English.
Activities
  • Ritual and Priming: Begin class with the "Waasá iyatee? Counting Song," which embeds the dialogue: "How are you? I am fine. Itʼs good to see you." This song primes students for this lesson focused on the feeling phrases expressed by the different birds in the oral narrative, Yéíl ḵa. Tʼá. The song also acts as a ritual to start class and gets bodies moving as students do  jumping jacks or other types of movement during the counting part of the song.
  • Hook: Play the recording of Lishoog̱ú át kanaylaneek, which will signal the beginning of the play and remind students that this oral narrative reflects the tribal value of Lishoog̱ú át kanaylaneek ("tell funny stories"). Share with students that they will be learning different feeling phrases so that they can respond with more options to the question, Waasá iyatee (How are you?) or Waasá i toowú yatee (How are you feeling?). For extra motivation, let them know that theyʼll be playing a Gimkit with these phrases at the end of the class.
  • Equip, Experience & Explore: begin reading the script of Yéil Ḵa Tʼá while advancing each slide to support the text. When the script comes to a feeling phrase, play the embedded video in the Feeling Phrases Google Slide presentation so that students can echo/repeat after Jinkasee.ee Rose Willard.
  • Tailored: share with students that this lesson is preparing them to perform this script as a formline puppet performance. They can choose to take on reading parts, puppeteers or ASL signers. Guide them to the puppet page where downloadable templates are available for them to begin creating and coloring them. Acknowledge Abel Ryan for creating these formline puppets just for this performance.
  • Rethink, Revise & Evaluate: As students sign on to play a Live game of Gimkit, say each of the feeling phrases as a review and check to see how many students can respond with the correct ASL sign (this helps cut down on the use of English to provide support). Then have the students play the game to assess how much the remember.
  • Ritual and Priming: end class with Aayátxʼi but this time use the Youtube video in which Ed Littlefield transitions from singing it traditionally to a jazz version. Ask students to stand and dance along until they here a change in the style (jazz). Then sit down and try to identify the type of music and instruments used. This experience can lead into discussions about student identiy and embracing all cultural influences and interests that make-up an individual. One should never have to give up one for the other.

Adaptations Students may move to the songs any way they feel most comfortable. The Google Slide presentation that accompanies the storytelling provides visuals for students to help build more background knowledge and context.

Evaluation Students will be assessed when preparing to play Gimkit. This formative assessment gives the teacher a brief snapshot of how much the students remember. The teacher speaks each feeing phrase in Lingít without the ASL and looks to see how many students can sign correctly. The Gimkit also serves as a formative assessment using a different medium - emojis and audio recordings. 

Culturally Responsive Teaching Reflection
This lesson was very engaging for students because they learned it prepared them for a puppet performance. They also had choices in how theyʼd like to participate: signer, speaker or puppeteer. Knowing that the Gimkit was the culminating activity of this lesson was also very motivating. Students love these games and work hard to excel in them. 
Lorrie Heagy
Subject: Lingít Oral Narratives
Grade level(s): K-5
Unit: Yéil Ḵa Tʼa     Lesson 3 of 3

Materials List:
Extension: Google Slide with ASL signs for Key Vocabulary (leads to future lessons on how color is expressed in Lingít: (x̱ʼaan yax yatee or It is like fire" for the color red.

Standards Addressed:
Cultural Standard B.3
  • Provide integrated learning activities organized around themes of local significane and across subject areas.
Cultural Standard B.5
  • Seek to ground al teaching in a constructive process built on a local cultural foundation.
Speaking & Listening Standards:
  • Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including use of figurative language and literary devices (e.g., imagery, metaphors, analogies, hyperbole).

Digital Badges: Another Tool for Motivation and Demonstration of Mastery

Digital badges have been another motivating tool for demonstrating language mastery. Whether using Flipgrid or Seesaw, students can earn digital badges and be creative and social while doing it. We have created a Badgr account that interfaces with Flipgrid. The results at both Riverbend and Sitʼ Eetí Shaanáx̱ Glacier Valley Elementary Schools have been impressive: over 230 students earned at least one of the six badges. Gunalchéesh to Shawna Puustinen and Christina Sabin for introducing the idea of physical tags on necklaces to give to students. They love them!

A Studentʼs Reflections ...

This Zoom session was recorded two months after the performance of Yéil Ḵa Tʼá. If you ever wondered if students are thinking about Lingít oral narratives and sharing the language outside of the classroom, the student in this short video gives a resounding Yes!