This textbook contains five units of literature by the Plains Native Americans. The first unit presents examples of oral tradition, in which mythology, legends, stories, songs, and personal accounts pass on values, beliefs, and experiences. The second unit contains nonfiction: an account of a young girl's first days at an Indian boarding school,…

The metaphor of "open admissions," a consistent communication tradition at Mount Ida College, Massachusetts, is an oral tradition that has survived the many metamorphoses the college has experienced and provided consistency for the college mission and population. Begun as the Mount Ida School for Girls, the school was both Mount Ida…

This booklet of study plans was compiled to address racial issues in literature. The booklet contains study plans designed to elicit both the dialogue and the silence that racial understanding requires. Included in the booklet are the following: multi-cultural study for fifth-grade reading; literary study for general, remedial, and honors…

The Calista Elders Council (CEC) is a nonprofit organization representing the 1,330 Yup'ik elders 65 and older in the Alaskan Yup'ik homeland. The CEC seeks to preserve and transmit Yup'ik values and traditions through a five-fold plan that includes youth culture camps. An old summer fishing camp on Nelson Island became the site of a youth culture…

This monograph contains 13 self-contained brief treatises that comprise material on linguistic, historical and cultural studies of the extinct American Indian languages of southeastern New England. These Indian languages, and their dialects, were once spoken principally in the States of Rhode Island and Massachusetts. They are called…

American Indian literature deserves a more prominent place in the English language arts curriculum. Oral literature of American Indians includes didactic stories, told to maintain tribal mores and value systems; it also includes humorous and entertaining stories, as well as histories of various American Indian peoples. Anthropologists and…

This anthology presents the voices of women and men of Caribbean backgrounds living in the United States. Focus is on five most prevalently represented groups: Puerto Ricans, West Indians, Cubans, Haitians, and Dominicans. The book is organized into five sections: (1) "A Primer on Caribbean Migration" presents an overview of Caribbean…

Incorporating oral history and oral tradition into the curriculum helps students connect with people different from themselves and with the larger community. The article describes oral history and tradition, and discusses ways for parents and teachers to work together for greater understanding and acceptance of diversity through oral history and…

In today's interconnected and global society, socially responsive learning is an integral part of educational excellence. This book encourages socially responsive learning by showing the reader how to use traditional African folk tales and quality children's books, young adult novels, classic literature, and film media about Africa as the mode for…

This handbook was developed by Storylinks, a provincial network in Ontario, Canada, to encourage and help groups to use popular oral history as a learning tool. The guide provides suggestions for those involved as learners or teachers in oral history to practice their interviewing and storytelling skills. The guide is organized in nine sections…

Storytelling, a powerful means of providing children and adults with life-enhancing mental images, has been a tradition practiced by most cultures throughout the world. Passed on from one generation to another, the stories freed the imagination and stretched the capacity for such feelings of joy, sorrow, sympathy, and hope. The stories usually…

This digest addresses the uses of oral history projects in the secondary U.S. history classroom. The document advocates that oral history is a stimulating classroom process designed to increase student involvement in a United States history class and improve student understanding of a relatively recent historical period. Oral history also involves…

This book provides the basic knowledge to be able to tell stories. The stories presented target children in preschool through sixth grade. Following an introduction which considers the value of storytelling in culture and in education, the first chapter explains how to use the book and introduces the "telling guide," which appears…

This book introduces the general reader to the mosaic of American Indian languages and cultures as they exist in time and space, and supplies limited technical linguistic orientation to encourage further exploration of language interrelationships, cultures, and other ways of knowing. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the status, diversity, and…

This book encourages the use of cultural biographies as a way to understand various cultures. The volume is a collection of stories about the teachers and students in New York (New York) schools who have made family studies central to the curriculum. The book emphasizes the everyday lives of families, their social histories, and cultural…